Surprise: Ehud Barak tells biographers Israel canceled plans to attack Iran in 2010, 2011 and 2012
Israel's Channel 2 television obtained recordings of former Defense Minister (and Prime Minister and IDF Chief of Staff) Ehud Barak telling biographers that Israel planned to strike Iran in 2010, 2011 and 2012... and then called off the strikes because someone in the IDF (Gabi Ashkenazi) or the cabinet (Boogie Yaalon, Yuval Steinitz) objected . You can watch a CNN report about the recordings here.
Here in Israel, there is outrage over the report. Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman is accusing Barak of giving away state secrets.
Liberman told Army Radio that he was “more
than surprised” at Barak, and said statements such as those given by the
former minister would ultimately strengthen Iran.
“I think that when moves and discussions that
should have been closely guarded state secrets are discussed by the
press, it relays that you are a talker, that you aren’t serious, that
you’re unreliable,” he said.
“That is why, among other reasons, Iran is
being coddled by the international community, and we have been backed
into a corner… These things should only have been discussed in closed
forums.”
Asked whether he believed Barak was guilty of
revealing state secrets, Liberman responded that he had “no doubt” that
was the case.
And the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is opening an investigation... into how the tapes got out.
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi (Likud) said on Sunday he intends to investigate whether information divulged by former Defense Minister Ehud Barak regarding a possible Iran strike was properly cleared for publication, and if so, why.
...
Speaking to Israel Radio on Sunday, Hanegbi said such publications do not serve Israel's security interests. When asked if Barak harmed Israel's security, Hanegbi refuse to answer, but said that as the head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee he plans to summon officials from the censor's office and hear their explanation.
Barak spoke of the plans in conversations with his biographers, Dani Dor and Ilan Kfir. Excerpts from the recordings were aired on Israel Channel 2’s weekly news magazine on Friday.
Channel 2 said Barak did not want the material released, but the IDF military censor approved the publication.
Caspit: At the end of the day, Netanyahu to blame for failure to attack Iran
If I am to believe Ben Caspit, Binyamin Netanyahu was a gutsy soldier and is a yellow-bellied Prime Minister. Caspit looks at Caroline Glick's confrontation with Meir Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi at the Jerusalem Post conference over the weekend, and argues that the real question is not why Israel did not attack Iran in 2010 (when Dagan was heading the Mossad and Ashkenazi the IDF), but rather why it did not attack in 2012.
This dialogue in New York, about five years after the fact,
reveals just the tip of the iceberg of what was taking place behind
closed doors during those long, tense months in the conference rooms of
Israel’s top defense leadership. All the heads of the various security
forces were unanimous in their opinion that an Israeli attack on Iran
would be a historic mistake that could result in disaster. At the same
time, however, decisions in Israel are made by the political leadership.
The defense establishment is then expected to carry them out without
hesitation. On the other hand, to follow through with a perilous,
strategically historic move such as attacking Iran, any Israeli prime
minister would want the support of his defense leadership, or at least
the chief of staff.
Netanyahu is an overly cautious prime minister with an
aversion to military adventurism, for reasons of personal
political survival. He knew that if something went wrong with the attack
and it then became public that he gave the order despite the
recommendations of all of the professionals in the security services, it
would be the end of his political career. At first, he invested
enormous energy in trying to convince some of the defense chiefs to
adopt his position. The event reported here occurred when he finally
gave up.
The question that the Israeli right should ask Netanyahu is
why he didn’t attack Iran in the summer of 2012. As far as Netanyahu
was concerned, that summer was seemingly the ultimate moment: The heads
of the security forces had left the IDF and were replaced with a new
crop of generals lacking experience, charisma or influence among the
public. At that time, Netanyahu had a weak and anonymous chief of staff
in the person of Benny Gantz, a novice director of the Mossad with Tamir
Pardo, a new chief of military intelligence and a new director of the
Shin Bet on the way. At the same time, the United States was caught up
in a bitter presidential election, in which President Barack Obama was
fighting for his second term. Netanyahu was seemingly free to act. There
was nothing to prevent him from attacking Iran in July, August or
September 2012, but he hesitated and eventually put his dream aside. At
the time, however, there was no one to interfere in any significant way.
