Former security officials denounce PM’s diplomatic moves, decry attack on Meir Dagan
A number of former officials in Israel’s security establishment are slamming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s diplomatic and security policies, including on Iran, and saying that another Netanyahu term would harm the State of Israel.
The former officials also decry the harsh criticism doled out by the ruling Likud party to ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan following his speech at an anti-Netanyahu rally in Tel Aviv this past weekend.
Their comments come a day after the PM said officials in the United States and across the world have become more receptive to Israel’s fears over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program following his speech to Congress last week.
Meanwhile, some members of the Republican party are backtracking on a letter sent on Monday to Iran’s Supreme Leader warning him not to sign a nuclear deal with the United States.
Likely Democratic presidential candidate for 2016 Hillary Clinton blasted GOP lawmakers, accusing them of attempting to either sabotage President Barack Obama or help Tehran.
The Times of Israel is blogging events as they unfold.
Likud MK hits back at ex-security officials
Likud MK Yariv Levin, head of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset, hits back at the former security officials who slammed Netanyahu earlier today, charging that they are “motivated by a hatred of the right-wing and of the prime minister.”
Levin also didn’t miss an opportunity to take a swipe at his party’s main rival, the Zionist Union, by linking the former commanders to its leaders, Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.
“Livni and Herzog’s generals already promised us peace and we got murderous terror across the country. They promised that the 2005 Disengagement [from the Gaza Strip] would bring quiet and we got thousands of rockets. They are wrong and misleading time and time again,” he says, according to the Ynet news site.
14:40
Ex-Mossad chief not sorry for criticizing PM
Ex-Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit is taking no prisoners in his attack on Netanyahu, charging that no one other than the PM is responsible for the failures of the summer war, the Iranian threat and the sour ties with the US.
“After I was labeled a messianic traitor, I will no longer apologize,” he says as a press conference with other former leaders from the security establishment.
“Why did you release 1,200 terrorists [in the Shalit deal] after speaking out against [such deals] for years? Where is the personal security you promised to those living in the Gaza periphery? Why, after dozens of years in the Mossad, in which I was ready to give up my life, have you turned me into a traitor simply because I’m trying to find a solution that will put Israel on a new path?” he charged.
14:27
Comedienne Sarah Silverman pushes Meretz vote
American comedienne Sarah Silverman is urging Israelis to vote for Meretz in the national elections next week.
“Every vote counts. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain,” she writes on Twitter.
14:21
Ex-security officials lambaste Netanyahu
In a widening offensive against the six-year rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a group of former security commanders criticize him for allegedly ruining the bi-lateral ties with the United States, mishandling the summer’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and bungling the country’s approach to the international negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
“You and only you turned the United States from an ally to an enemy,” former Mossad head Shabtai Shavit says of Netanyahu at a Tel Aviv press conference organized by Commanders for Israel’s Security.
He further asserts that Israel’s position regarding the international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program has been “one big mistake,” which has already “caused damage to the State of Israel and I’m sure it will cause difficulties and damage in the future.”
Calling the case “so simple,” he adds that there is a common enemy – Iran – that has brought the world powers together “and we, the smallest superpower among those other powers, we find ourselves outside the game,” which means that rather than “joining forces together to represent the interests of the state from within the coalition that fights the bad guys, we find ourselves fighting against our greatest allies.”
Pushed to widen his critique to recent events, Shavit adds that the killing of Jihad Mughniyeh on the Syrian Golan in January was “stupidity” and that as someone who was well acquainted with Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military commander and father of Jihad, who was assassinated in 2008, “I know the difference between the two of them.”
The father, he says, was “head and shoulders above the rest,” an enemy that had to be taken into account at every turn; “and the son — no.”
The strike that killed Jihad Mughniyeh and an Iranian brigadier-general was reportedly carried out by Israel on January 18 and led to a Hezbollah response that killed two Israeli soldiers 10 days later and could have led to a wider, unwanted conflagration, he said.
