Former national security adviser slams 'gatekeepers'
Former National Security Adviser Uzi Arad has slammed the
six former heads of the General Security Service (Shabak) who were interviewed in the 'documentary'
The Gatekeepers.
“In no
other democracy in the world would six heads of the security services line up,
lend themselves to be quoted and blame their government,” Arad said of the
documentary, which features six former directors of the Shin Bet (Israel
Security Agency) in a film highly critical of Israel’s policies in the
territories.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Herzliya Conference,
which opened on Monday, Arad said he could not imagine six former heads of the
FBI or MI5 lining up to bash their countries’ policies.
“This is hefkerut
[anarchy],” he said, “a lack of respect. It shows a lack of
professionalism. The head of the secret service has to know to keep his
mouth shut, both during and after his service. If he cannot, he is no
professional and has betrayed his profession.”
Arad added that the
“prevailing feeling” the documentary left within the ranks of Israel’s
intelligence community was “one of betrayal and contempt.”
The
willingness of the six – Ami Ayalon, Avi Dichter, Yuval Diskin, Carmi Gillon,
Yaakov Peri and Avraham Shalom – to take part in the documentary “shows a very
low sensitivity to democratic norms,” Arad said, rejecting the idea that the men
felt it was imperative for them to go public with their criticism.
Indeed. The same can be said about former Mossad director Meir Dagan. And no, I cannot think of a whole lot of other democracies in the world where doing something that ought to be considered treason makes you a hero.
Labels: Ami Ayalon, Avi Dichter, General Security Service, Meir Dagan, Mossad, treason, Uzi Arad, Yuval Diskin
Netanyahu's former closest confidant blasts him
Recall
the following from a post on Friday discussing the lack of a role for the National Security Council in planning the Mavi Marmara raid:
This morning, there was a commentary on Israel Radio that explained that more than anyone else in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu aims to please Defense Minister Ehud Barak, even though Barak seemingly has no political base and may not even be a part of the next Knesset. The example they cited was Netanyahu's killing a bill to increase the power of the National Security Council, which had been promoted by National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, who has been a Netanyahu confidant for many years. The bill was killed because Barak didn't like it - he didn't want to take away more power from his ministry or from the IDF. The context was that as a result of the bill being killed, the National Security Council played no significant role in planning what became the Mavi Marmara fiasco.
In light of that paragraph, you should not be too surprised to see Uzi Arad blasting Netanyahu over the Mavi Marmara. Or should you be surprised? After all, Arad was
Netanyahu's closest confidant....
Arad, who was forced to resign as national security adviser in March 2011 because he inadvertently leaked classified information to a journalist, has reiterated on several occasions his claim that Netanyahu has failed to empower the NSC.
On Friday, Arad described Netanyahu as having a careless attitude in the lead up to the May 2010 flotilla. "I would come to him claiming something had to be done in a certain way, and he would answer me: 'Uzi, what is your obsession with process.'"
Arad claimed that he had been pushing for a cabinet meeting to discuss the issue for three months prior to the flotilla, but was denied. He criticized Netanyahu's former military secretary Yochanan Locker for contributing to the problem.
"All of a sudden, four days before the flotilla, the military secretary organized some kind of meeting. With no preparation, with no reference material, without looking at the full scope of the problem and without the right ministers present. In other words, what happened was exponentially sloppy work," Arad charged.
Arad said that when he pressed Netanyahu to prepare, the prime minister would tell him to focus on "substance," rather than "process."
"And I would tell him that process determines the outcome of the substance," Arad said.
