Israel Matzav

Uzi Dayan: 'Obama is wrong about Iran'

In the comments to my lengthy diatribe Sunday about the 'Jewish Council on Education and Research's 'Israeli Generals Speak,' reader Democaster asked whether there would be a response from the other side. On Monday morning, there are responses from some of the participants in the video, and at least one of them - Uzi Dayan - claims that he had no desire to get involved in the US election campaign. In other words, Dayan is claiming he was tricked.

"It wasn't about the campaign, it was about the political and security issues of the Middle East that the next president should be involved in," former deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan told the Jerusalem Post.. "Nothing was said about Obama or [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain."

"I don't want other people to interfere in my elections, and I must not interfere with the elections in the United States," he said, adding that to do so would be neither "ethical nor smart."

Now before any of you run off and say, "sure, Dayan is covering himself because he has thrown his lot in with Netanyahu, and if - God forbid - Obama is elected it's highly unlikely that an Obama administration would support Netanyahu against Barak or Livni," please hear the rest of what Dayan has to say.

In the video, the senior Israeli officials appear to support Obama's stated policy that dialogue with Iran would be the best way of confronting the current nuclear crisis. Dayan said that his position is just the opposite.

"I don't think that we - either the United States or Israel - should be engaged with Iran, because the Iranians will take advantage of that," the former deputy chief of staff said. "Our issue is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability."

"We need more powerful, effective sanctions to delegitimize [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad," he continued. "A military option should be prepared, but used only as a last resort."

This is especially significant because, as I noted in the earlier post, Dayan is the only one interviewed with ties to a party on the right of the political spectrum, and it was Dayan who allowed the video's makers to claim that the generals interviewed were from "across the political spectrum."

Two other retired generals who were interviewed - Amram Mitzna and Giora Inbar (who is also now apparently a US citizen since he said he would vote for Obama), stood by the comments, although they too admit that they had no idea why they were being filmed. The rest of the JPost article I linked above is a rehash of yesterday's JPost article about the video.

For those who have not yet seen the video, please go here.

I stand by what I said in the earlier post: JCER is a fraud.

UPDATE 2:26 PM

JPost has added the following reaction to their article:

Revised Films, the independent film company that produced the clip, issued the following response:

"Our firm is an independent company that created a clip that was composed of interviews with senior Israeli security officials, and whose subject was the American policy regarding Israel, in light of the upcoming elections in the United States, while focusing on the two central candidates for president, and Barack Obama.

"The Obama campaign was not involved during any stage of the production, or [the film's] distribution. After the film was completed, the Jewish Council for Education & Research, took charge of the film and used it."

A response by The Jewish Council for Education & Research has yet to be obtained due to the time differential between Israel and the US.

Revised Films is apparently located in Vancouver, B.C. Hmmm.

UPDATE 4:27 PM

Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy now says he was misled as well:

Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, who appeared in the video praising the Democratic candidate, also said that he was misled.

"I was interviewed for a documentary dealing with what issues the new American president must deal with regarding the Middle East," Halevy told the Post. "I was asked about the candidates, and was complimentary to both."

But when asked about his opinion on who was more qualified to be president, Halevy said that he had rejected the question.

"I said that I thought it was inappropriate for an Israeli to advise Americans on who they should vote for, as it would be for them to advise Israelis on who they should vote for prime minister," he said.

Halevy added that it would be irresponsible to comment on the positions of any US presidential candidates before an election, as those positions may change once the new president takes office.

Both Halevy and Dayan said that representatives of the Jewish Council for Education & Research had been in contact with them, and promised to deal with the matter.

The Post says that as of this writing there's still no response from JCER. JCER is located in New York where it's now nearly 10:30. I guess the boys sleep late. Heh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:03 AM