Weekly Commentary: Info Kept From Security Cabinet Is The Real Scandal

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 16 September 2014

Step away from the politics and the spins driven by these politics and walk
through the facts:

#1. Minister Naftali Bennett is a member of Israel’s Security Cabinet and
has top security clearance.

#2. The Security Cabinet is the elite forum for high level discussions and
decision making on matters relating to Israel’s security in general –
including operations in the Gaza Strip.

#3. It is the responsibility of the members of the Security Cabinet to
actively participate in Security Cabinet deliberations and votes – raising
questions, proposing ideas, voting on proposals, etc.

#4. As a member of the Security Cabinet, Bennett shares responsibility for
any and all decisions made by the group.

#5. Before and during Operation Protective Edge, Naftali Bennett acted with
due diligence to be a well informed member of the Security Cabinet and he
shared his knowledge at Security Cabinet meetings.

So far so good.

No big surprises here.

Especially when one considers that during the previous Netanyahu
Administration the Security Cabinet (then known as the Septet) included
participants such a Bennie Begin whose participation in the Security Cabinet
was basically a full time job.

Now here is the bizarre twist:

Defense Minister Yaalon is complaining that Naftali Bennett independently
got defense related information and used that information in the policy
discussions of the Security Cabinet.

I want to make this clear: Yaalon isn’t claiming that Bennett leaked the
information to the press. He’s angry that he shared it with the Security
Cabinet.

And Yaalon isn’t claiming that the information wasn’t accurate, just that it
wasn’t part of the information that he, as Minister of Defense, felt like
sharing with the Security Cabinet.

Yes.

You heard me right.

Yaalon isn’t angry that Bennett was deceiving the Security Cabinet.

Yaalon is angry that Bennett added true and accurate information to the
Security Cabinet’s decision making process that Yaalon didn’t want to share
with the members of the Security Cabinet.

So setting aside political agendas, what’s the real scandal here?

That Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon was apparently trying to filter the
information provided to Israel’s elite forum for high level discussions and
decision making on matters relating to the Jewish State’s security or that
Naftali Bennett tried to bypass Yaalon’s filter?

A hint: with all the respect in the world one may have for DM Yaalon, the
absolute last thing that we can afford is for the Security Cabinet to be
nothing more than a rubber stamp for whatever he and the PM decide on before
the Security Cabinet convenes.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il