Summary
A department within Israel’s Ministry of Defense whose duties include overseeing the physical safety of security installations in Israel and preventing security information leaks, and whose “declassification teams” the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research reports have since at least 2002 ordered public and private archives to vault files and documents — on nuclear issues, the 1948 war and Israel’s foreign relations — without legal authority (Silencing: DSDE’s Concealment of Documents in Archives, PDF p.2, 11).
Details
- The very fact that the DSDE existed was kept secret for many years, its early decades revolved around Israel’s nuclear program, and its size and budget are not released to the public; some consider it an independent security agency, and former minister Dan Meridor has called it charged with “protecting state secrets on highly sensitive issues” (PDF p.11).
- It is a department within the Ministry of Defense, governed not by law but by internal Ministry of Defense directives, and it has no legal powers outside the defense establishment (PDF p.2, 11).
- Its archive teams normally comprise two senior retired officials from security agencies, the IDF Information Security Department, the Israeli Military Censor, the Israel Atomic Energy Commission and others, in permanent, paid, most likely part-time positions; they visit archives from once every few years to once a week, work from catalogues or prepared lists, and instruct directors to vault material, with no procedure to challenge their decisions (PDF p.3).
- Its head in 2002 was Yehiel Horev, who said he started the archive operations (PDF p.8).
- Asked by Akevot to interview the official in charge of archive work, it replied: “The DSDE does not normally provide details about its operations” (PDF p.2).
- Neither the Archive Law nor its regulations grant it any power to deny public access to materials in public or private archives, and it has no authority to operate in the ISA or its Ben Gurion, Begin and Rabin branches (PDF p.11-12).
Related pages
Silencing: DSDE’s Concealment of Documents in Archives, Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Yehiel Horev, Israel State Archive, IDF and Defense Establishment Archive, Archives Law 1955