Defense officials slam Shin Bet chief over spat with IDF

Several defense officials, including a senior minister in the security cabinet, criticized Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen on Friday following a public spat with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz that erupted earlier this week surrounding a media report about the two organizations’ preparedness for this summer’s Operation Protective Edge.

The spat, which has rocked Israel’s defense establishment, started when a Channel 2 investigative report aired statements by a senior Shin Bet agent who said the organization had received information in January of Hamas preparations for a war against Israel in July. This alert, he claimed, had been conveyed to Israeli leaders. The IDF insisted it had received no such specific warning, and the Shin Bet gradually walked back the claim amid open accusation and counter-accusation between the two services.

“The behavior of the Shin Bet head is problematic,” the unnamed senior minister was quoted by Channel 10 as saying. “It was not an error. This was an attempt by the Shin Bet to present a false narrative ahead of an investigative committee [into the 50-day war.] The exposure of material on TV is a scandal. It harmed sources and methods of operation. The Shin Bet is supposed to protect and not be seen,” he said

Other defense officials cited in the report accused Cohen of setting back the Shin Bet in terms of sharing information with other organizations. They said that whereas IDF intelligence is open to the Shin Bet, that approach is not reciprocated and the agency picks and chooses what to share with military intelligence.

Senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad said in an interview with Israel Radio Friday that, to the best of his knowledge, there had been no specific advance warning of a July Hamas plan for war by the Shin Bet.

“It’s out of the question that such a thing is exposed on ‘Uvda’ [the investigative Channel 2 show that broke the story]. There has to be trust between the sides. When you turn to the media and you say that you warned of such and such, that you warned of an impending war, you’re telling the military that it didn’t do its job,” he said.

After several days of tensions and accusations, Cohen and Gantz said Friday that they resolved the disagreement between them. During a meeting at Gantz’s home in Rosh Ha’ayin, the two said they had decided to put the whole affair behind them.

Cohen stressed to Gantz that members of his agency never meant to imply that the IDF was negligent during the 50-day Operation Protective Edge in July and August.

Following the meeting, a joint statement was released emphasizing that the “differences were resolved,” and the two agreed on “steps to deepen the cooperation between the organizations for the sake of Israeli national security.” They also set up a joint committee to delineate respective areas of responsibility regarding the Gaza Strip.

Earlier Friday, Cohen and Gantz came under harsh criticism by former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin, who accused them of behaving “like squabbling preschool children.”

“Sadly, from my experience, this will cause damage, severe [damage] even, since the atmosphere between the organizations and their leaders greatly affects the quality of cooperation and the results on the ground,” Diskin wrote on his Facebook page.

Diskin found fault with both officials’ conduct, saying that the Shin Bet should not have gone public with its version of events — which are still being analyzed and reviewed — and that the response of the Israel Defense Forces had been been patronizing and “hypocritical.”

On Thursday, Cohen lashed out at Gantz after the latter accused his agency of breaking ethical norms and presenting false information to the public.

In a letter sent to the agency’s retirees, Cohen defended the security agency and said the allegations made by the IDF were “harsh, callous and unprecedented.”

The original Channel 2 report said that the Shin Bet claimed to have had very precise information as early as January on Hamas plans to initiate a war in July, which was relayed to defense officials but was not given proper attention.

This led Gantz to pen a scathing letter of complaint to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he denied any such warning had ever been given; accused the Shin Bet of presenting information “in a skewed manner”; and charged Shin Bet officials with breaking “every moral and ethical norm” and displaying “a deep lack of collegiality” to the army.

Cohen initially rejected all accusations of impropriety in the Shin Bet’s conduct, calling Gantz’s letter baseless. “We stand behind all of the comments made by our people in the program,” he wrote Thursday. “They are accurate and reflect the reality and the true sequence of events.

“The information presented in the show is reliable and backed by proof,” the Shin Bet chief noted. He stressed that “not one word of criticism was uttered [in the program] against the IDF or the political echelon” and blamed the army for initiating the public spat through its harsh criticism of his organization.

Cohen said he had agreed to participate in the Channel 2 program only after he was assured that the story would not seek to create confrontation with the IDF, and that he cooperated with the documentary-makers in order to portray the Shin Bet as “a professional and relevant organization that had made a sizable contribution to the war effort.”

In Gantz’s letter, the army chief accused Shin Bet officials of crossing red lines. “Information was presented in the program in a skewed manner, which created the false impression that the Shin Bet was the only organization charged with intelligence-gathering in the Gaza Strip that did its work properly, while the others… froze,” Gantz wrote. “I declare categorically that the Shin Bet did not provide an alert and did not warn of Hamas’s intention to launch a war in July.”

Gantz further called for a full investigation into the organization’s media conduct in light of the incident.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu convened a meeting in his Jerusalem office with Gantz, Cohen and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and “ordered an immediate halt to publicly dealing with issues that should be resolved between the security services,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said.

“We all have a national responsibility for the security of the State of Israel and we must continue to fully cooperate for the security of Israel’s citizens,” the prime minister added.

On Thursday, the Shin Bet said in a statement that its officials had not in fact given advance warning of a coming war, but only of Hamas preparations for a large-scale attack that could lead to a war.