A new world – where Israel shares intelligence with Saudis

You could sense mouths dropping across the world on Thursday.

Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the head of the Israeli Army, had just said publicly in an interview with a Saudi journalist that he is ready to share (read: probably already has shared) intelligence with Saudi Arabia.

It is shocking, that a country which not that long ago was a mortal enemy of Israel – and still in many conversations, such as regarding the Palestinians, is ready to condemn Israel – could be on the receiving end of some of the Mossad’s and the IDF’s greatest secrets.

Maybe we are all still sleeping and dreaming?

No, it is very real. And according to two top intelligence and national security experts, Ram Ben-Barak and Yaakov Amidror, this bombshell is far more a confirmation of a clear and continuous trend than might appear to the untrained eye.

Ben-Barak is the former deputy chief of the Mossad and the former director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

Amidror is a former national security adviser, major-general, and is currently at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

Ben-Barak said Eisenkot’s announcement was “not a surprise. The Saudis are struggling against terror, Islamic extremism and Iran’s extending itself throughout the region. This worries us and them. When you have unity of enough interests, it is natural to work together – more on a partnering basis than just on one isolated interest.”

He said, “If we can stop someone or if we can give intelligence to them to stop [a common adversary]” and “also collect intelligence and work together on bigger things related to the Shi’ites and to processes related to Judea and Samaria,” these are all worthwhile endeavors.

Asked about reciprocation, the former deputy Mossad chief said, “Cooperation is always a two-way street,” explaining that Eisenkot’s statement should be taken to mean Israel is “ready to both

They accused the government of violating its international obligations and of using incitement against migrants.

“The Holot detention center, an isolated prison that was meant to make asylum seekers’ lives miserable, should have been forbidden in the first place. From the words of Minister Erdan it is clear that the government was lying to the High Court when they denied that the purpose of Holot was to make asylum seekers leave Israel,” they said.

“Holot needs to be shut down immediately,” they continued, “and instead of a policy of oppression, lies to the High Court, detention and deportation, the government should fulfill the moral and legal obligations of Israel to protect asylum seekers and ensure their right to live in dignity.”

Until now, Israel was only allowed to deport migrants to third countries if they agreed to self-deportation and were not viewed as being coerced.

However, in August, the High Court of Justice both struck down a tougher state policy against migrants and implied that if the state managed to get a third country to accept migrants and passed a new law to exploit such a deal, then deportation of migrants against their will could become legal.

The High Court distinguished between deporting migrants to a third country, such as Rwanda, and to the migrants’ country of origin.

Israel is a signatory to the Convention on Refugees which prevents it and other signatories from deporting illegal migrants back to their countries of origin if they would face persecution.

There is an ongoing debate about whether Eritreans, Israel’s largest group of migrants, fled Eritrea due to persecution or to improve their economic status.

Deporting to a third country sidesteps this legal debate.

It is unclear, however, if the High Court would endorse indefinite detention in a regular prison as an alternative to self-deportation.

The High Court has said that one of the reasons that it declared the old state policy unconstitutional was because the state was trying to coerce migrants to self-deport at the same time as having signed a deal with the third country that migrants would only be sent voluntarily. However, it did not explain how far the state could go to “convince” migrants to be deported.

Meanwhile, also on Sunday, the High Court ruled that the state’s policy restricting migrants from bringing most packaged food products into the Holot detention center was unconstitutional.

The High Court did however endorse the state’s policy of preventing migrants from cooking within the facility.

Regarding packaged products, the court wrote that the state had said it had restricted packaged foods because it believed that a packaged can of tuna had caused an outbreak of some kind of illness.

The court asked rhetorically, “Because of one bad can of tuna, does the whole prison need to be penalized?”

It suggested that the state could make some targeted restrictions that had a rational basis, but had to start from the standpoint that most items should be permitted since the migrants in Holot are not categorized as criminals.

However, the decision does not go into effect for 90 days, which, taken with the new initiative to close the facility, leaves it unclear as to whether it will ever be implemented. •