Shin Bet gets new deputy, as race to succeed Diskin heats up

The Shin Bet security service announced Sunday the appointment of a new deputy chief, Y., who currently heads the unit that deals with Jewish terror.

The appointment is considered an opening move in the battle to succeed Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, whose five-year term was recently extended for a sixth year and will now end in May 2011.

Usually, a Shin Bet chief has two deputies, one of whom will succeed him. But Y. is Diskin's third deputy. He was preceded by another Y. (the law prohibits publishing these officials' names), who recently returned to the Shin Bet as a special project manager after a year studying abroad, and by D., whose term as deputy will end soon. Hence in theory, there are now three candidates to succeed Diskin.

Yet even this list is not closed: G., the Shin Bet's representative in the United States, may also be a realistic candidate.

So far, none of the candidates is seen as having a clear edge.

That, combined with general satisfaction at Diskin's performance, may be why his term was extended. By appointing a third deputy, Diskin may be seeking to expand the choice of possible successors and thereby counter those who accuse him of failing to nurture an heir. But the move also helps to counteract growing fears within the Shin Bet that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will appoint someone from outside, perhaps a senior Israel Defense Forces officer, as the next chief.

The new deputy, Y., is a veteran Shin Bet officer who once headed the agency's interrogation unit. Until Sunday, he was widely expect to resign after completing his term as head of the "Jewish" division, where he oversaw the probe that led to the recent indictment of alleged Jewish terrorist Yaakov "Jack" Teitel.

But before Netanyahu appoints a successor to Diskin, he apparently will have to choose a new head for the Mossad.

The current head, Meir Dagan, is now due to retire in late 2010, after his term was extended for an eighth year.

One person who has been bruited as a possible replacement for him is Hagai Hadas, the former deputy Mossad chief who is now the government's chief negotiator on a deal for the return of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Netanyahu is reportedly very impressed by Hadas' work on this issue.