Israel Matzav: Mofaz undercutting Netanyahu on Iran?

Monday, July 02, 2012

Mofaz undercutting Netanyahu on Iran?

When Prime Minister Netanyahu took Kadima into his coalition, most pundits thought that one of the main purposes was to create national unity for an attack on Iran. That hasn't worked out very well. It seems that Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz is undermining Netanyahu in Washington (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

But instead Mofaz has publicly contradicted the whole thrust of Netanyahu’s strategy by downgrading the threat from Iran and suggesting that a peace settlement with the Palestinians is actually more important.

The role of Mofaz in suggesting a more moderate Israeli policy line on Iran is at least in part the result of more senior Israeli national security figures speaking out publicly against the Netayahu threat of war on Iran, according to Yossi Alpher, a former head of the Jaffee Center for Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and a special adviser to then prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000.

In April, both former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin and the present Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) chief of staff joined former Mossad chief Meir Dagan in contradicting the official Israeli position that Iran was bent on obtaining nuclear weapons.

Alpher believes that the decision to bring Mofaz into the government reflects a policy adjustment by Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak to the views of the Israeli national security elite.

Alpher told IPS in an interview he believes the criticism by those senior military and intelligence officials of Netayahu’s Iran policy had “reached a critical mass”.

“At some point it registered with Netanyahu and Barak,” said Alpher.

Netanyahu and Barak wanted to show the national security chiefs that they were being listened to by bringing someone who reflects their views into the leadership circle, Alpher said.

The result of that decision may be a much deeper shift in policy toward Iran than Netanyahu and Barak wish to acknowledge.

Ever since late 2011, the impression of a heightened threat of an Israeli attack on Iran has been central to the crisis atmosphere over the issue. It has been the premise on which Israel has tried to reduce progressively Obama’s freedom of action on Iran with the ultimate objective of maximising the likelihood of an eventual U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear sites.

The strategy of pressure on Obama was to be carried out through a combination of Israeli demands regarding U.S. diplomatic positions on Iran’s nuclear programme and pressure from the U.S. Congress at the prompting of the right-wing pro-Israel lobby organisation AIPAC, which operates in close consultation with the Likud government.

The tandem of Israeli and Congressional targets of AIPAC would push for U.S. demands in the negotiations with Iran that would ensure their failure.

Netanyahu would then seek to force a shift in Obama’s red line on the Iranian nuclear programme from evidence of intent to build nuclear weapons to evidence of determination to maintain a weapons nuclear capability. Allies of Netanyahu have suggested that the pressure on Obama to adopt a new red line would peak during the 2012 presidential election campaign.

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But as the third round talks with Iran were ending in Moscow, Mofaz, who was in Washington to consult with U.S. officials on the Palestinian issue, departed publicly and dramatically from Netanyahu’s policy on Iran.

In a speech at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy Jun. 19, Mofaz startled the audience by suggesting that the greatest threat to Israel did not come from Iran, as Netanyahu has insisted since becoming prime minister, but from its conflict with the Palestinians. Referring to the Palestinian issue – not the Iranian nuclear programme – Mofaz warned, “Time is not in favour of Israel” and added, “This year – next year – we have to decide.”

Mofaz sounded more like the Obama administration than the Netanyahu government on the question of an Israeli military option. “We should ask ourselves how much we would delay the Iran programme – for how many months, for many years,” he said, “and what will happen in our region on the day after.”

Even more significant, however, was his comment on the “time limit” on tolerance of Iran’s nuclear programme as being when “the Iranian leader will take the last step to having a bomb.” Mofaz thus appeared to align himself with Obama’s red line rather than the Netanyahu and Barak position, which is that Iran must not be allowed to have much more of its enrichment capabilities in an underground site protected from an Israeli strike.

On Sunday night, Israel Radio reported that Kadima is threatening to withdraw from the government over drafting Haredim. A Likud minister commented that they don't need Kadima and didn't bring them into the government so that they could start issuing threats to withdraw. Kadima has no ministers other than Mofaz, and therefore Netanyahu has very little hold over most of the party if push comes to shove in a Knesset vote. I believe he should let them go. They are more trouble than they are worth.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Kadima, Shaul Mofaz