Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** Israelis row over defence spending.  On 12 May, Israel’s Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon launched an astonishing public attack on the finance ministry, accusing it of undermining the country’s security.  The defence minister made his criticisms during an appearance in front of the Knesset’s Labour and Welfare Committee.

The cause of Yaalon’s anger is the finance ministry’s attitude towards the 2015 defence budget.  He said: “This is part of a technique to harm security and the IDF [Israel Defence Force], and mainly those who serve.  There is a serious problem here, of a government ministry that does not live up to its word, does not meet written agreements, and does not carry out government decisions and laws.”

Yaalon then recalled that a few months ago Finance Minister Yair Lapid had blamed “tycoons, the Haredis, and the career soldiers” for economic injustices.  He also recalled that the head of the budgets branch of the ministry of finance had said something similar shortly afterwards, blaming “tycoons, big [workers’] committees, and career soldiers”.

Yaalon added: “If this is not a systematic delegitimization of career soldiers, which unfortunately is dripping down [to society], then what is?”

The finance ministry responded by calling Yaalon’s remarks a crude attack on public servants.  It also said: “The formula is simple: any addition to the defence budget will come at the expense of the public.”

*** Armenia calls for referendum on Nagorno-Karabakh.  On 13 May, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan said that “a legally binding expression of the free will”, by which he meant a referendum, should be the basis for resolving the status of the Armenian-populated Azerbaijani enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

*** South Korea demands say over Japan’s ‘collective self-defence’.  As Japan moves closer to reinterpreting its constitution to allow for participation in collective self-defence, a South Korean government official said on 13 May: “The Korean government’s explicit consent is necessary when it comes to issues related to the Korean Peninsula.  Japan is well aware of it.”