Intel Minister Stern: Where will Israel's global weapons sales lead?

• Author: YONAH JEREMY BOB
• Published date: 07 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Speaking at an Intelligence Ministry-sponsored conference involving representatives of all of Israel's intelligence institutions as well as a wide array of relevant government ministries, Stern put out the question as an example of how the state must think many steps ahead toward the year 2050, and not just one step at a time.

Stern said, "The Intelligence ministry creates the knowledge-based infrastructure for long-term planning to cope with the challenges facing the State of Israel, both known and hidden. These can include: supply chain issues, food security, water security, key scarce materials, energy security, trends in the development of technology and advanced weapons systems and trends in the medical arena – all to strengthen our national resilience."

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Although the conference was the 15th held every few months in recent years, it was the first which was open to a small number of media outlets, including The Jerusalem Post.

The conference in and of itself was remarkable in that the Post witnessed attendees from the Mossad, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), IDF intelligence, police, National Security Council, Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and a variety of other ministries.

The forum was designed to facilitate both representatives of the many organs of the defense establishment as well as other ministries that are part of the country's national resilience, to meet and debate how to improve Israel's long-term strategy.

Although some of these officials do meet from time to time, it is usually under heavy stress and only to put out fires from an immediate crisis.

Rarely do they meet in a relaxed setting to think together strategically about long-term issues, such as how stable and independent Israel's supply chain is for food, technology, infrastructure and in the digital sphere.

Another highlight of the conference was information sharing and synergy.

"There is a cultural issue that within our organizations, there are people who keep information to themselves, and sometimes there is nothing to do about it. Knowledge is power, so people will say let's keep it to ourselves," said Stern.

But the idea that "information is power is much bigger than...