So why didn’t he go through with it? First of all, because Netanyahu was afraid. Second, Barak made a sharp, last minute U-turn and switched to the opponents’ side. And there must be other reasons.
So why did Netanyahu back down? What are those 'other reasons'? Here are a couple that might have played a role:
1. The 'most pro-Israel administration evah' made very clear that it would not have Israel's back if Israel attacked Iran. One of the working assumptions to that point was that if Israel went ahead with the attack and found itself endangered in the aftermath, the United States would step in. In August 2012, we were told clearly that was not the case.
2. Those who were 'out of power' were not exactly without influence.
Caroline Glick confronts Meir Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazy over refusal to carry out order to bomb Iran (with video)
JPost columnist Caroline Glick confronted former Mossad Director Meir Dagan and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazy at the newspaper's conference in New York on Sunday, and accused them of refusing to carry out an order to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Let's go to the videotape.
"In 2010, according to a report from 2012 on the Israeli news program
Uvda, we learned that two of the men on this panel were given an order
to prepare a strike against Iran's military installations and they
refused," Glick said.
"Because it was an illegal order," Dagan interjected.
"You were ordered by the security cabinet," Glick said.
"You don't know what happened there," Dagan answered.
"It
is not in your expert legal opinion to determine whether or not the
prime minister of Israel and defense minister of Israel have a right to
order Israel to take action in its national defense. We would not be
where we are today. We would not now be faced with a situation where no
international coalition will be built, where now we are seeing the
United States moving forward at the end of the month to conclude a
nuclear agreement with Tehran that will enable them to acquire the bomb.
We would be in a different position.," Glick charged.
Ashkenazi
said that what Glick was saying was "stupid," later apologizing and
saying he meant "insulting." He rejected the idea that the military
echelon could prevent the political echelon from attacking Iran.
Glick is 1000% correct. Too bad it won't help at all today.
I cannot think of any other country in the West where something like this could happen.
The saddest part about this Caroline Glick column is that most of the world still sees Slimy Shimon Peres as an angel in disguise and not as the sleaze bag he really is. Shimon Peres' legacy is a nuclear-armed Iran.
Peres’s legacy will be Iran’s nuclear arsenal.
For years, many Israelis as well as Israel’s supporters in the US, the
Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf and even the French have been
scratching their heads wondering why Israel hasn’t struck Iran’s nuclear
installations yet. Over the past few months, we received our answer.
The ongoing police investigation into allegedly illegal conduct by
then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has revealed the source
of Israel’s paralysis.
Apparently led by Peres, the triumvirate of security chiefs serving
between 2008 and 2011 – Ashkenazi, then-Mossad director Meir Dagan and
then-Shin Bet director Avi Dichter – colluded to undermine Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and then-defense minister Ehud Barak’s
legal authority to order Israel’s security forces to take action against
Iran.
According to a Haaretz report on Wednesday, between 2008 and 2011, the
four men leaked plans and discussions of possible Israeli strikes on
Iran to the media in order to prevent them from being carried out. The
four men opposed an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations and
stridently rejected any Israeli operation not coordinated with the US.
Ashkenazi and his associates are being investigated by the police for
crimes associated with criminal insubordination to Israel’s elected
leadership. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein ordered the police probe
in January after information unearthed by the media and by the State
Comptroller’s Office raised strong suspicions of a conspiracy led by
Ashkenazi to usurp the powers of the government.
According to media reports of the investigation, the police have
discovered tape recordings of numerous telephone conversations between
Ashkenazi and Peres. According to Channel 1 and Haaretz, Peres’s
attorney requested that Weinstein prohibit the publication of the
details of phone conversations.
Haaretz’s report didn’t specifically state that the conversations in
question related to actions by Peres and the security chiefs to prevent
military operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But the same
day the report appeared, Amir Oren, Haaretz’s senior commentator,
published an article praising Peres for preventing Israel from attacking
Iran.
Oren wrote, “Peres’s involvement in blocking the Iranian adventure
[i.e., a military attack against Iran’s nuclear installations] is… the
most important action he took as president.”
As Amnon Lord wrote last December in Makor Rishon, Peres’s role in the
security chiefs’ conspiracy to prevent Netanyahu and Barak from ordering
a strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was to provide
“pseudo-constitutional and pseudo- moral support” for their unlawful
subversion.
