Israel weighs strategic implications of coronavirus crisis
Israeli intelligence is unsure whether the pandemic will ease tensions with neighboring countries or do just the opposite.
The Military Intelligence Directorate of the Israel Defense Forces has tasked a special team with updating the national intelligence assessment presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other decision-makers in mid-January. The decision was prompted by the novel coronavirus crisis that has sent shockwaves across the Middle East. The annual intelligence assessment attempts to analyze and forecast the strategic threats facing the country on all fronts. With the COVID-19 epidemic having spread throughout the region (barring a few relatively unaffected pockets such as Yemen), the crisis is clearly no longer only health and socioeconomic in nature. It has spilled over into the military-defense arena.
Israel is evidently the only state in the world whose security and intelligence services are playing a significant role in the effort to eradicate the virus. Mossad chief Yossi Cohen heads a multi-agency team coordinating emergency acquisition efforts for respirators, swabs, protective equipment and more around the world.
