Roman Gofman has not yet entered the Mossad director’s office, and the familiar Israeli ritual is already under way: Former officials warn; legal voices object; commentators explain that this time, again, the danger is grave.
Some of those warnings deserve to be heard. Israeli intelligence agencies must never become private instruments of any prime minister. The Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) belong to the state: not to a political camp, not to a leader, and not to a court faction. That principle is sacred in a democracy that lives under permanent threat.
But the case against Gofman keeps collapsing back to one charge: He did not grow up inside the Mossad.
The Advisory Committee on Senior Appointments approved Gofman as the next Mossad director, slated to replace David Barnea in June, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated him in December.
Gofman is a highly experienced military general who played a critical role during the October 7 massacre, rushing south to help rescue communities under attack.
Some media outlets framed the appointment as Netanyahu’s gamble, reporting that the prime minister had bypassed internal candidates in favor of an outsider seen by critics as politically loyal, while supporters cited Gofman’s creativity and operational daring. Other media outlets led with the same concern: no intelligence background.
That concern is legitimate. The Mossad is not an armored brigade. Intelligence work has its own culture, craft, patience, networks, and quiet dangers. A successful field commander does not automatically become a successful intelligence chief.
But “not a Mossad insider” is not the same as unqualified, and the agency’s own history proves it.
Prior Mossad leaders with IDF history
Zvi Zamir, who served as head of Southern Command and held senior IDF posts before he was appointed Mossad director, led the agency from 1968 to 1974.
Meir Amit, who entered intelligence after rising to the rank of major-general, headed the Military Intelligence Directorate and then took over the Mossad in 1963. His tenure produced some of the agency’s most famous operations, including Eli Cohen’s penetration of the Syrian leadership.
Yitzhak Hofi headed Northern Command during the Yom Kippur War, briefly served as acting chief of staff, and then ran the Mossad for nine years.
Meir Dagan, one of the most consequential directors in the agency’s history, came from a long IDF career and was appointed by Ariel Sharon in 2002.
None of that proves Gofman is the right choice. It does prove that “he did not grow up there” cannot be where the argument ends.
The harder objection is the political one. Gofman served as Netanyahu’s military secretary. That is the real anxiety, and it deserves a real answer.
A military secretary sees a prime minister in his worst moments. He is trusted. He is close. He hears the unfiltered version of the country’s most sensitive deliberations. In an Israeli political culture where the courts, the press, and the security agencies have become trenches in a permanent civil argument, that proximity is not a small thing.
But proximity is not loyalty, and loyalty is not being captive. Officers who served prime ministers in that role have gone on to fight publicly with the leaders who appointed them.
The real test is whether Gofman can tell Netanyahu no when it matters: in writing, in front of witnesses, at cost to his career. That is the test for every Mossad chief, including those drawn from inside the agency’s ranks.
THE OCTOBER 7 massacre changed the terms of this debate. The political echelon failed. The security establishment failed. Intelligence failed. Hamas was not deterred. The border was not defended.
The vocabulary of containment, management, and conceptzia – the fixed assumption that Hamas could be bought off and managed – collapsed under the weight of murder, abduction, and national shock.
In that context, the demand that Israel keep choosing only the familiar type of person, from the familiar background, with the familiar institutional blessing, should not be treated as wisdom by default. Sometimes it is professionalism. Sometimes it is institutional self-protection.
The old security establishment earned respect over many years. It earned scrutiny on October 7, 2023.
The parallel fight over David Zini’s appointment to head the Shin Bet involves different legal facts, including a Supreme Court ruling that the dismissal of Ronen Bar had been unlawful.
Those issues are real and separate. But the two fights together feed a growing public impression that there is an unelected approval committee in Israel’s old security-political class, and that anyone outside its boundaries is presumed illegitimate before he starts.
That impression reaches far beyond Netanyahu’s base. Many Israelis in the Center-Right, and some in the Center, are tired of the same performance: The attorney-general objects; former chiefs warn; legal commentators speak in emergency tones; former defense officials appear on cue; every battle is framed as the last stand for democracy.
Sometimes the warnings are real. A warning system that fires at every appointment eventually becomes background noise, and that is its own danger: If every decision is treated as a wolf at the door, fewer people will listen when the wolf is real.
Former intelligence chiefs deserve respect. They have seen things the rest of us have not. But in today’s Israel, former security chiefs are public actors. They appear in the media, shape political arguments, sign letters, and brief journalists. Their experience should carry weight. It should not end the debate.
Gofman should face the hardest questions. His proximity to the prime minister is a legitimate issue. His lack of Mossad background is a legitimate issue. His ability to protect the agency’s independence is a legitimate issue. No serious person should pretend otherwise. But scrutiny should sound like judgment, not reflex.
Israel, after October 7, needs leaders who can disturb systems that have become too comfortable with their own language. It needs institutional discipline alongside creative impatience. It needs people who have seen the battlefield, absorbed the cost of failure, and are willing to question habits that insiders no longer notice.
That is not romanticism. Outsiders can fail. Outsiders can misunderstand what they do not know. Outsiders can mistake disruption for wisdom. Insiders fail, too, and the country has just paid a terrible price for insider consensus that proved disastrously wrong.
Roman Gofman may turn out to be an inspired choice. He may turn out to be the wrong one. That is true of every appointment. But Israel should be careful before allowing the same old voices to convince us that a man who did not come from the club cannot be trusted with the keys.
After October 7, the club no longer gets the last word.