Counter-terror chief appointed acting head of National Security Council
Former Shin Bet agent Eitan Ben-David to fill interim national security adviser role after Yaakov Nagel steps down
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
The head of Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau, Eitan Ben-David, was appointed interim head of the powerful National Security Council on Wednesday.
The announcement came three days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disclosed that former acting NSC head Yaakov Nagel had stepped down.
Netanyahu offered to name Nagel permanent NSC chief last year, but he declined, citing personal reasons.
The Prime Minister’s Office said that Ben-David will maintain his position with the Counter-Terrorism Bureau, where he’s been serving for the past five years. He has also been functioning as deputy head of the NSC.
Ben-David, 54, worked within the Shin Bet security service for 26 years, where he rose to be head of the personal security division, and later to deputy head of security.
Nagel had played a key role in talks with the US over a new military aid deal which was signed last year. The $38-billion defense package signed during former-president Barack Obama’s last year in office was the largest-ever aid agreement between the US and any single country.
The NSC has remained without a permanent head since Yossi Cohen left to take the reigns of the Mossad in early 2016. Netanyahu named Avriel Bar-Yosef as national security adviser in February 2016, but he withdrew his candidacy in July after advocacy groups alleged he received money from foreign business associates, constituting a conflict of interest. Police later named Bar-Yosef as a suspect in a graft probe.
The NSC came under fire in last month’s publishing of the State Comptroller report on the 2014 Gaza War. Yosef Shapira found that the body failed to carry out one of its central duties: to provide the cabinet with a variety of opinions, and potential courses of action, beyond what is offered by the military and security services.
The prime minister frequently sets the agenda for meetings of the security cabinet — his inner circle of senior ministers — which take place on an ad hoc basis. However, the NSC is also entitled to raise issues at the meetings, something it failed to do with regard to the tunnels, according to the report.
Cohen was in charge of the body at the time.
