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The Mossad chief as fighter pilot
By Amir Oren
Tags: israel news

The resignation of the deputy Mossad head, coming in the wake of an
extension given to Meir Dagan, whose term running the agency will reach eight years and two months, has reignited an age-old controversy. How to delimit an apportioned amount of time of service for senior officials in key government posts and whether it is appropriate to deviate from the rule to accommodate exceptional individuals under special circumstances.

In the first decades of the state's existence, there were Shin Bet security service and Mossad chiefs (Isser Harel, Amos Manor, Yosef Harmelin) who served 10, 12 and 13-year terms; police commissioners (Yehezkel Sahar, Pinhas Koppel) who served whole decades each; and a Bank of Israel governor (David Horowitz) who held the job for 17 years.
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Ezer Weizman agreed to leave his post as air force commander after an
eight-year run, and only to make room for his preferred candidate, Motti Hod, who indeed commanded the air force with great success during the the Six-Day War. Yet when Aharon Yariv handed over command of Military Intelligence to Eli Zeira after almost nine years, MI failed in its task in the run-up to the Yom Kippur War.

The IDF chief of staff served for three years, which is the standard term for all army chiefs with the exception of Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin. Yet just as Chaim Bar-Lev was about to step down after three years, Anwar Sadat threatened to renew the war of attrition. Bar-Lev's term was thus extended for an additional year. By the end of 2007, during one of the most tense periods leading up to a possible escalation against Iran, IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi contemplated when and whether to hand control of the air force, which had been commanded by Eliezer Shkedy, to the current head, Ido Nehoshtan.

If Netanyahu gave up the chance to name a new Mossad chief in one year's time, it signifies that he believes a clash with Iran is once again approaching, hardly making it an ideal time for on-the-job-training for a new head of the agency.

Yet, if the Mossad is likely to come apart at the seams without Dagan, then it shows him to be a problematic manager who failed (and perhaps did not even try) in six and a half years on the job to groom a skilled set of possible successors for the mantle of leadership (alongside worthy candidates from outside of the organization).

The government neither decided nor voted on extending Dagan's term, which
began in 2002 when he was named to head the agency indefinitely. It just heard a statement from Netanyahu suggesting that Dagan is his own boss in
determining this critical appointment.

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz did not involve himself in the matter. His tolerant approach is bewildering as Mazuz believes that the Mossad head should serve a five-year term, like the head of the Shin Bet (as stipulated in the Shin Bet Law), with the possibility for a one-year extension into a sixth and final year.

This is exactly what the Olmert government resolved. In approving an
initiative by Mazuz, the government set the terms for 85 jobs in the state apparatus as well as another grouping (ambassadors and delegates not belonging to the Foreign Ministry). The directors of the Atomic Energy Committee and the nuclear reactor in Dimona, for example, will serve five-year terms with the possibility of a three-year extension.

Although Mazuz is principally concerned with the future over ongoing terms of those currently in office  including that of Civil Service Commissioner Shmuel Hollander, who is celebrating 13 years in his post  he knew how to express his unfavorable opinion on extending the term of Accountant General Yaron Zelikha, who stepped down after four years.

Mazuz's double, or triple, standard in his handling of Zelikha, Hollander, and Dagan casts a pall over his justified efforts to delimit a fixed amount of time for all senior posts in the state apparatus, including within the defense establishment. The terms in office of the state comptroller (seven years), the Bank of Israel governor (five years), and the attorney general and state prosecutor (six years) have already been established.

As Mazuz had demanded, the term in office for the IDF chief of staff, the
police commissioner, and the head of the Israel Prison Service has been
limited to four years. Not everyone rejoiced at the news. Ashkenazi would
gladly have settled for three years as IDF chief so that he could start his cooling-off period ahead of his entry into politics.

The balanced system of which Mazuz speaks would serve to freshen the ranks, inject new blood into the system, prevent erosion and the freezing of the status quo, while advancing stability and consistency, preventing the dependency between the appointing official and the senior jobholder and his increased independence, promotion of the values of equality and of opportunities, and preventing the accumulation of too much strength and the concentration of that strength into the hands of a senior official for an extended period of time.

Mazuz is also proposing standards for ending the senior jobholder's post
within the allotted term in office, or a dismissal in the small window between the end of the official term and any possible extension of that term.

The dismissal would be executed on the basis of a recommendation by an
advisory panel that has yet to be named, and that panel would have to consider the reasons for the dismissal and to hold a hearing for the parties involved. The fate of the Mossad chief and that of a police commissioner who has overstayed his welcome would be identical to that of a cadet or an air force pilot, both of whom must appear before a panel before they are discharged.

It's a good idea. It's just a shame it has taken this long for it to be
considered.
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