If the Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid government makes it off the ground, which of them will control the Mossad and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency)? Or will they share control?
If the rotation-unity setup between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz is any indication, it would be Bennett until the switch in August 2023.
According to the Netanyahu-Gantz coalition deal, the Blue and White leader was supposed to have equal say in the running of the spy agencies and certainly in senior appointments.
But Netanyahu ignored those understandings, and without his acquiescence to sharing, Israeli law dictates that whoever is prime minister controls both agencies.
In fact, this is why both agencies are set inside the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and not separate like the IDF, which falls under the umbrella of the Defense Ministry.
When Netanyahu sent outgoing Mossad chief Yossi Cohen jumping across the region to help set the stage for the Abraham Accords, neither Gantz nor Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi had a clue.
It seems that Gantz and Ashkenazi did know something about any Mossad involvement in explosions at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility last July and in April, as well as the assassination of Iranian nuclear chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November. But that could be because the Mossad operation may have needed IDF cooperation, which comes under Gantz’s purview.
When it came to extending Cohen’s term for six months or appointing David Barnea to replace Cohen as chief of the Mossad, Netanyahu did not consult Gantz.
It seems that Gantz may have succeeded at blocking Netanyahu from appointing his choice for next chief of the Shin Bet, Netanyahu’s National Security Council chief Meir Ben Shabbat.
But Ben Shabbat’s appointment might have been prevented more by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit’s ruling that new appointments can be made by a transitional government.
The Shin Bet has already signaled special treatment for Bennett beyond what Lapid is getting in terms of extra security as the country’s prime minister-designate.
But all of this must be misleading.
When the Netanyahu-Gantz government was first developing, sources close to Cohen said that they would be ready to work with and report to Gantz as well as Netanyahu if the two functioned as a duo.
So the more important question is whether Bennett will share with Lapid what Netanyahu refused to share with Gantz.
There are two reasons to think Bennett will share power with Lapid in a much broader way.
First, there is a history of trust between the two men.
This is actually the second time they bonded together to wield political power.
In 2013, Bennett and Lapid formed a unit of brotherhood to insist on a number of major policy changes with Netanyahu before agreeing to join his government. Netanyahu tried to split the two and failed.
Their process in joining forces this time has been much messier and drawn out. Yet this has less to do with their personal chemistry and trust, which is good, and more to do with their ideological differences, which have been a hard problem to overcome.
If trust is high, and their ideological differences may come into play less in dealing with hard security issues, they may work together far more on Mossad and Shin Bet issues.
One reason Netanyahu ignored Gantz was because he had a bloc of around 75% of the government on his side, and Gantz’s bloc was around 25%. Netanyahu felt he did not need to treat Gantz as a political equal regardless of signed understandings.
The opposite is true between Bennett and Lapid.
Lapid is letting Bennett go first in the rotation to help get him to overlook the future harm to Bennett’s political career on the political Right. But it is Lapid’s call, because he has around 75% of the bloc and Bennett has about 25%, despite being premier first.
So Bennett cannot really ignore Lapid the way Netanyahu could Gantz.
Of course, there could be some area of dealing with the Palestinians where Bennett may order an operation that Lapid might not hate, but might not have done himself.
However, it is doubtful Bennett will try to undertake any major action using Israel’s intelligence agencies without Lapid’s support.
Finally, while there are tons of reasons that Lapid may never get his chance in the rotation. However on the odd chance that he does, Bennett may want to treat Lapid as well as he hopes to be treated when he is the alternate.