by Dan Margalit
Wise men have coined
the chauvinistic Hebrew adage "everyone knows why the bride is getting
married." By the same token, everyone knows why politicians whisper into
journalists' ears, and in both instances, it would be uncouth to say
the answer explicitly. Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak should have
known that when he allowed his biographers Danny Dor and Ilan Kfir, who
added new chapters to their 15-year-old biography of Barak, to record
their conversations. By allowing this little convenience, Barak in
essence shot himself in the foot. The biographers handed the tapes over
to Channel 2 reporter Roni Daniel -- the same reporter who, together
with colleague Amnon Abramovich, first broke the falsified Harpaz
document.
Barak did not reveal
any security secrets in the tape broadcast on Channel 2 this weekend. In
addition, all the material [has] been reported in the past. But when these
things are heard being said by Barak himself -- confirming former IDF
Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi's claim that he opposed an Israeli strike
on Iran, and more importantly asserting that then-Strategic Affairs
Minister Moshe Ya'alon and then-Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz
supported the plan to strike Iran but then retracted their support -- it
creates quite a bit of embarrassment. Even though everyone knows these
things, as they have all been leaked before, when they are explicitly
uttered by the defense minister at the time it feels like a breach of
confidence.
Did Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Barak truly plan to attack Iran's nuclear
facilities? I always believed, and still do (though new questions have
arisen in my mind since Friday), that Netanyahu's and Barak's intention
was to create nothing more than a credible military threat. The
impression of the threat alone was enough to achieve far-reaching
diplomatic successes -- the world (fearing an Iranian bomb) imposed
economic sanctions on the ayatollahs, partially to prevent Israel from
striking. In my opinion, that was the best course of action, but Barak
denied that this was the strategy. According to him, it was not a façade
– Israel really planned to strike.
If they really, truly
meant to strike, they could have imposed their will on the cabinet. The
opponents of an Iran strike -- one IDF chief of staff (Ashkenazi) who
said that it was impossible, and his successor, Benny Gantz, who said
that it was indeed possible but that it would be a bad idea -- were
joined by then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan, whose opinion was relevant to
the debate, and then-Shin Bet security agency chief Yuval Diskin, whose
organization had nothing to do with the debate.
If we look back at
history, in 1981, when then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin (who was also
serving as the defense minister at the time) decided to strike the
nuclear reactor in Iraq he managed to overcome all opposition to the
move, including by then-Mossad chief Yitzhak Hofi, then-Military
Intelligence chief Yehoshua Saguy and then-Israeli Atomic Energy
Commission Director General Uzi Eilam. He overcame the opposition of
former defense ministers and managed to recruit a decisive majority in
favor of the strike.
Now we are left with
the question of whether Netanyahu and Barak were actually determined to
strike Iran or just using the military threat to effect an economic
siege on Iran, without which the ayatollahs would have never agreed to
negotiate curbing their nuclear program.
The other main question raised by
the Barak tapes is: Who was right? Now that the nuclear agreement
between Iran and Western powers has been signed, if it is implemented as
it is written then the opponents of the Israeli strike will have been
right, but if, in time, it turns out that the Iranians deceived the
world, many millions will think back fondly, with regret, on Netanyahu's
and Barak's strike plans. There is nothing we can do but wait for
history to make its ruling.
Dan Margalit
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13559
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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