Ministers back bills creating new intelligence oversight body, banning ‘enemy’ flags
Despite PMO classified documents scandal, legislation establishes a ‘devil’s advocate’ unit, reporting directly to Netanyahu, that would challenge other intel bodies’ findings
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Despite an ongoing investigation into the alleged “systematic” theft of classified intelligence documents from Israel Defense Forces databases and the transfer of those files to people in the Prime Minister’s Office, the government on Sunday gave its backing to a bill establishing a new intelligence oversight body directly under the authority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The bill seeks to create a so-called Ipcha Mistabra (devil’s advocate) unit — challenging the conclusions of other intelligence bodies — reporting directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that will be given the authority to demand intelligence information from “any intelligence body… or any other state institution” in Israel. This would include military intelligence, the Shin Bet, the Mossad. and the National Security Council.
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation’s approval means that the government will lend its support to the bill as it goes to the Knesset, where it must pass three readings to become law.
According to the legislation, the proposed unit would be tasked with synthesizing and analyzing this information and providing the prime minister, defense minister, and intelligence agencies with alternate takes on security challenges. It would also be required to report regularly to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
According to the bill’s explanatory notes, it would act as an oversight mechanism “examining in an in-depth and unbiased manner the perceptions prevalent in the intelligence and security” establishment, presumably as a lesson from the profound failure of the intelligence establishment to predict Hamas’s mass invasion and onslaught of October 7, 2023.
Its head of the unit — which would largely operate independently and would be prohibited from employing anybody who has served in an intelligence agency within the prior two years — would be legally required to weigh in on any issue brought before the security cabinet for a decision.
In addition, they would also be required to submit such analyses to the heads of any relevant security bodies “regarding any plan or military operation” needing the security cabinet’s approval. Neither the security cabinet nor the leaders of security agencies would be allowed to make a decision without such input.
While such a devil’s advocate unit currently exists within the IDF itself, its influence is minimal and it has failed to challenge existing modes of thought within the IDF, claims Likud MK Amit Halevi, the bill’s primary sponsor.
Speaking with The Times of Israel earlier this month, Halevi argued that the “fundamental” intelligence failure of October 7 came about because the IDF and other security agencies “are not used to challenging themselves with a different view.”
“I mean, the intelligence forces have a few conceptions, a few assumptions, and nobody actually challenges them,” he said. “This team was not independent, so it couldn’t actually criticize its own commanders.”
Flag bans
Separately, the ministerial committee also approved a bill prohibiting the waving of the flags of enemy nations, including the Palestinian flag, on the premises of any institution funded or supported by the state.
According to the bill, an amendment to the penal code sponsored by Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi (Likud), a gathering of two or more people at which such flags are waved would be considered an unlawful assembly, with participants facing a year in prison and a minimum NIS 10,000 ($2,700) fine.
The law would apply to institutions such as universities, where protesters have at times waved Palestinian flags at demonstrations.
Vaturi has been critical of anti-government demonstrations in the past, claiming this summer that protesters demanding early elections and the release of hostages held in Gaza are a “branch” of the Hamas terror group.
Vaturi later backtracked, in light of widespread criticism, claiming in a tweet that his comments were “taken out of context.” The protests “harm our national resilience,” but “the horrible actions of the Hamas Nazis are not fit to be compared to any protest or political act,” he wrote.
Similar bills, promoted by members of the far-right Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties, were advanced in the Knesset last year despite fierce opposition from university presidents, but were not voted into law.
The bill’s approval comes a week after the committee gave its backing to legislation requiring the government to adopt a national security strategy, extending emergency regulations allowing for the censorship of foreign media, and allowing the police to secretly spy on suspects’ computers using secret warrants.
