Mossad, Shin Bet chiefs to Netanyahu: Foreign Ministry strike hurting national security - National Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
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Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen and Defense Ministry director general Udi Shani have told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Foreign Ministry diplomats’ strike was harming national security.
According to a senior official, at a meeting on Thursday the three top security officials gave Netanyahu, who is also serving as foreign minister, and Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, examples of the harm they said the strike had done in a few cases in recent weeks.
The meeting took place at the end of another security discussion at the Prime Minister’s Office. The senior official who participated in the meeting said the security chiefs urged Netanyahu to intervene and find a solution that will end the workers’ strike.
Over the past few days ties have become significantly more strained between Foreign Ministry diplomats and the security establishment. The Foreign Ministry’s workers committee has instructed Israeli diplomats to cease cooperating with the IDF and the Shin Bet, after members of those two bodies crossed the picket lines to help arrange Netanyahu’s visit to Poland. After hearing the officials, Netanyahu ordered that legal means be examined for ending the strike. The senior officials said one possibility being studied was to ask the National Labor Court to issue back-to-work orders.
The Foreign Ministry’s workers’ committee said that if the security establishment is claiming harm to national security, then it was even more surprising that Netanyahu had not bothered to open a dialogue with the Foreign Ministry staffers to resolve the crisis.
Although the diplomats have ratcheted up their sanctions in recent weeks, no talks are currently underway to end the dispute.
A no-confidence motion is to be presented today in the Knesset by MK Isaac Herzog (Labor ) over the strike. On Tuesday morning, Foreign Ministry workers are planning a protest march to the Knesset gates. Shortly after the protest, a special discussion is scheduled of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the matter of harm to the Foreign Ministry’s status. The diplomats began their sanctions in March, protesting erosion in their wages and what they say is the “dismantling of the Foreign Ministry.” They are protesting that no appointment has been made of a foreign minister and that the ministry’s powers have been relegated to several other ministers.
Sanctions include the refusal to issue diplomatic passports to ministers, the halt to cable communications between Israeli diplomatic missions worldwide and the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, and the refusal to help with arrangements for ministers visiting foreign countries.