Strategic Assessment

Some claim that Military Intelligence oversteps its bounds when it presumes to sound a warning. I believe that in Israel’s current security situation, Intelligence has no choice but to sound a warning. There is a particular need for Intelligence’s warning since there is currently no other element capable of filling this void. Many of Israel’s intelligence failures turned into national traumas, including “the [Lavon] affair,” Operation Rotem, the Yom Kippur War, the Bus 300 affair, and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (a trauma for the GSS). Out of my fourteen predecessors, six heads of Military Intelligence ended their tenure prematurely.