There is a law that is supposed to give the National Security Council a role - Netanyahu has never implemented it. And Netanyahu has never implemented that law because he worships Ehud Barak, his former commanding officer in
Sayeret Matkal. Uzi Arad blasting Netanyahu just shows how far off its path this government has gone.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Israeli national security, Mavi Marmara, Uzi Arad
Report: US offered to let Israel buy nuclear reactors without joining NPT
Haaretz reports that in the summer of 2010, after the blowup over Ramat Shlomo, and when the Obama administration realized just how badly Democrats were likely to fare in the midterm elections (those are my gloss - not Haaretz's), the Obama administration
attempted to mollify Israel by allowing it to bid on the purchase of nuclear reactors without joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Arad's investigation was triggered by a momentary alarm that gripped Netanyahu over a trifling matter - a situation to which he is prone. In the summer of 2010, the Obama administration worked hard to appease Israel, which feared that President Barack Obama had retracted a long-standing presidential understanding not to infringe on Israel's strategic deterrence. Officials in Washington, D.C., and Jerusalem drafted a letter from Obama to Netanyahu. On the Israeli side it was crafted by Arad.
Some Israelis, not Arad, hastened to expose a marginal civilian-commercial point intended for later publication - that the American side had authorized Israel, as an exception to the rule, to conduct talks on the purchase of nuclear power reactors, even though it is not party to the nonproliferation treaty.
It is doubtful whether the reactors' advantage, in reducing the dependence on fuel and gas, would exceed their harm. See last year's Fukushima disaster in Japan as a case in point; or Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas placing them on their target list.
In the spring of 2010, interested parties had started boasting openly of the reactor innovation. In the summer, some Israelis published this clause from Obama's letter. Gary Seymour, the White House official in charge of arms control and nonproliferation, was angered by the publication and considered canceling a visit to Israel.
The storm died down within days. But meanwhile Netanyahu got alarmed, asked the Atomic Energy Committee for a damage estimate (not from the Defense Ministry's experts on the issue ) and launched a Shin Bet investigation - with the attorney general's approval - but without any supervision over proceedings.
Hmmm.
The rest of the column may be less interesting to a lot of you. It deals with a Shin Bet (General Security Service) investigation into alleged leaks by former National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, and how the Shin Bet's investigative powers need to be restrained.
But I don't recall a report like that in the summer of 2010....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, General Security Service, Israeli nuclear capability, Uzi Arad
White House denies leaking Obama speech to Israel
In an
earlier post, I reported on materials published by YNet (Yedioth Aharonoth's online site) that claim to have a draft of President Obama's major address on the Middle East, which is to be delivered on Thursday night. The White House is now
denying that any such draft was leaked.
"We have not shared a draft of the speech with anyone outside of the administration," White House spokesman Jay Carney said during a press briefing. Carney would not specify if Obama would talk about the 1967 lines at all in the speech, nor would he give any other specifics of the address.
Amidror unequivocally denied the report in an Army Radio interview on Tuesday, saying Obama’s speech “did not come up in meetings between me and the national security adviser of the US, and not with his aides. Not in one manner, or another,” he said.
Ambassador to the US Michael Oren told Army Radio on Wednesday that he had also been present at the meetings in question and the content of Obama's speech had not been discussed.
Washington sources, meanwhile, are anticipating that Obama will strike a nonconfrontational tone with Israel in the Middle East speech on Thursday, as well as in his meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
There was little expectation that Obama would venture into great detail of the Israeli- Palestinian peace process, much less address the controversial final-status issues.
Instead, one Washington hand suggested that the furthest the White House was likely to go was into a reframing of the formula US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has long used as the basis for resolving the conflict.
“We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements,” Clinton said in 2009 after Netanyahu announced a partial settlement freeze.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Tom Donilon, Uzi Arad, Yaakov Amidror
What Obama's going to say on Thursday night
I have seen discussions of a summary of President Obama's speech for Thursday night. The speech (apparently there is also a complete copy floating around) has not been authenticated. I know where it came from and I know who has been tasked with authenticating it, but I cannot tell you that it's authentic. But it's authentic enough that someone at Yediot apparently got a hold of it and
this is the result.
Obama is expected to urge Israel to return to the 1967 lines while negating the Palestinian Authority's planned unilateral bid for statehood in September.
According to the draft – which may change again by Thursday – Obama will call on Jerusalem and Ramallah to reignite the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, saying it is the only way to achieve viable peace.
Obama stands to demand the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as the Jewish state, and that the Palestinians unequivocally abandon terror.
He is also likely to stress Israel must cease any settlement expansion in the West Bank and further avoid any act which could be construed as changing the status quo on the ground.
