Netanyahu accused of spying on own staff
Ben
Caspit, Al Monitor, June 4, 2018
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lives in constant fear of eavesdropping, digging a
destructive chasm between his office and Israel's security services.
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Menahem
Kahana/Pool via REUTERS.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the
weekly Cabinet
meeting at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, May 27,
2018.
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Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo dropped a bombshell in a May 31 interview
on Israeli Channel 12's program "Uvda." Pardo implied that during Israel's preparations for a very important top-secret operation, an order was given to covertly wiretap then-Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz as well as Pardo himself. The report claimed that the directive was issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The whole affair is telling of the credibility crisis that has prevailed between Netanyahu and his heads of the various security branches over the years.
Immediately
after the interview was broadcast, Pardo found himself facing the same ordeal
awaiting every security figure who dares to challenge Netanyahu. The pattern is
always the same: First the interview is slandered, then the allegations are
denied and finally the whistleblower receives Netanyahu’s infamous "personal
attention." Netanyahu seized on something innocuous that Pardo said in
jest in the course of the interview. Describing the activities of the Mossad,
Pardo called it a “crime syndicate with a license.” Mossad heads have been
using this term for generations, and it arguably applies to all espionage
organizations throughout the world that do not necessarily follow the law in
their widespread surveillance activities with the consent of their governments.
Netanyahu used the mention of a “crime syndicate” to attack Pardo, declaring, “Mossad is not
a crime syndicate,” as if that were what Pardo really meant.
Suspicion
and hostility have reigned between Netanyahu and Israeli generals as far back
as his first term of office (1996-1999), but now he has stooped to a new low.
When special operations are planned, such as blowing up the Syrian nuclear
reactor in Deir ez-Zor in 2007, it is acceptable to subject high-ranking
persons and even elected officials to polygraph tests to deter leaks. But
wiretapping the telephones of intelligence heads had never been done before.
There is evidently no limit to Netanyahu’s paranoia, no red lines when it comes
to the basic trust that is supposed to exist between the prime minister and the
people entrusted with Israel’s security.
Netanyahu
himself denied Pardo’s allegations. Under heavy pressure, former Shin Bet head
Yoram Cohen said that Netanyahu had not asked him “specifically” to bug the Mossad head or the
chief of staff. According to Al-Monitor's sources, this statement is true. The
directive included more than 100 “parties to the secret” in the highest ranks
of Israel’s security apparatus, including the Mossad head and the chief of
staff. The Shin Bet refused to wiretap these high-ranking officials, so the
task was imposed on the Ministry of Defense's Malmab. But since the Shin Bet
did not provide Malmab with the means to do so, the wiretapping was never
carried out.
Netanyahu
has been this wary throughout his entire political career. When he returned to
the prime minister’s office in 2009 and was concerned about leaks, he insisted
on subjecting all his people to polygraph tests, including the highest placed:
his Cabinet secretary, political adviser, military secretary, spokesperson,
bureau chief and his office’s chief of staff. National Security Adviser Uzi
Arad volunteered to be the first to be checked, but asked Netanyahu, “What
about you? Shouldn’t you set a personal example and also
subject yourself to the lie detector?” Netanyahu quickly brushed the proposal
aside.
Netanyahu’s
paranoia is absolute. He is convinced that people are snooping on him
everywhere in the world, around the clock, including in his private house in
Caesarea. When entertaining visitors in his private courtyard in Caesarea, he
has often whispered to his guests that someone is listening. He does not feel
secure in his office in Jerusalem, convinced that he is under surveillance even
there. He used to convene secret meetings in the Mossad’s headquarters in the
Tel Aviv area, but recently he has moved especially sensitive Cabinet meetings
to a massive underground
bunker in Jerusalem constructed to withstand a nuclear attack and
equipped with all the necessary facilities to run a country under attack. When
he is in the United States, Netanyahu is convinced that he is under
surveillance in every hotel, in the White House and even Blair House. Occasionally
he makes sure to pop over to the Israeli Embassy with its special sterile room,
the only venue where he will consult with his senior advisers on truly
sensitive issues.
Despite
his misgivings, Netanyahu is supposed to trust the heads of the security
branches. He is not supposed to force the General Security Services to wiretap
their own telephones. Ironically, a large percentage of the most sensitive
security leaks of all were caused by Netanyahu himself, whether by accident or
on purpose. As opposition chairman in September 2007, Netanyahu almost spilled
the beans that Israel
attacked the nuclear reactor in Syria during the trickiest moments
after the assault. In 1995, Netanyahu stood at the Knesset’s podium and waved a
very confidential document prepared by the Israel Defense Forces.
Throughout
his many years as prime minister, Netanyahu has managed to get into arguments
with almost all of the security heads. Barely any of them finished their terms
of office. In his first term of office, the list included Chief of Staff Amnon
Lipkin-Shahak (now deceased), Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon and Mossad head Danny
Yatom. Almost all of the higher-ups who have operated under him have criticized
Netanyahu severely at some point, including deceased Mossad head Meir Dagan,
Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin. The same is true
for their replacements, especially Gantz and Pardo.
Netanyahu
was once leery of public confrontations with the heads of security services.
One of the most basic working assumptions of Israeli politics over the years
was that it was never wise to publicly enter into direct verbal clashes with
senior security figures, in light of the popularity of these figures among the
Israeli public. The last decade has seen a slow but relentless evolution led by
Netanyahu that has changed this reality from one extreme to the other. This
process brought us to the current situation in which no one dares to antagonize
Netanyahu publicly. No one is immune. Netanyahu is Israel's undisputed public
opinion leader and no one can politically survive a public confrontation with
him. The fate of those higher-ups and officers serving under him who don’t
follow the rules is an open secret: slander and public shaming. They will be
pulverized by the prime minister’s media campaigns and join the long list of
high-ranking officials brought down by him.
