The tense relationship between Israel’s top soldier and its top spy is well known in senior security circles. The head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, and Mossad director Yossi Cohen disagree professionally from time to time and many believe they are undeclared rivals for the prime minister’s job down the line.

On Jan. 26, Kochavi leveled an unusually harsh broadside at the the new US administration’s possible return to the nuclear deal with Iran. At the annual conference of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, a prestigious platform for defense-related issues, he also revealed that he had instructed the military to prepare several operational blueprints in addition to existing ones to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “The government will of course be the one to decide if they should be used. But these plans must be on the table, in existence and trained for,” he added.

Kochavi’s comments spread like wildfire, the news leading all the news broadcasts and websites that the IDF chief had attacked a declared White House policy a mere week after a new administration took office and against the backdrop of the tense relations between the new president and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In leftist political circles, Kochavi was accused of politicizing the army and trying to curry favor with Netanyahu by adopting his hawkish position on the issue. Kochavi was suddenly a player in the turbulent political arena.

One unattributed reaction stood out in the media storm, criticizing Kochavi for his attack at such a sensitive time in US-Israel relations. The identity of the unnamed security source was an open secret — none other than the head of the Mossad. Cohen is the security figure closest to Netanyahu, serving as his foreign policy arm, quasi-foreign minister and envoy on Iran. Cohen is known to hold hawkish views on Iran, just like his boss. Why, then, did he blast Kochavi?