[Excerpted from No heir apparent By Akiva Eldar Haaretz 23 December 2005
www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=661475&contrassID=2&subContrassID=15&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
]

...

As someone who conducted the negotiations with the United Nations ahead of
the withdrawal from Lebanon and was involved in talks preceding the
Mitchell, Tenet and Zinni reports, [National Security Council (NSC) chairman
Giora] Eiland has an interesting perspective on the Israeli leadership. "The
decision-makers here prefer the bottom line to a proper process of
preparation for negotiations - including examining the basic assumptions,
defining your interests and mapping out those of the rival parties,
formulating minimal objectives and determining the negotiation tactics."

...

Ephraim Halevy, Eiland's predecessor at the NSC and the former head of the
Mossad espionage agency, has difficulty hiding his regrets over the
abandonment of the foundations of Israel's security policy and strategy, for
which he blames people he calls "the prime minister's emissaries," hinting
at attorney Dov Weissglas. Halevy singles out two far-reaching decisions
made during Sharon's term of office. One is an offhand change made in the
historic position that Israel does not place its security in the hands of
foreigners - especially not in the hands of Europeans and, more
particularly, in those of the Arabs (other than in the framework of peace
arrangements and interim accords such as those concerning the multinational
force in the Sinai and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

And here, says Halevy, almost overnight, the prime minister has changed his
policy of obstinately refusing to give Egypt any task relating to Israel's
security. At Israel's request, the Egyptians are not just serving as a
buffer force, but have the everyday job of assuring a certain layer of
Israel's security, and European monitors have been given the authority to
decide who enters Gaza.

"Suddenly, things are all mixed up," says Halevy. "Has there been a change
in our security outlook? Who decided that from now on, security would be
assured by external forces as well? All this was done in improvised
negotiations of the moment for temporary goals, between some emissary and
the [U.S.] secretary of state, without examining the broader ramifications
for the long term, in negotiations between the secretary of state and some
emissary whose name I don't want to mention."

The second topic that raises Halevy's blood pressure is the road map plan.
He recalls that at the end of May 2003, Sharon canceled his trip to the
United States because of a terror attack, sending 'the emissary' in his
place. Two days later, the prime minister announced the acceptance of the
road map. That weekend, the ministers got a copy of the plan faxed to their
homes; the next day the document was brought before the government for
approval.

'The emissary, who was asked how the Americans reacted to our position, said
the secretary of state's body language was positive," says Halevy. "He was
sitting across from a professional team including the head of the NSC, the
head of the Mossad, the IDF chief of staff and the head of the Shin Bet
security service - but none of the ministers asked them to analyze the
document. Tzipi Livni was the only one who bothered to delve into it."

Halevy says the prime minister is nothing other than a "first among equals."
He attributes the intensity of this centralization to the absence of a
serious internal debate with defense ministers on the level of Yitzhak Rabin
and Moshe Arens, and the existence of ministers who observe from the side as
others alter Israel's security doctrine and impose political plans.