Netanyahu’s Mossad and Shin Bet appointments
Yossi Alpher — May 18, 2026
Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.
Q. You are a former Mossad official, with Shin Bet experience as well. What is wrong, or at least unusual, with those appointments?
A. On the face of it, Prime Minister Netanyahu has appointed startlingly underqualified or even ‘misqualified’ junior generals to head the Mossad, the Israeli equivalent of the CIA, and the Shin Bet (from herein we’ll use the designation Shabak, the up-to-date Hebrew acronym for the Israeli domestic intelligence service). Neither general has previous intelligence experience or training. One, David Zini (Shabak), makes no secret of his messianic leanings and their influence on his decision-making. The other, Roman Gofman (Mossad), is Netanyahu’s military aide.
Q. These are not the first IDF generals to head Israel’s civilian intelligence establishment. Netanyahu is not the first prime minister to make high-level security appointments based on loyalty and political ideology.
A. To clarify: Zini has been serving as Shabak head for some six months already, having overcome on the way allegations concerning his extreme religious orientation and his brother’s alleged involvement in smuggling to Gaza. Gofman’s appointment is currently the subject of an appeal to the High Court to block it, based on accusations of convoluted manipulations on his part in the latter stages of his military career.
In both cases – like it or not – the hiccups en route to taking office, while unsavory and even bizarre, are not unusual in Israel these days as ambitious people climb to the top of the security or public service pyramid. Since taking office, Zini has managed to insult the many women – nearly half – who serve in the Shabak by refusing to shake their hands and by allowing his wife to send a clumsy letter of greeting to the wives of Shabak men but not to Shabak women.
Note too that there is a lot of déjà vu here. Generals elevated in the past to head the civilian security services – men like Meir Amit and Yitzhak Hofi in the Mossad and Ami Ayalon in the Shin Bet – on the whole performed favorably, often with distinction. Without exception, they had to pass political-ideological muster with the serving prime minister, which, back in the day, for the most part meant Palmach service prior to 1948, indicating loyalty to the Labor establishment founding fathers and mother (Golda Meir). In some cases, they had no appreciable intelligence background and had to learn on the job how the Mossad or Shabak operated. At least one, Zamir, went on to participate directly in a Mossad operation.
Q. So what has changed? Why the fuss?
A. First, Israel’s intelligence establishment has become increasingly technical, technological, and professional over the years. That is why in recent decades, heads of service have been elevated from within the ranks rather than ‘parachuted’ from beyond. And those more recent heads of service have scrupulously kept their distance from politics while in office. Even as far back as 1978, I recall briefing members of Knesset on the Iranian revolution and being admonished by the Head of Mossad not to offer comparisons or illustrations involving Israel’s own political parties and movements.
Moreover, the Knesset and the state legal bureaucracy now play a more active role in monitoring the activities of the security services. There is even a ‘Shabak Law’ regulating that body’s activities (there is no regulatory law, as yet, for the Mossad).
Second is the impression that Generals Zini and Gofman got their new positions not because they are right for the job but rather because Netanyahu believes they are loyal to him. This is disturbing. Knesset elections are approaching. They are currently anticipated in September or October of this year, depending on a variety of political deals involving payoffs and exemption from military service for the Haredi community and its parties. In order apparently to influence the elections and their aftermath, Netanyahu is making strenuous efforts to implant ‘his people’ in positions of power and influence, particularly in the security services.
This bodes ill for those elections: the Shabak in particular can, if abused, manipulate the electoral process within the Israeli Arab community.
Third, Zini and Gofman have little to none of the sort of military experience – commanding a regional command and/or major wartime combined-arms operations – that could, at a stretch, conceivably enhance their credentials for managing a civilian intelligence organization deploying thousands of agents and officials.
Zini’s Shabak responsibilities include liaising with the Palestinian Authority and with Egypt. Gofman will be running Israel’s intelligence relationships with the entire world, beginning with the United States and many Arab countries, in an operation that in many ways dwarfs the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Neither of these two generals has the slightest relevant background or known skills to make these connections work productively.
Q. Nothing on the positive side to balance the picture?
A. Zini, several months in office, has reportedly begun taking steps to distance ‘political groups’ from interfering in the upcoming elections. He has reportedly initiated steps against at least some marauding West Bank settlers. Whether these actions are cosmetic or substantive remains to be seen.
Conceivably, Zini’s messianic religiosity could be an asset in leading the Shabak to curb National Religious movement extremism centered in the settlements. But only if he defines Israel’s national interests along lines delineated over the decades by his predecessors, rather than in accordance with the messianic drive of key members of Netanyahu’s coalition like ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir.
Turning to Gofman, the picture is more nuanced. He is secular, having arrived in Israel at age 14 from Belarus after the fall of the Soviet Union and only shortly after his parents informed him that he was Jewish. For a while, he was involved as a teenager on the streets of Ashdod with immigrant gangs. The IDF provided his road to integration as an Israeli: a narrative I can identify with based on my own experience. His immigrant story and his rise through the ranks are impressive.
Nor is the fact that Gofman is a native Russian-speaker necessarily a drawback. Russia is a major player in the Middle East. A head of Mossad with the right cultural and linguistic background could enhance Israel’s maneuverability in this context.
(The secular Gofman, incidentally, will be joining what is probably still Israel’s most secular security organization. The food in the Mossad cafeteria was not kosher right up through the 1970s – the cook was of Hungarian origin, and excellent! Mossad agents frequently live very a-religious lives under cover abroad.)
Q. Bottom line: how do you see this?
A. With alarm. The most troublesome element here is the impression that Netanyahu has appointed the two generals to the most sensitive jobs in the entire security establishment because he believes they will be loyal to him and his needs.
The prime minister is on trial on multiple counts of fraud. He appears to fear that, once out of office because he loses the coming election, he will be convicted and go to jail. This sets the scene for a variety of possible illegal acts of manipulation – of elections and post-electoral situations – that an increasingly desperate Netanyahu is clearly capable of contemplating.
If and when this happens, will the Israeli establishment – judicial, security, political – hold the line? Specifically, do Zini and Gofman have the backbone, the necessary integrity, to stand up to a desperate prime minister who appointed them and who is probably supported actively by a shady and manipulative American president, possibly at a time of ongoing war?
Finally, irrespective of the prime minister and of elections, how much damage will be caused by the newly-appointed generals’ lack of relevant experience or messianic leanings and associations?
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer.
Photo by IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
