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Israel approves $2b intelligence service budget

June 10, 2014 at 11:49 am

The Israeli government is said to have been secretly transferring funds to its two secret services, the Shin Bet security service and Mossad, which makes it difficult to monitor their budgets; Israel’s Haaretz newspaper revealed yesterday.

According to the paper, data from the Ministry of Finance revealed that the budget for the Shin Bet security service and Mossad in 2014 increased by six per cent to reach $2.21 billion compared to last year’s budget.

The data was revealed when the government amended the general budget and submitted it to the Knesset Finance Committee for approval.

Haaretz said the two security services budgets were allocated from the general budget’s reserve.

It noted that using such a method to allocate budgets restricts the ability to monitor them, since the two security services’ budgets are not clear and the amount is only defined as “additional security budget”. The security services are not affiliated with the Defence Ministry but to the prime minister’s office.