Vice prime minister is furious at former Mossad chief's alleged attempt to turn the issue of a possible Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities into a political campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak.
Shlomo Cesana
Vice Prime Minister Moshe (Bogey) Ya’alon accuses former Mossad chief Meir Dagan of being directly responsible for what he believes to be damaging stories that have appeared in the press recently about the Iranian issue. “Dagan started this whole thing a while back in a way that is illegitimate,” he said. “As the former head of Mossad, he is obligated not to reveal state secrets.” Ya’alon’s anger is palpable. “Dagan had an opportunity to express his opinion in a legitimate manner,” he said. “It is not legitimate to hold public discussions that are supposed to be conducted behind closed doors.”
Ya'alon, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff , said the media were presenting a distorted picture and were leading the public to conclude that the prime minister was making single-handed decisions on issues that are fateful to Israelis. “It is impossible to come to a decision on such issues without decisions by the cabinet,” he said. “The manner in which this has been portrayed by Dagan is disconnected from the legal reality that is the custom here in Israel.”
“The manner in which this discussion is being held in the press is totally irresponsible,” Ya'alon said.
“It doesn’t matter if these are officials who formerly held posts in the [defense] establishment. They are now going out and trying to ignite a public discussion on the basis of partial information. They are trying to make it seem as if the leadership in Israel is irresponsible, as if one person can lead [such a] move without seeking government approval.
“If these are officials who used to be in the establishment, then they are violating the rules of confidentiality to which they are obligated. Here we have democratic rules, and according to those rules, elected officials have supremacy. But they are taking upon themselves the responsibility to determine what is good and what is bad, and they are doing it irresponsibly.
“This is a discussion that cannot be exhausted in a newspaper article or in one kind of statement or another,” Ya’alon said. “The reader certainly cannot make a judgment based on the information with which he is provided. He is incapable of judging and making a decision. This is something that should be left for discussion in the right places. Ultimately, these discussions are held between the political echelon and the professional, bureaucratic echelon.
“Even if there is somebody who opposes the democratic process, it won’t help him, because the bottom line is that the political leadership is the one that makes the call and takes the decisions.”
'The entire world is concerned'
Ya’alon says that the Iranian issue is one that should be discussed behind closed doors, and not in the press. “Time will tell whether what has taken place in recent days has harmed national security,” he said. “This has also been exploited politically in certain quarters.”
“The public discussion being held now is distorted and is off-topic. This is a very weighty issue. We are facing a scenario in which a regime that holds messianic and apocalyptic views will come into possession of a nuclear weapon. This is an issue that worries the world and heads of state who are concerned about global and regional stability. So this is being dealt with in Washington, London, and Cairo, and we, too, will take diplomatic action.
“The discussion here is irresponsible because the way in which it is being waged is liable to bring the government to a point where it loses control of its diplomatic tools on such a sensitive topic,” he said. “All of this would be the result of someone wanting to have his position accepted by resorting to leaking this issue to the press. This sensitive issue is not one of those things that need to be brought for a referendum or voted on along the lines of a reality television show. This is why we have elections. From that point on, the issue needs to be discussed by the civilian and the military leadership.”
Ya’alon does not downplay the danger the Iranian threat poses to Israel. At the same time, however, he clearly states his position that Israel does not need to take the lead in any attack.
“Obviously there is a threat here that needs to be removed,” he said. “It is certainly not a threat that is pointed solely toward Israel, so Israel doesn’t need to dive in headfirst. The one who will lead these activities against Iran is the international community, which is led by the U.S. These are steps that need to be taken in order to bring international isolation on the regime in Tehran. Sanctions must be leveled against this regime, and the issue of human rights in that country also needs to be raised because there is an opposition there that is suffering under the yoke of an oppressive regime that imprisons opponents without trial. In any event, there needs to be a credible military option, and this is not something that can be created through debate in the press, but rather with a thorough, proper diplomatic effort.”
Disinformation campaign
According to the campaign launched in recent days by Yedioth Ahronoth and Channel 2, the fact that the decision on the Iranian question is solely in the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak is a problematic state of affairs. The impression one gets from reading Yedioth is that Netanyahu and Barak are likely to take reckless, adventurous steps. All of this happened just a short time after Netanyahu and Barak were accused by those same media outlets of showing excessive restraint on other security issues, like the terrorist attack on the Egyptian border or the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
Aides to the prime minster and the defense minister spoke this week of a campaign of disinformation. They are quick to point out that the public discussion on this issue has been ongoing for years, and not just within Israel. But the initiative on critical matters is afforded solely to the prime minister. Menachem Begin took the initiative in 1981, when he decided to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq. In 2007, it was Ehud Olmert who decided (according to foreign news sources) to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria.
There are cases in which it is best to keep quiet, but this week the defense minister did not do so. After his successor as Labor party chief, Shelly Yachimovich, warned against a “megalomaniacal adventure in Iran,” Barak decided to respond. He said that it would be foolish to think that decisions on this scale are made by just two people.
“There has been a public discussion about the Iranian nuclear program in Israel for years,” he said. “We do not conceal our thoughts. Nonetheless, there are operational issues that are not discussed in public forums, because then it would be impossible to carry them out.”
It would not be far-fetched to presume that Barak was thinking about a number of media reports that referred to “a window of opportunity” in which the air force could launch an attack due to the benefit of good visibility. Barak even said recently that “the challenges facing us require that we increase the defense budget.” He added that we are “at a crossroads of key decisions” in which Israel will need to defend its interests.
