Netanyahu to brief Yashar leader Eisenkot in person alongside military secretary

Caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar! party, announced in a joint statement on Thursday that the two would hold a meeting at which Eisenkot would be updated on security and diplomatic matters. The text of the statement, published by the commentator Amit Segal, says the session will take place at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem and that Netanyahu's military secretary, Maj. Gen. Guy Markizeno, will take part.

The announcement changes the format of the briefing. N12's Dafna Liel reported that a one-on-one meeting between Eisenkot and the military secretary had been called off, and that an update session would instead be held in the afternoon with Netanyahu present. Liel later reported that both men had confirmed this in their joint statement. Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent for the Times of Israel, described the meeting as a briefing Eisenkot would receive from the prime minister and his military secretary together, while Ynet's alert framed it as a security update between the two leaders.

Who is meeting whom

Gadi Eisenkot heads Yashar!, a party whose name, punctuation included, is a Hebrew word meaning "straight" or "direct". The joint statement refers to him by his reserve rank of lieutenant general, written in Hebrew as Rav-Aluf. In the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), that rank is held only by the chief of the general staff, the country's most senior serving officer, a post Eisenkot previously filled. A former chief of staff entering politics is a familiar path in Israel, and briefings of this kind bring senior political figures into contact with the same military channels they once commanded.

Benjamin Netanyahu is described in the Times of Israel correspondent's report as the caretaker prime minister. In Israeli usage, a caretaker government, or transitional government, continues to run the country while a new government has not yet been formed, with its ministers remaining in post until a successor coalition is sworn in.

What a military secretary does

The military secretary to the prime minister is a serving general who acts as the prime minister's main link to the defence establishment. The officer sits in the Prime Minister's Office, accompanies the prime minister on security matters, and relays information between the head of government and the IDF and intelligence agencies. The current holder, according to the joint statement, is Maj. Gen. Guy Markizeno. The Hebrew rank in the statement is Aluf, the equivalent of a major general and one step below the chief of staff.

Because the military secretary handles sensitive material on the prime minister's behalf, a meeting between that officer and a party leader outside the government is the kind of arrangement that can be set up to keep a senior political figure informed on security and diplomatic developments. The joint statement uses the Hebrew phrase for a "diplomatic-security" update, a common pairing in Israeli official language for matters that touch on both defence and foreign relations.

How the plans changed

The reports from N12, one of Israel's main television news outlets, suggest the arrangement shifted during the day. Liel's first alert, flagged as a first publication, said the personal meeting between Eisenkot and Markizeno had been cancelled and replaced by a session with Netanyahu in attendance. The outlet edited and reissued that alert more than once within a few minutes, without changing its substance. Shortly afterwards the joint statement appeared, setting out the new format: a meeting between the two leaders, with the military secretary participating, rather than a meeting between Eisenkot and the military secretary alone.

The joint statement itself does not mention any cancellation. It states only that the update meeting will take place on Thursday, who will attend, and where. The description of a cancelled earlier meeting comes from N12's reporting, not from the statement.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports explains why the separate meeting with the military secretary was dropped, or whose decision it was to have Netanyahu attend in person. The statement does not say which security or diplomatic subjects will be covered, and no report gives an exact time beyond N12's reference to the afternoon. Neither Netanyahu's office nor Eisenkot's party has been reported as commenting beyond the joint statement, and no account of what was said at the meeting has been published.