Israeli PM Bennett meets Mossad, IDF Chiefs, weighs in On Iran, “Unity”

15 June. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett,  at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, held his first working meeting with Mossad Director David Barnea, who gave him an intelligence briefing on Mossad activity.

16 June Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, held his first working meeting with IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi. They discussed the operational situation and current security challenges, the process of learning the lessons from Operation Guardian of the Walls and the importance of the continued implementation of the multi-year Tenufa plan.

Maj Bennett was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1990. He served in the elite units Sayeret Matkal and Maglan reaching the rank of major. Part of his reserve duty included running the grueling trial period and entrance tests for the IDF’s elite units. Naftali has a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His parents immigrated from the United States to Israel.

PM Bennett’s Remarks at the Start of the Weekly Cabinet Meeting ……All reporting Israeli Government

Following are Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s remarks, at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. (The remarks are translated from the Hebrew except where otherwise indicated.)

“Good morning to you all. We are getting underway. Each minister has already begun to work. I have spoken with each one of you recently. Taking up office went smoothly and government ministers are ready to get to work and move forward.

This morning, the ministerial committee approved Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s proposal to approve the appointment of 36 diplomats to key Foreign Service positions. This is something that had been stuck for a long time. You [Foreign Minister Lapid] have opened the bottleneck and we are underway.

Due to the character of the government and the range of its members, the key to our success is trust, mutual trust, and the way to increase trust is that when there are misunderstandings, simply pick up the phone and call each other and resolve things quietly, without drama. We have come here to serve the people. All ministers share in this understanding: We are not the bosses of the citizens of Israel, we work for the citizens of Israel. This is the spirit that prevails among all members of the government.


This weekend, Iran chose a new president – Ebrahim Raisi.

Of all the people that Khamenei could have chosen, he chose the ‘Hangman of Tehran,’ the man infamous among Iranians and across the world for leading the Death Committees, which executed thousands of innocent Iranian citizens throughout the years.

Raisi’s election is, I would say, the last chance for the world powers to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement, and to understand who they are doing business with. These guys are murderers, mass murderers.

A regime of brutal hangmen must never be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction that will enable it to not kill thousands, but millions.

Israel’s position will not change on this.

As we promised, we are submitting for government approval, the proposal of my friends, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, to establish a state commission of inquiry into the Mt. Meron disaster. Forty-five people lost their lives in that awful disaster and the responsibility for learning the lessons and preventing the next disaster is on our shoulders. A commission cannot bring back those who have perished but the government can do everything to prevent unnecessary loss of life in the future. Just as we said it would, a commission of inquiry will be established.

Alongside the commission, it is important to tell the worshippers and all of the people who go to Mt. Meron that we will do everything so that the tradition of festivities on Lag b’Omer, and throughout the year, will continue. People from all sectors go to Mt. Meron – ultra-orthodox, religious Zionism, traditional, Sephardi, Ashkenazi and secular. Our responsibility is to ensure their safety. This is the government’s job and we will do it……….

Lastly, today we mark nine years since the passing of the seventh prime minister, the late Yitzhak Shamir. We all recognize Yitzhak as a man of the Greater Land of Israel, a man of vision and action, who devoted his entire life to the state – in the underground, the Mossad, the Knesset and the government. However, there is a point that is less well known.
 
Shamir, together with Peres, established the first national unity government which, by the way, was anchored on rotation, in 1984 and they knew how to bring ideological rivals around the government table and save – there is no other word – the State of Israel from inflation of over 400% and withdraw the IDF from deep inside Lebanon. In 1988 as well, I seem to recall that it was not absolutely necessary then, but even without the political obligation, he chose to establish another unity government. This was Yitzhak Shamir, who by all accounts was a prominent right-winger.
 
What we learn from this is that there is a time for everything. Now is the time for unity and unity is in itself a critical goal. Today as well, the State of Israel was, up until a week ago, in a spiral, and everyone here in this room and the public at large outside, knows that our ability to work together is what will enable us to do good things. Then let us be inspired by Yitzhak Shamir. Thank you and good luck.”