Barak aides said that the U.S. and the West failed to back the Iranian opposition in its hour of need two years ago. The Americans are interested in a joint effort that would lead to the toppling of the Iranian regime.
“All options are on the table,” Vice President Joe Biden is wont to say on the Iranian issue.
In Iran, however, few believe there is a high probability that the U.S. will act. America is currently in the midst of an election campaign, and it is increasingly focused on domestic matters. One should also take into account the economic crisis. After all, wars cost a lot of money. In addition, there is also the lack of an American appetite to open up a front against Iran just a short time after closing the front in Iraq.
Now we come to the issue of the price. It is obvious to all that any attack would result in harm to Israeli cities. The Americans are taking this into account. This week, Eli Yishai, the Shas chairman and interior minister who is also a member of the Forum of Eight, was photographed at a gathering near the Sea of Galilee. It was at this event that Yishai was quoted as saying that he "loses sleep at night" knowing what he does and the level of responsibility placed on his shoulders. Yishai stated his belief that 100,000 missiles would be lobbed at Israel just from the immediate surroundings, namely Lebanon and Gaza.
On the other hand, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said previously that any regime that attacks Israel must take into account the eventuality that any cease-fire would come into effect only after that regime falls.
Faced with uncertainty
Emily Landau, a researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute of National Security Studies, wrote an article entitled, “The International Community vs. Iran: Pressure, Delays, No Decisive Results.” In it, she states that Iran is progressing toward attaining a militarized nuclear capability. While steps have been taken against the regime, there is no formulated strategy on the agenda capable of altering this trend.
In the past, Netanyahu has made comparisons between Iran and Nazi Germany. He said that the difference between then and now is that Israel has an army that can defend itself against rulers who declare their intention to destroy the Jewish people.
This week, Netanyahu used the occasion of the start of the Knesset’s winter session to tell the nation: “There are regional powers that stretch across the Middle East, and they will try to increase their influence on the new regimes. This influence will not always be to our benefit. One of these regional forces is Iran, which continues with its efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran would pose a serious threat to the Middle East and the world, and of course it would pose a direct threat to us. Faced with this uncertainty, we need two things – might and responsibility.”
Against the backdrop of the debate in Israel, the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is due to release a report in the coming days. The report is expected to provide new details on the scope of Iran’s military nuclear program.
Citing information that had reached Israel, Lieberman said this week that the report will be more damning than previous ones. It appears that one of the reasons for this is the changing of the guard at the helm of the IAEA. Mohammed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat, was replaced by Yukiya Amano of Japan. Therein lies the change. Under the previous regime, everything that was learned by the inspectors was not released for public consumption. Now the organization is more open and ready to report on what is going on in Iran.
Meanwhile, the U.N. has already resolved to take a series of measures against Iran. In Israel, it is customary to assume that economic sanctions against Iran cause delays to its nuclear program. Brig. Gen. (res.) Uzi Ilem, who once headed Israel’s Atomic Energy Agency, stated his view this week that punitive measures were an efficient tool. “Sanctions work,” he said. “Iran gets all of its components and the necessary technologies from outside of the country.”
Effective sanctions could prevent companies from doing business with Iran. Zeroing in on Iran’s central bank will tighten the noose around the regime’s neck. According to Ilem, a nuclear capability would give Iran a strategic umbrella that would enable it to support terrorism and assume control over weaker governments. “This is a real danger,” he said, perhaps even a greater danger than using the bomb itself," Ilem said.
The secret war
A short time after the decision was made to tighten sanctions against Iran, initial reports surfaced of a powerful worm virus planted in the computers used to supervise Iran’s nuclear program. The virus wrought irreversible damage to approximately 1,000 centrifuges (which are used to enrich uranium) at the Natanz facility.
There were also reports of a number of defections by, and assassinations of, Iranian nuclear scientists. In various speeches, Ahmadinejad attributed responsibility for this to the U.S. and Israel. According to Landau’s article, the Mossad's Dagan hinted that the covert means used to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program had set it back, and that Iran would only be able to attain nuclear capability in 2015.
“The same assessment on the value of clandestine sabotage effects (especially when compared to military attack) apparently underlay more recent comments [by Dagan],” Landau wrote. “When asked whether Israel should attack Iran militarily, his response was that this was ‘the stupidest idea’ he had ever heard.”
This year, Dagan retired from the helm of Israel's external espionage service. According to some reports, he left behind an unequivocal recommendation to refrain from attacking Iran. Yet senior officials in the defense and political establishments say that Dagan committed the sin of taking his doubts out from behind closed doors and into the public forum.
Dagan was a confidant. It is reasonable to assume that he knows how accurate the rumors are that Barak’s position, which favors taking action, is countered by a majority coalition of ministers, including Dan Meridor, Moshe Ya’alon, Benny Begin, and Eli Yishai. He can explicitly recall the contents of the conversations that were held between the prime minister and the defense minister in the home of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
According to those in the halls of power throughout the defense establishment, possessing this knowledge is a privilege that is afforded solely to the state, and does not belong to any one individual, including “former chiefs.” They say that Dagan seeks to establish new rules of the game where the decisions aren’t taken by elected officials.
“The discussion on the Iranian issue is irresponsible,” says a senior defense official. “It borders on endangering the security of the state. The public chatter itself is liable to lead us to the point of no return, a point we mustn’t get to.”
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