The four men were very likely not acting by themselves. Lord argued
that the Obama administration was a fifth partner in this criminal
conspiracy.
The US was represented in its efforts by the then-chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen. Mullen visited Israel almost every
month during this period and constantly praised Ashkenazi’s leadership
publicly.
As Lord noted, these trips were reciprocated by Ashkenazi and
then-Military Intelligence commander Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin who flew
regularly to Washington.
For the Americans, Lord wrote, the point of cultivating these ties was
“to influence the IDF’s high command and cut it off from the political
leadership of Israel.”
In the case of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as in the case of the
phony peace process, Peres’s motivation, like that of Ashkenazi, Dichter
and Dagan, was clear and crass. He wanted power.
The facts already established by the Ashkenazi et. al. conspiracy
probe reveal that from his earliest days as chief of staff, Ashkenazi
was preparing the ground for a post-IDF run for prime minister. His will
to rule distorted his perception of his place in the chain of command.
Instead of viewing Netanyahu and Barak as his commanders, as the law
stipulates, he saw them as his political rivals, and behaved
accordingly.
As for Peres, he had been searching for a leftist politician who
could defeat Netanyahu. Ashkenazi was his knight in shining armor.
Don't hold your breath on a reconciliation with Turkey
More than a year after President Hussein Obama promised that reconciliation between Israel and Turkey was at hand, and after numerous false starts, the Turks may have brought the reconciliation prospects to an end on Monday. A Turkish court asked Interpol to issue a red notice for the arrest four retired senior IDF officers in connection with the May 2010 Mavi Marmara incident. The four are former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former Navy chief V.-Adm. (res.) Eliezer Marom, ex-Military Intelligence
chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, and former Air Force intel chief
Avishai Levi. On Tuesday morning, Israel reacted the only way it could have reacted, telling Interpol that the arrest request is political. Under Interpol's rules, that should end any prospect that the four will be arrested... by Interpol.
The former Israeli commanders were tried in absentia at the Istanbul 7th Court of Serious Crimes, reported the Hurriyet Daily News,
adding that Turkey’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying “the
judiciary process is ongoing” and “the ruling is being examined by law
experts.”
Interpol statutes state that proceedings related to
political or military affairs are not ones in which Interpol may
intervene, so it is more than likely that they will not put out
international arrest warrants for the four officers.
The move came
after months of negotiations between Turkey and Israel to end a
diplomatic crisis over the commando raid on the Turkish ship challenging
Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, run by Hamas.
Yet another Middle East problem botched by Obama....
Via the Economist, the mainstream of the international community admitted that its campaign against Iran's nuclearization has ended in failure. And via this journal, the school that favors containing a nuclear Iran came out of the closet.
While Israel was busy with light entertainment in the form of political reality shows, The Economist informed it this week that a difficult strategic reality is taking shape around it. What the world promised would never happen is happening at this very moment. What the top ranks of Israel's defense establishment promised would never happen is in fact happening. Iran is becoming a nuclear power, while Israel (which is sunk in summer daydreams ) stands alone.
From 2009 to 2012, a vigorous debate over Iran took place here. On one side were the optimists: President Shimon Peres, then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan, then-Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin, then-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the defense establishment, the media establishment and the refreshing spirit of hoping for the best. On the other side was a gloomy, besmirched pessimist: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
America is there, said the optimists. No, it isn't, said the pessimist. There's a hidden hand, said the optimists. No, there isn't, said the pessimist. There's time, said the optimists. No, there isn't, said the pessimist. Iran's nuclear program must be stopped by the fall of 2012, the pessimist said. It's not Iran's nuclear program that's the problem, but the prime minister, the optimists said.
For three and a half years, the optimists went from one journalist to another and from one American to another and said that the pessimist is a dangerous purveyor of doom and gloom who sees molehills as mountains and doesn't understand that the world won't let Iran go nuclear. For three and a half years, the optimists tied the pessimist's hands on the basis of the threefold promise of America, the hidden hand and time.
But suddenly, this week, along comes The Economist and says that the optimists' absolute promise was a false promise. That it's too late. That the enriched uranium horses have already fled the stables. The international optimists and the Israeli optimists were wrong, big time. Surprise surprise: Benjamin Netanyahu was right.