Finally, addressing the charge that was voiced against the former commanders that they are no longer in the loop and therefore do not have the information necessary to make informed judgement, Shavit says that “those who say we don’t know are either vicious persons or jerks.”
The former Mossad head is joined onstage by a former senior Shin Bet commander and several former general-rank officers in the IDF.
Brig. Gen. (res) Giora Inbar says “Mr. Netanyahu, speeches without action do not provide security.”
Brig. Gen. Asher Levy, who served in the War of Independence as one of Ariel Sharon’s commanders, says that “the central problem with Netanyahu is that he does not initiate. He is always reacting.”
He charges that this was the case throughout the 50-day war in the summer in Gaza and says “a prime minister must initiate…he does not do that because he is unable to make decisions and that is the problem.”
– Mitch Ginsburg
Most of you who read my comments know by now that I regard democracy with a jaundiced eye. But at this moment in time, democracy is all that the State of Israel has in terms of a working blueprint and operating manual.
I feel profoundly sorry about all that I am reading here. Not that I doubt what you all tell me is true. But something else.
Let us suppose I were a stranger to Israel and perhaps to the Jewish nation as well; and that I had never lived and studied in Israel in one of its universities; and that I had nver personally talked at length for extended periods of time with two of the great modern nationalists of Jewish history, Dr Yisrael Eldad of the Lehi Jewish independence fighters and Rav Meir Kahane of Kach and he Authentic Jewish Idea; and that I had not spent any time at all reading and commenting on posts to Israpundit.
Then suppose I had come across the bitter and terrible recriminations seen in this particular post and its particular comments.
Supposing all the above, I would probably would be impelled to regard Israel as a society weakened by its own contending leadership elites and increasingly threatened by an emboldened ring of enemies determined upon its destruction. I would also have to conclude that the Jewish nation has inner societal contradictions that render it difficult if not impossible for Jews to govern themselves.
Is that the kind of impression all of you wish to make?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ sabashimon:
I agree but how many Israelis know who the hell she is and how many of those who do know of her like her?
She can do neither harm or good advocating Meretz.
“Every vote counts. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain,” she writes on Twitter
Uh huh…..and to this I would say to Sarah, ….and if you don’t live here, STFU.
Iran and hezbullah on Israels Syrian border and this bunch of losers wants Israel to do nothing.
Their solution:
their solution is to rely on the current negotiations which have proven a sham.
good thing they are now gone from their positions and no longer advising Israel into subcontracting its defense to everyone else because they cannot come up with anything.
there should be an investigation as to why Dagan mislead 3 PM’s by advising to rely on the US to negotiate instead of Israel acting unilaterally in its own defense. They are now compounding their original error with more bad advice. They appear to believe that israel should subcontract out its defense to Obama. They appear to have NO SOLUTIONS OTHER THAN RELYING ON THE FOREIGNERS. I was looking for their solutions but could not find any.
Facts like these cannot be replaced by blah blah blah from opportunist politicians pretending to be competent advisors. They are the ones who advised to rely on the US and Obama and put Israel in the position it is in today. I see nothing they said about why their advice should be taken NOW!
Some of the miserable elements descrying others for failures of their own will be brought soon before freely elected courts.
Dagan “served” only to intentionally allow Iran to advance its nuclear program. No one sane would believe that that ensemble did anything but make believe James Bond idiocies to cover asses. I accuse Dagan and most of those chirping now to defend that item of willingly having brought the State to a desperate situation.
I was in the room when Sharon, in another of his ghastly decisions, introduced to us his nominee for the Mosad. Dagan. Spare me the “how dare you’s”. That was from the word go a snake in the grass item. Shifty eyes, uneasy body language. I worked many years with the US D o D Military Avionics Programs, Senior-Fellow Engineer and benefited from training on personnel interviews / screening for sensitive postings. No one outside the scum bucket establishment here would have hired that trotter for anything but cleaning garage floors.
Quite like other of the sheptzialishts in question. “Security” establishment treacherous items all. Focused on assaulting Jews rather than attending to true national security.
Jus’ sayin’