The subject of Jerusalem also stands to be included in the American president's speech: Washington sees the city as the capital of both Israel and the Palestinian state, with its east Jerusalem neighborhoods – which are largely populated by Palestinians – under the PA's sovereignty, and its Jewish neighborhoods under Israeli sovereignty.
Following Netanyahu's vehement speech before the Knesset plenum Sunday, it seems Washington has decided to lower its expectations of Netanyahu.
There's another version of the same article that was posted on ScribD, which was written by Shimon Shiffer and which I managed to get before it was apparently removed by the person who originally posted it. Here's the key passage:
According to one source exposed to talks among Netanyahu’s advisors ahead of the premier’s Friday meeting with the US president, Obama will define as illegal the settlements built in the territories after 1967. It is as yet unknown what will be Obama’s policy on the settlement blocs; in his speech on Monday Netanyahu noted he would demand that they remain under Israeli sovereignty.
Amidror and Arad tried to convince their interlocutors, headed by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, to change some of the planned formulations in the speech. The Israeli side claimed that Obama’s outline will not enable true negotiations, and is in essence an endorsement of the Arab approach. A senior US administration official told the Israelis that they have no reason to act like a “surprised virgin.
There are at least four major changes in US policy here: First, the 'settlements' are defined as 'illegal.' Only Jimmy Carter has done that. Second, the 'Palestinians' are assumed to have the right to all areas that were beyond the 1949 armistice lines. That was never US policy. Third, that the areas outside the 1949 armistice lines for which Israel will now be expected to 'compensate' the 'Palestinians' will include areas in 'east' Jerusalem. Fourth, the US has never called on Israel to return to the
1967 borders 1949 armistice lines.
For the record, National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, who is mentioned in the passage above,
denied that he attempted to get Obama to change the speech.
Amidror told Army Radio that he never "tried to convince anyone of anything" and that "only thing right about the report was mine and Uzi Arad's name. The issue of Obama's speech did not come up in the meeting with Danilone, and there was not even a hint about what the president [Obama] and the prime minister [Netanyahu] will say."
Recent reports in the media have claimed that Amidror's latest trip to Washington was designed to prepare officials for Netanyahu's speech to Congress, but Amidror said "This is a big mistake of the newspapers. The speeches are not a big issues for us. There are many issues which are important for the future of Israel and on these issues we focused."
The Yediot Ahronoth report claimed that from conversations between Amidror and his predecessor Uzi Arad, US President Barack Obama intends to call on Israel to return to 1967 borders in a speech he is expected to give Thursday.
Hmmm.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Tom Donilon, Uzi Arad, Yaakov Amidror
A shuffle in the government
The government announced on Sunday that Israel's ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, will become its
ambassador to the United Nations, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu's National Security Adviser, Uzi Arad, will become Israel's ambassador to Britain. But note this:
Netanyahu had favored returning Dore Gold to his former position as ambassador to the UN, but Lieberman preferred Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky. The Foreign Minister already irked Prime Minister Netanyahu last summer by naming Meron Reuven as temporary ambassador, after Prof. Gabriella Shalev left the post.
Of course, Sharansky said last week that he had no interest in being ambassador to the United Nations....
JPost adds that Lieberman had
other candidates for the UN position, which has to make you wonder whether what he was really saying was "anyone but Dore Gold" (which seems kind of irrational given that Gold has ably performed in the position in the past).
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have sparred over the post for nearly a year, with the prime minister wanting former ambassador Dore Gold to return to the UN and Lieberman suggesting Environment Minister Gilad Erdan and former consul-general in New York Alon Pinkas.
According to the report, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Meir Kalifi will replace Arad as national security advisor.
I know nothing about Kalifi, but I think that Dore Gold would be a great candidate for National Security Adviser.
Pinkas would have been a
disaster at the UN.
Labels: Alon Pinkas, Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dore Gold, Gabriella Shalev, Gilad Erdan, Meir Kalifi, Meron Reuven, Natan Sharansky, Ron Prosor, Uzi Arad
