Eisenkot meets Netanyahu aide after briefing dispute

Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot will meet today (Thursday) with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's military secretary, Guy Markizano. The meeting comes against a backdrop of rising political and security tension, after Eisenkot wrote to the Attorney General yesterday claiming he had been refused a security briefing.

A joint statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu and Eisenkot said: "For your information, today (Thursday) a political-security briefing will be held between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yesh Atid chairman Eisenkot, with the participation of the Prime Minister's military secretary, Aluf Guy Markizano, at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem."

Eisenkot sent an unusual letter yesterday to Prime Minister Netanyahu calling on him to avoid dangerous security steps during the transition period. "I am turning to you as one who still holds the reins of power and as one who is still responsible at this hour for the security of the State of Israel, the IDF and the security forces," Eisenkot wrote.

Gadi Eisenkot (Photo: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The letter sparked a political storm, with Defense Minister Israel Katz clarifying this morning that "we do not need approval from the opposition or from any legal body in order to instruct the IDF to carry out thwarting operations in Gaza, defensive and offensive operations in Lebanon, maintaining the security zone in Syria to protect the Golan communities, evacuating a terrorist neighborhood in Chevron, and continuing offensive activity against terror in Judea and Samaria." Katz emphasized that "Israel's security is not in transition and does not wait for the political processes taking place in parallel."

Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman joined Eisenkot's warning today, cautioning that a transition government is not authorized to make decisions that could drag Israel into war without parliamentary oversight and without full agreement from all security bodies. "I warn: a transition government is not authorized to make decisions that could drag Israel into war without parliamentary oversight, and without full agreement from all security bodies," Lieberman said. "I emphasize, all security bodies."

In contrast, MK Moshe Feiglin (Zehut) launched a sharp attack on Eisenkot, claiming he is bringing "with his own hands" representatives of terror supporters into "the holy of holies of Israel's security." "The former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is now bringing, with his own hands, into the holy of holies of Israel's security, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the clear representative of terror supporters," Feiglin wrote.

Today's planned meeting between Eisenkot and military secretary Aluf Guy Markizano comes amid reports that the political-security cabinet will convene on Sunday for the first time since early October. The central question on the table, according to the opposition, is whether an outgoing government is authorized to make the most sensitive decision, to open a new military campaign against Iran.

Markizano entered the position of the Prime Minister's military secretary in June of this year, replacing Roman Gofman, who moved to the position of Mossad chief. At the handover ceremony held at Camp Rabin (the Kirya) in the presence of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz, Netanyahu said that "the military secretary connects the Prime Minister to the IDF and the security bodies. This is necessary at any time, but it is certainly necessary in wartime."