The Democratic Oversight of the Security Agencies in Israel

Background

In every democratic country, there is a constant struggle between the need for its security arms to be strong and efficient enough to protect it from its enemies, and the fear that these security arms will pose a threat to the political authorities. The extreme threat that the security forces can pose to the government is a military coup, but there are other significant threats, such as the army’s evasion of following the orders of the political echelon, or through direct or indirect influence on the national agenda, all for the promotion of goals that do not reflect the preferences of the voters in an overall view. The more significant the threat of a military takeover, the greater the incentive for the political authorities to monitor the security arms or to separate them, and accordingly allocate resources to empower bodies (such as the National Security Council) that will monitor the security arms on their behalf. The result can improve not only the ability of the elected officials to promote a security policy that is sensitive to the preferences of the voters but also the country’s military preparedness, as the supervision of the security forces may improve the security decision-making processes.

However, not every country, even if it has an entrenched democratic culture, maintains sufficient oversight mechanisms of the political level towards the military level. Several possible explanations exist for this phenomenon. The first explanation is the lack of a real threat from the army to the political system, either due to the weakness of the army (derived from the absence of external challenges) or due to an entrenched military tradition that denies such intervention. In this case, the elected bodies have no real incentive to monitor the security arms or separate them to weaken them. On the contrary, the set of political incentives directs the executive authority to reduce its involvement in the activities of the bodies under the pretext that they are professional, thus removing responsibility from itself in case of wrong decisions.

The second explanation for the lack of political intervention could actually be the relatively large power of the security forces, which prevents the civil system from creating oversight mechanisms. This relative power can be the result of a rapid turnover between the parties in power that is not sufficient to create a solid base of knowledge vis-à-vis the security forces that maintain hierarchical continuity, or from the relatively high trust that the voters place in the security bodies compared to the reduced trust they have in the political bodies. The lack of intervention can also result from the lack of separation between the security bodies and the political bodies, when senior security forces retire from military service and become leading politicians, and they do not feel the need to maintain institutional frameworks of supervision over their former subordinates.

From the first days of the State of Israel, it was clear that the army in Israel was subordinate to the political level. Under David Ben-Gurion, the supremacy of the political echelon was also expressed in the close control of the prime minister (who usually also served as the defense minister) in operational aspects of military activity. The policy established regarding retirement from the army at a relatively young age made it possible to channel the potential of the military threat to politics, by creating a democratic horizon for the senior military officers (and accordingly, an incentive for the senior military officers to adapt themselves to subordination to the leaders of the parties whose ranks they will be able to join upon their retirement). But this civil control was not anchored in a regulated supervision system, and over the years it weakened.

This weakening, after the days of Ben-Gurion, was due to the growing weakness of the political echelon vis-à-vis the army, as well as the special status of the IDF in Israeli democracy. As a country in constant struggle, the security mechanisms in Israel have a special status. The IDF, as the “people’s army,” gained a lot of trust from the public in its abilities and professionalism, and in its values and commitment to act for the common good. The Shin Bet and the Mossad—relatively unknown bodies entrusted with the defense of the state against internal and external threats—were also seen as professional bodies. The police in its various wings also functioned as a body directed at the common good, and it was also seen as such. All of this is reflected in a particularly poor constitutional arrangement.

The consequences of not regulating the relationship were revealed starting with the Yom Kippur War of 1973: the lack of oversight by the political echelon led to the formation of a security “concept” as a result of groupthink.

This situation is particularly serious because it combines with another problem that has arisen in recent years: the retreat in the perception of various sections of the public of the security agencies as professional bodies aimed at the common good, and even more so: the political attempts to intervene in the activities of the security agencies in a way that would define the common good in a manner consistent with the political preferences of one or another sector. Processes such as the appointment of the Chief of Staff or the Commissioner of Police, or the promotion of officers to key positions, have become the subject of significant political involvement in recent years aimed at influencing the goals and methods of operation of the security agencies. Groups in the public also seek to influence these processes by enlisting in the fighting forces and choosing a security cooldown as an ideological or class goal or by threatening to abandon the army. Another problem arising these days is the recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF. The recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox into the army has always been a political issue, but today the problem is more acute due to the growing proportion of the ultra-Orthodox in society and the growing security needs that require a large land army. The involvement of the courts in these issues is limited by its very nature, and its legitimacy is heavily contested by the public.

As the security bodies lose their status as professional bodies and become more influenced by political or social forces of one kind or another, the need to think of ways to impose institutional supervision on the security bodies to ensure that they act for the common good increases.