The tense relationship between Israel’s top soldier and its top spy is well known in senior security circles. The head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, and Mossad director Yossi Cohen disagree professionally from time to time and many believe they are undeclared rivals for the prime minister’s job down the line.
On Jan. 26, Kochavi leveled an unusually harsh broadside at the the new US administration’s possible return to the nuclear deal with Iran. At the annual conference of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, a prestigious platform for defense-related issues, he also revealed that he had instructed the military to prepare several operational blueprints in addition to existing ones to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “The government will of course be the one to decide if they should be used. But these plans must be on the table, in existence and trained for,” he added.
