Israel: New ‘Division for Alternative Intelligence’

He is to be a kind of “devil’s advocate” who has cross-sectional competence. This means that he can control all of the security agencies of the State of Israel, ask uncomfortable questions and demand answers. He is to report directly to the Prime Minister’s office.

The Knesset press release states: “In its sitting on Wednesday, the Knesset Plenum voted to approve in preliminary reading the Bill to Establish Division for Consolidating Alternative Intelligence Conception to Intelligence Agencies, 2024, sponsored by MK Amit Halevi (Likud) and a group of MKs. In the vote, 56 Members of Knesset supported the bill, versus 36 who opposed it, and the bill will be turned over to the House Committee to decide in which committee it will be deliberated.

It is proposed to regulate the establishment of a division for consolidating an alternative intelligence conception (a “devil’s advocate” approach), which will be subordinated to the Prime Minister’s Office. This will include the division’s powers, its reporting methods and its supervision.

The explanatory notes to the bill state: “This bill is designed to regulate the independent status of a new and comprehensive oversight system, and to expand its powers about all organizations of the intelligence community in the various security agencies, so that it will be able to fulfil its purpose and examine in an in-depth and impartial manner the prevalent conceptions in the intelligence and security agencies, similarly to other oversight agencies [designated] by law.”

I am not sure that this will bring the deep state of Israel under control. Without a major, very profound judicial and state reform, Israel will no longer be able to function as a democracy. Since yesterday, the “fight”, as Prime Minister Netanyahu dubs it, between the elected government and the unelected left-wing deep state has been obvious.

Pic by AI. Symbolic.