Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has a whole series of diplomatic visits overseas coming up: Abu Dhabi, Sochi, the climate conference in Scotland. Since taking office, Bennett has been twice to the United States, and once to Egypt. His flights are important and the state has leased an El Al plane to take him and his entourage safely to his destination and back.
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Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has already made seven work trips overseas. For two of those trips, the foreign ministry leased a plane, exclusively for him. In the other instances, he and his entourage flew commercial flights, first class of course, President Isaac Herzog has so far only made one official trip overseas. Like his predecessors, he flew a commercial flight on first class. But embarrassingly, there was a technical fault on the plane and his return to Israel was delayed for several hours.
Even if Lapid were to fly from now on only on commercial flights, the state would spend an average of 25 million shekels ($7.8 million) a year on the overseas visits of its leaders. This according to a calculation by the Goldberg Committee, which in 2014 examined whether there was a need for the state to purchase a plane for the prime minister, president and other leaders. The committee's findings were clear-cut: Such a plane is a necessity.
Those findings weren't based on economic reasoning as the calculations at that time were not decisive. But since then, the number of flights has increased, the position of prime minister-designate has been invented, and the destinations have become more distant. The more journeys there are, the lower the cost of running a plane becomes. So, today it would be reasonable to assume that the economic considerations justify operating a plane for Israel's heads of state.
But even if we put aside for a moment economic calculations, all the professional echelons involved in flying Israel's leaders – officials with the Prime Minister's Office, the Presidency, and the Defense Ministry – explained to the committee that the procurement of a designated plane for Israel's leadership was a necessity. Their testimony before Justice Goldberg and his colleagues was incredible, not to say embarrassing.
"Flying the president on commercial flights results in embarrassing situations," the committee quoted Efrat Duvdevani, the legendary director-general of the Office of the President under President Shimon Peres. Duvdevani told the committee, among other things, that "on a regular flight, the president sits with everyone else in first class and a situation arises where anyone who has purchased a first-class ticket can see the documents that he is reading as preparation for his meetings."
The Israel Security Agency prohibited the president from taking connection flights on non-Israeli airlines. In other words, without Israel having its own government plane, it was not possible to engage in shuttle-diplomacy in a particular region, and thus a senior Israeli leader would have to return to Israel, or request from the host nation to fly him to his next destination. This is indeed what happened.
"There were countries that sent one of their own planes to pick up President Peres in order to avoid embarrassment. We are really dependent on the goodwill of others," said Duvdevani.
To the above factors, one has to add the security shortcomings resulting from Israel not having a designated aircraft for the leadership. When the prime minister is in the air, he is cut off and in the least bad case, one can "only" listen to his conversations.
"I had a feeling that I was going back 30 years in time. I had entered a bubble where the Prime Minister was cut off. He, quite simply, was absent for 15 hours. I managed to arrange a satellite phone from the army. But it's all very bizarre," Yohanan Locker, who served as military secretary to Benjamin Netanyahu when he was PM testified before the committee.
Netanyahu himself summed up the situation when he said: "During a flight, I can't speak with the President of the United States, or with the Defense Minister, or with the Chief of Staff. It's ridiculous. The leadership of the country is cut off."
The committee adopted fully the recommendations of the professional echelon. "There is no need to state that in the Israeli reality the prime minister is required to continuously make decisions, even while en route overseas. The entire professional echelon stressed the gravity of the situation," the report stated. Furthermore, it added that in the absence of a designated plane, "flights to certain countries with which Israel has an interest in tightening ties are currently prevented."
The government adopted the recommendations of the committee and one of the ministers who raised his arm in favor of those recommendations was Naftali Bennett. In accordance with the decision, the state purchased a second-hand Boeing, which it upgraded to make it into a flying headquarters: A made-in-Israel "Air Force One" officially named Wing of Zion.
The cost of the project exceeded the planned budget and timeframe, but the Wing of Zion is now ready and could fly Bennett, Lapid, or Herzog anywhere in the world whenever needed.
Despite the hundreds of millions, that were invested, and despite the operational and security necessity of having such a plane, and despite the diplomatic benefit, Wing of Zion is stuck in a hangar at Ben Gurion International Airport for one reason only: Politics. Lapid, the strong man in the government, has vetoed any use of it. Why? Because he can. Because of Lapid, Bennett has not asked the Transportation Ministry to push ahead with a license for the plane.
Thus, a situation has arisen where NIS 750 million ($233.5 million) are sitting on the tarmac for a reason that is unclear. Some NIS 650 million ($202 million) have already been invested in the plane (the larger sum includes the cost of operating it). A conservative estimate states that the cost of leasing commercial planes and taking commercial flights amounts to NIS 25 million ($7.8 million), a year.
In other words, if the government survived for four years, and Lapid were to continue with his insistence that the plane remains grounded, some $233.5 million will go down the drain. With that sum, a squadron could be purchased, a neighborhood could be built, or Israel could become one of the leading countries providing aid to the developing world.
By not using the plane, Israel is not saving money for its citizens. It is just throwing away a huge investment that has already been made. Has the time not come to take a reasonable decision to let the Wing of Zion take off?
A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office said: "Wings of Zion is currently undergoing a licensing process with the Israel Airports Authority. Due to the fact that the plane underwent an upgrade and had many systems installed in it to adapt it as a flying headquarters for the Prime Minister and the President, the licensing processes for the plane takes time. The requisite authorizations for flying and operating the plane have yet to be received."
The Foreign Ministry and the Office of the President declined to comment on the matter.
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