Maariv: "Severe crisis between Netanyahu & his NS advisor Arad ...

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

"... Maariv's Ben Caspit writes of "world war" between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his national security advisor Uzi Arad over gaps between the latter's actual and technical authorities, with the military continuing to make end runs around him:

... A severe crisis has broken out in the relationship between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and National Security Adviser Uzi Arad. Things have reached the point of major fights in the last few days, which included harsh verbal exchanges, raised voices and even worse.

The issue: Arad’s uncompromising demand of the prime minister that he immediately enforce on the entire security establishment that it implement the National Security Council Law that was passed by the Knesset in 2008. Arad, who has looked and sounded particularly incensed in the last few days (even for him), says that the law is not implemented, that the security establishment does not send its representatives to meetings with him, that the staff work that precedes military operations and/or decisions as well as to security cabinet meetings is not coordinated by the National Security Council as dictated by law, and that all the NSC’s powers are basically given over to the entire military establishment in general and to the prime minister’s military secretary in particular (Maj. Gen. Yohanan Locker, an Air Force man). ...

At the end of last week the crisis reached a peak in a difficult meeting and a severe fight between Arad and the prime minister, who refused the latter’s unyielding demand to regulate the way in which the Counter-Terrorism Bureau operates and to call the security establishment leaders to order.

A senior official in the Prime Minister’s Bureau last week told a close associate that Arad had gone so far as to threaten to resign and said that he “would return the keys” if things continued as they were. In the past few months Arad has been waging a tenacious battle to get the law implemented and to receive, into his hands, the authority to coordinate security staff work. Beyond the duel between Arad and military secretary Locker, Ma’ariv has learned that recently Arad’s deputy sent letters to top officials of the security establishment and the IDF and warned them that they were breaking the law by not cooperating with the National Security Council in general, and with him in particular.

On the one hand, as far as the letter is concerned, Arad is right. ...On the other hand, Arad is known as someone who is incapable of coordinating team work. Many security establishment leaders would prefer to shinny down a rope at night from a helicopter onto a ship full of Turks rather than attend a meeting with Arad. ...

Reconciliation efforts were made between the two in the last few days. At this stage it isn’t clear if they have succeeded. ...

The Prime Minister’s Bureau’s response: “Netanyahu and National Security Adviser Uzi Arad have worked and continue to work in strong partnership. ..."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 9:06 AM

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