In a rare joint television interview, five former Israel Defense Forces chiefs spoke of their decades-long efforts to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, with several of them saying they believed a break in the spirit of internal social team posed a greater risk to Israel than to Iran. become a nuclear threshold state.
The five— Ehud Barak, Moshe Ya’alon, Gabi Ashkenazi, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot — spoke to the Twelfth Channel earlier in the week while attending the opening of a library committed to the legacy of Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
In the interview aired Friday, the generals, who represent five of the seven surviving former army leaders, were first asked about their considerations on the emerging nuclear deal the United States and other global powers appear to sign with Iran.
Gantz, who is recently defense minister and traveled to the United States on Thursday to make Israel’s objections to the deal more explicit, said Israel would get it, even if the deal, which he called “full of holes,” is signed.
“So I believe that the other people of Israel will prosper and the State of Israel will still be here, and we will be the most powerful [country in the region]. And even if there is a deal, it is not the end of the story and we will know how to get an “advantage” of everything if necessary. We will protect ourselves and act in our interest no matter what,” Gantz said.
Asked if they still believed the slogan that Iran would never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon, Gantz responded again, saying the United States had promised to use force as a last hotel to prevent Tehran from obtaining the bomb.
“I had the opportunity to speak with the president of the United States. UU. recientemente. Se asked if he would use force and answered as a last resort, but yes. And Americans, as leaders of the Western world, deserve to have an interaction on this issue. , not because it is a challenge to the State of Israel. This is not our non-public challenge. As world leaders, they are committed to him and I hope they will keep their words,” Gantz said.
Asked if Israel had the means to attack and prevent Iran’s nuclear program, Eisenkot said Israel’s continued activity over the past 25 years had prevented Iran from reaching nuclear weapons capability so far.
“We’ve all been dealing with the Iranian factor and its desire, its vision to put the bomb for 20 or 30 years, in its own role,” Eisenkot said.
“If Iran doesn’t have a military nuclear capability, it’s only thanks to the mirrored image of 25 years ago and a lot of action. The Israeli military, political, covert and diplomatic operations : this is what has prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability. capacity.
“There is no debate about the purpose, to save an Iranian nuclear capability, because that would adjust the strategic balance in the Middle East in a very serious way. I think everyone is in it. An intelligent agreement is a way, a covert activity is a path, an external activity is a path and here you have to communicate little and do a lot,” he said.
Barak asked if Israel made a mistake by not attacking Iran while he was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense minister.
Barak has said abroad that Netanyahu tried to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2010 and 2011, but was prevented from doing so, first through his Ashkenazi cabinet leader and then through his ministerial colleagues, including Ya’alon.
Barak supported a strike at the time.
Barak noted that there was no internal agreement in Israel at the time, saying it was to know now how things would have gone if Israel had attacked.
However, Barak said a major failure was the fact that Israel and the U. S. UU. no had put in place a plan to deal with Iran after the U. S. USA President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the original Iran nuclear deal.
“One of the historic messes of 2018 is that when Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, with strong support from Jerusalem, Israel and the United States deserve to have prepared, together or in a coordinated manner, at least two ‘Plan Bs. ”what to do with the Iranians,'” Barak said.
“The absence of such a plan is a historic failure, and at this backward level when Iran is almost a de facto threshold state, it would possibly be a de facto threshold state right now and we don’t know, in this reality, it’s hard to see what action will sustain them for several years,” Barak said.
However, Barak echoed Gantz’s sentiments that while Israel continues to do everything it can to prevent Iran, Israel could deal with Tehran if it had become a nuclear threshold state.
“Israel is not going to disintegrate or collapse, nothing dramatic is going to happen to us, even if the worst of all is iran becoming a nuclear threshold state,” Barak said.
Ya’alon agreed, noting that he believes the greatest risk to Israel comes from within.
“I say that in the face of the Iranian risk we will know what to do. There has been no existential risk opposed to the State of Israel for years. There is an internal existential risk,” Ya’alon said.
Eisenkot and Barak agreed with him, and Gantz and Ashkenazi disagreed.
“What puts the State of Israel in the greatest threat to me is the lack of solidarity in Israeli society,” said Eisenkot, who recently announced that he will enter politics and join Gantz’s party.
“Oui. Je that the national and social resilience of the State of Israel is the key detail of our ability to protect national security,” Eisenkot said.
Barak said there is broad agreement on the matter among Israel’s former security officials.
“I think all the living chiefs of staff, almost all the living leaders of the Mossad and all the living leaders of the Shin Bet would agree on this. I mean, everyone who is worried or who is at the head of the security apparatus today understands that there is a more serious risk to the long term of the State of Israel than that of Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas,” Barak said.
“This threat is what is happening inside us: the threat of wasting internal cohesion, internal solidarity and falling into a scenario with fanatics in one aspect and those who lose religion in Zionism in the other,” Barak said.
The verbal exchange also had political overtones, with all five interviewees expressing political opposition to Netanyahu in years and two actively campaigning against him in the upcoming November elections.
They were asked directly about it, and the interviewer said: “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: seven [former] chiefs are alive, five of them here. [The exceptions were Shaul Mofaz and Dan Halutz. ] he worked with Netanyahu and none of you will vote for him.
“I recommend that in a verbal exchange about Ben-Gurion, we are not also talking about Netanyahu. This lessens the issue of verbal exchange,” Barak said, and Ashkenazi expressed his agreement.
“It would go up that the leaders of the Shin Bet and Mossad, for example, will not [vote for him] either,” Ya’alon said.
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