"There's a stench of carrion in the room," said Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz when he entered office, referring to the remains of an unprecedented battle that took place between his predecessor Gabi Ashkenazi and Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Well, the stench is still there, even after the Israeli state comptroller published an extremely detailed report on what he described as a "rift of mistrust" between the two offices known as the "Harpaz Affair." There is a direct link between the Barak-Ashkenazi clash and the harsh and unusual distrust expressed by the former chief of Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, toward Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel's former and current defense chiefs have very little trust in their political leadership.
The body of the Harpaz report relies on a treasure the State Comptroller's staff discovered: recordings of every single phone call made to and from the chief of staff's office. Such recordings were not found in Barak's office. The report describes at length the deteriorating relationship between Barak and Ashkenazi, in which a crooked officer, Boaz Harpaz, fed Ashkenazi and his aid with disinformation. Ashkenazi received a forged document from Harpaz, detailing Barak's alleged campaign against him and believed it to be true. However, the report fails to explain why and what exactly caused the two men, who for the first two years worked together in a reasonable harmony, to develop such mutual animosity, to the point where they could hardly function together.