...
While the optimists were misled by their illusions, the pessimist read reality correctly. While the defense establishment and the media establishment were smitten with weakness and apathy, the pessimist kept sounding alarms. But because neither the sinking West nor partying Israel paid attention to his warnings, the world has entered a new and dangerous strategic reality. Wolf? Wolf? Wolf! A strategic wolf with nuclear teeth is now at the gate.
Perhaps it's still possible to disprove The Economist's situation assessment. Perhaps an immediate, complete diplomatic and economic blockade of Iran could still cause it to suspend its nuclear program in order to preserve its regime. But anyone who wants to refute the prophecy of disaster diplomatically rather than militarily must act immediately. We're out of time. We're really out of time.
Waking up at one minute to midnight will be hard. But waking up at one minute after midnight is liable to be catastrophic.
Meir Dagan should hang by his big toes. He has done more than anyone to prevent Israel from making use of a military option. It doesn't really sound like there's a diplomatic option left.
Two and a half years too late, Harpaz to be indicted
Two and a half years too late, JPost reports that Boaz Harpaz is to be indicted for forging a document that prevented Yoav Galant (pictured above) from being appointed IDF Chief of Staff by then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak. What's more interesting is that Gabi Ashkenazi, who was the outgoing chief of staff at the time, may also be indicted.
Boaz Harpaz forged the Harpaz Document and will be indicted,
according to Ran Nizri, a top aide to Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein,
in statements made to the Knesset Control Committee on Tuesday.
Nizri
said the indictment was mostly prepared already and that the only
reasons for the delay in indicting him two-and-a-half years after the
affair exploded onto the public agenda was to allow the continuing
investigations to be completed and to add all additional leads to the
indictment.
Magistrate Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Danny Efroni reported to the
Committee that he could not give an exact timeline for a decision on
whether he would indict former IDF chief-of-staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi
Ashkenazi and his former top aid Col. (res.) Ezer Viner.
Pressed
by Committee Chairman (Shas) MK Amnon Cohen on whether a decision would
be made within two to four months, Efroni demurred, but said that
investigators would work as hard as they could to come to a decision as
soon as possible.
Ashkenazi and Viner are under investigation for the military law violation of conduct unbecoming during their IDF service.
Benny Gantz was eventually appointed chief of staff.
Caroline Glick reports how former Mossad director Meir Dagan and former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi may be weakening Israel's defenses against Iran.
Since
the beginning of his first term as prime minister 15 years ago,
Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently warned that the greatest dangers
Israel faces stem from the forces of global jihad generally and the
Iranian regime and its nuclear program specifically. After taking office
for the second time in 2009, Netanyahu made blocking Iran’s rise to
nuclear power his top priority. He ordered the heads of the Mossad and
the IDF to prepare plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
Last
Friday, Haaretz reported that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former
IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi refused to obey his
order. Rather than prepare strike plans, Dagan and Ashkenazi warned that
such a strike would foment a regional war. That is, rather than do
their jobs, they made excuses for failing to fulfill their duty to obey
Israel’s elected leadership.
Not wanting to take them on
directly, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to wait them
out. Dagan and Ashkenazi were both set to finish their terms at the
beginning of the year, and Netanyahu and Barak figured they could
replace them with commanders who would abide by the government’s wishes.
Specifically, Barak and Netanyahu believed that by replacing Ashkenazi
with his deputy Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, they would have a military leader
willing and able to take on the central challenge of preventing Iran
from becoming a nuclear power.
Barak announced last August that
Galant would replace Ashkenazi as IDF chief in January. Galant’s
appointment was approved by the government and by the Senior
Appointments Commission. But in late January, the government was forced
to cancel it. And this week we received new indications that Galant’s
appointment fell victim to what has been likened to a palace coup. That
is, the government was denied its right to choose its military leader by
a group of senior officials who deliberately usurped that power from
the government.
In January, we learned that Ashkenazi’s close
associate Lt.-Col. (ret.) Boaz Harpaz had forged a document that was
transferred by Ashkenazi’s office to Channel 2. The forgery purported to
be a memo written for Galant by the public relations firm owned by Eyal
Arad – Kadima’s public relations guru. The forged memo detailed a
public relations campaign that would discredit Galant’s rivals and
Ashkenazi, and so pave the way for Galant’s appointment as chief of
General Staff. Channel 2’s broadcast of the memo seriously harmed
Galant’s public image.
