Former Shin Bet chief slams policy as elections draw near, talks with Iran set to resume
A harsh critique of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Iran policy is exposing rifts in the upper echelons of the Israeli security establishment at a sensitive time both for Israeli domestic politics and in the standoff between the West and Tehran.
In remarks at a conference over the weekend, Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, added his voice to the chorus of high-level critics. “I don’t believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings,” he said. “I fear very much that these are not the people I’d want at the wheel.”
Diskin is not the first security official to publicly attack Netanyahu’s Iran stance, which sees Tehran’s nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel that must be eliminated at all costs, including a military strike. But his criticism comes as Israel is perhaps months away from general elections and may put the prime minister on the defensive on an issue he has turned into the main focus Israeli foreign policy, analysts say.
In the international arena, analysts say, remarks like Diskin’s threaten to undermine the Netanyahu government’s tough line by exposing internal disagreements at a time when the U.S. and other world powers are engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program
Netanyahu declined to comment publicly on Diskin’s critique, but a broadside of counter-attacks by ministers and officials on Sunday signaled how sensitive the issue is for the prime minster.
Avraham Diskin, (no relation) who teaches political science at the Hebrew University and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, said the critiques of Netanyahu policy would probably not influence many Israeli voters. But even if a few grow wary of Netanyahu’s policies, it could have enormous influence.
“If we have early elections we shouldn’t underestimate even a slight influence because the balance between left and right in Israel is not that clear,” Diskin told The Media Line. “There’s no question it puts Israel in a more difficult situation in the international arena as well.”
The former Shin Bet director’s comments echo those of Meir Dagan, who headed the Mossad intelligence agency until 18 months ago and has emerged as a major critic not only of Netanyahu’s Iran policy but of the prime minister’s leadership abilities.
Both out of office for a year or more, Yuval Diskin and Dagan have more freedom to speak out than people now serving in the security establishment. But Amos Harel, writing in the Ha’aretz daily, said their views are shared by many in the army and intelligence services.
In a possible hint of those differences, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said in an interview in Ha’aretz last week that Iran’s leadership is “very rational,” a seemingly innocuous remark but one that was widely understood as contradicting the Netanyahu government’s line that Tehran is unpredictable and uncompromising.
“Decisions can and must be made carefully, out of historic responsibility but without hysteria,” Gantz said.
Shortly afterwards, Gantz denied that his remarks signaled any disagreement inside the security establishment over Iran’s aims, but Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is believed to share Netanyahu’s views on Iran, made a point in a speech last week, of saying that Tehran’s leaders are “not rational in the Western sense of the word.”
But Barak himself may have disagreements with Netanyahu as well. When the world’s leading powers, the so-called P5+1 group, met with Tehran to resume nuclear talks, his list of minimal conditions the Iranians would have to meet to satisfy Israel was less severe than the one issued by Netanyahu’s office. The two sides said the differences were insignificant.
Meanwhile, election time is approaching, with unnamed officials in Netanyahu’s Likud Party saying the vote could take place as early as September.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who heads Yisrael Beiteinu, Netanyahu’s biggest coalition partner, told Channel Two television over the weekend that his party will decide whether to go for early elections depending on the Knesset’s May 9 vote on legislation over drafting ultra-orthodox Jews.
“Our obligation to the coalition is over. We have an obligation to the voters,” Lieberman said.
While the prime minister is riding high in public opinion polls, economic growth is slowing and many politicians warn that last year’s tent encampments and social justice rallies may erupt again this summer, creating an issue on which opposition parties can build support. Netanyahu’s tough Iran stance has failed to generate much support from the voters and may not serve as a substitute for economic grievances.
A poll conducted by Israel Democracy Institute and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University in February showed that less than a third of Israelis backed the idea of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities without U.S. support. If Washington did back Israel, the tide shifts, with two thirds saying they “strongly” or “moderately” support an operation against Iran, the poll found.
Tamar Hermann, who conducted the survey, told The Media Line that the results showed that Israelis don’t regard Iran as an “existential threat” as it has been portrayed by their prime minister.
“The movement of just a few points against the right-wing bloc might change the whole story,” said Avraham Diskin of the Hebrew University.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, said on Saturday it would resume talks with Iran May 14-15. The P5+1 group is scheduled to meet with Iranian negotiations for a second round of talks eight days later. If successful, they would almost certainly entail a compromise that would allow Iran to continue some of its nuclear operations.
Some analysts argue the fact that Iran has been subject to increasingly onerous sanctions and has been driven into talks with the P5+1 it once spurned is the fruit of Israeli threats, which have unnerved Tehran for fear its facilities could be destroyed and the West out of concern an attack will choke off oil supplies.
Dan Margalit, writing in the pro-Netanyahu daily Yisrael Hayom on Sunday, said fissures inside the Israeli policy establishment threaten to undo the pressure tactics by showing its leadership is less than determined to stop Iran.
“Israel must demonstrate it’s readiness to use its full military might to increase the chance – and it is only a chance – that the world will successfully pressure Iran into pulling back from its nuclear undertaking,” Margalit wrote. “Dagan’s and Diskin’s remarks damage those chances.”