If over the past few weeks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to be making some order in his office, his conduct and that of his advisers regarding his secret trip to Moscow reveal that anarchy, turf wars and mendacious responses to both the media and the public are but a few of the manifestations of the organizational culture prevailing in the office that runs the State of Israel.
To understand the story properly, we must go back to Monday morning, when reporters who called the prime minister's bureau to find out his schedule were told he was on a "military trip" until the late afternoon. A few hours later, when Netanyahu had not yet returned from the trip, several reporters sought answers from the prime minister's media adviser, Nir Hefetz. The latter had to admit that he did not know where Netanyahu was. That fueled the rumor mill about the prime minister's "disappearance."
As it happened, with the exception of Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Meir Kalifi and National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, no one in the prime minister's bureau knew where Netanyahu was. Even Prime Minister's Office director-general Eyal Gabbai, who was in Moscow on Tuesday as part of a Jewish Agency tour, did not know that his boss had been there only the day before.
On Monday night, the prime minister's bureau released a strange statement to the press. It was signed by none other than Kalifi, who wrote the report because Hefetz did not know where Netanyahu had been, and therefore refused to sign off on a statement whose veracity he could not gage. According to Kalifi's statement, Netanyahu was in a "security facility in Israel."
Kalifi says he released the statement to the press on his own initiative. Netanyahu defended himself by saying that he did not know about Kalifi's statement. However, it is difficult to believe that Kalifi's statements were truly made on his own initiative, as all such statements to the media must be approved by Netanyahu personally. A little more than 24 hours later, when Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Netanyahu had actually been on a secret visit to Russia, it became clear that Kalifi's statement had been completely untrue.
Why release such a false statement? Only Netanyahu knows. Even if there had been a desire to keep the trip confidential because of the sensitivity involved, the conduct of Netanyahu and his bureau sent the media into turmoil and finally led to the trip's disclosure. The publicity surrounding the disclosure must have been severely embarrassing to the Russians and caused real diplomatic damage.
The unfortunate Kalifi, one of the primary victims of Netanyahu's scandalous behavior, yesterday made an attempt to justify his actions telling an associate privately: "For state security one may sometimes not tell the whole truth."
Netanyahu, too, realized he made a mistake, but as usual it was too little too late. "Next time we'll do it differently," he said to some of his advisers.
The prime minister's bureau said Wednesday: "The prime minister was busy with confidential and classified activities. The military secretary, who was not in touch with the prime minister at that time, acted on his independent initiative in order to defend that activity, and did this through a statement that was sent to his media adviser with the best of intentions. National Security Adviser Uzi Arad had no part in this."
The affair revealed once again the unending turf wars in Netanyahu's bureau between Arad, who would like to see the other advisers undergo a polygraph test, and Hefetz and cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser, who do not conceal their animus toward Arad.
One of the prime minister's advisers Wednesday pointed the finger at Arad. "He causes unbelieveable damage to Netanyahu every day. Arad behaves clumsily and is conducting independent policy." In contrast, Arad has hinted privately that the behavior of some of the other advisers, who had remained behind in Israel, is what led to the embarrassing outcome.
A few other aspects of Netanyahu's conduct in the affair are surprising. First of all, why did he have to travel secretly to a friendly country like Russia, rather than officially, as befitting the prime minister of Israel? Former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who made a similar trip to Russia two years ago, announced he was going a few hours beforehand and did not allow the press to come along because of the sensitivity. Second of all, why did Netanyahu make the trip behind the backs of the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in Moscow, which are responsible for relations with Russia?
Another strange element is the way Netanyahu traveled to Moscow. Instead of taking an Israel Air Force plane, the prime minister's bureau leased a small private jet belonging to businessman Yosef Maiman, at a cost of more than $20,000. The intention was apparently to keep the visit as deep a secret as possible. But is the pilot of a private jet more trustworthy than an Israel Air Force pilot in terms of potentially leaking the trip?
The most surprising question of all is the fact that Yedioth Ahronoth released the report. If the visit was so secret, how is it possible that the prime minister's bureau allowed the military censor to let the paper report it, as well as reporting the issues raised during the visit itself?
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