IDF officers punished after ‘tahini scandal’

An undercover agent of Israel's military intelligence was deployed to fetch tahini in the West Bank for a chief intelligence officer for non-operational purposes.

TWO-COLORED TEHINA (photo credit: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)
TWO-COLORED TEHINA
(photo credit: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)
Following the exposure by the TV show "Uvda", which reported how a special agent of the Israel Defense Forces was deployed to fetch tahini in the West Bank for a chief intelligence officer, Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, accepted the recommendations of the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Tamir Heyman, who decided on a series of severe measures against a number of officers in the classified unit.
In the IDF, it was decided to strip a lieutenant colonel of his rank, and take steps to discharge him from the army, for the reason that he initiated the delivery of tahini boxes to two events as a gift to a senior officer. Measures were also taken against other officers. One officer was sentenced to 28 days in prison.
In addition, the officer provided only partial and misleading information during the review of the incidents.
Kochavi was presented with the findings of the investigation this week. It was exposed that in two cases an Arab undercover agent was dispatched to procure tahini boxes in the West Bank for non-operational needs. However, the recipients of the boxes did not know what happened.
The Chief of Staff stated that he viewed the events very severely and that they were a blatant violation of the IDF's code of conduct and professionalism.