The police opened an investigation, and
Harpaz admitted to forging the document. Despite revelations that Harpaz
was in intensive, continuous contact with Ashkenazi’s wife Ronit and
had a longstanding close friendship with Ashkenazi himself, the Military
Advocate- General decided not to investigate Ashkenazi or any other
officer about their ties to Harpaz and his forged document.
Well, at least they're now (apparently) investigating Ashkenazi. But read the whole thing. Should Weinstein be indicted too?
IDF got off too easily in Comptroller's report on Mavi Marmara
In an article that's behind a paywall, Evelyn Gordon reports on why State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss went too easy on the IDF in his report on the Mavi Marmara incident. This is not the entire article (I got it by email).
Kudos to Minister Without Portfolio Benny Begin for having the guts to speak the truth. The botched raid on a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to Gaza in 2010, he told the Knesset State Control Committee last week, was due first and foremost to poor planning by the Israel Defense Forces.
This isn’t to say that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak don’t richly deserve the coals of fire heaped on their heads by last week’s state comptroller’s report on the flotilla. The first rule of government is “don’t believe everything your generals tell you,” and their failure to heed that rule led directly to the raid’s bloody consequences: nine naval commandos wounded and nine of their Turkish assailants killed.
Nevertheless, the most shocking failure revealed by the report was that of someone whom the media seems largely to have ignored: then-IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
According to the report, Ashkenazi repeatedly warned government officials that the commandos would be met by violence when they boarded, including at a meeting of the “Septet” of senior cabinet ministers five days before the raid. “I think it's an illusion to think that if 20 people descend onto a ship with 400 people aboard they will be met with applause,” he told that meeting. “They will fight them.”
Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor then asked the obvious question: “Do you have enough men?” To which Ashkenazi replied: “There will not be [enough men] in the beginning…gradually there will be.”
In other words, Ashkenazi predicted exactly what ultimately happened: The commandos would board the ship, be attacked, and be badly outnumbered. Such a scenario made it inevitable that some commandos would be wounded or even killed, and also that they would be forced to open fire in self-defense, since only superior weaponry could compensate for their vastly inferior numbers. Yet he still submitted this plan to the cabinet as his operational recommendation.
In short, he knowingly submitted a plan whose only possible outcome was the very disaster that in fact occurred. And despite this, he assured the Septet that everything would be okay: “I want to clarify that it isn't easy but we will do it,” he said. “Gradually there will be” enough men.
Clearly, Ashkenazi’s testimony to the Septet should have sounded warning bells to all the ministers present. By blindly accepting his plan, Netanyahu and Barak were guilty of precisely the same failure that ultimately toppled their respective predecessors, Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz: During the Second Lebanon War, Olmert and Peretz blithely accepted then-Chief of Staff Dan Halutz’s assurances that aerial bombardment alone would defeat Hezbollah, when in reality, it not only failed to keep the organization from launching some 4,000 rockets at Israel and killing 163 Israelis, but also did so little damage that Hezbollah has since tripled its arsenal and taken over all of Lebanon to boot. Then, too, evidence existed that should have made them suspicious of Halutz’s promises: After all, both men were MKs during the 1991 Gulf War, when six weeks of aerial bombardment by the U.S.-led coalition failed so utterly to defeat Saddam Hussein that ground forces finally had to be sent in; why should they have imagined Israel’s far smaller air force could achieve better results?
Nevertheless, the fact remains that most prime ministers aren’t experts in the nitty-gritty of military planning, and shouldn’t have to be: They should be able to rely on the people whose job this actually is – the IDF’s top brass – to present them with feasible options. Halutz’s failure to do so could have been dismissed as an aberration. But when two successive chiefs of staff present the government with such delusional plans for important operations, one can’t help suspecting that the IDF’s problems go far deeper than a single bad commander.
This, however, is precisely why Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss was right to emphasize the importance of building up the National Security Council as a counterweight to the IDF: A prime minister can’t make good decisions if he lacks options to choose among. In this case, because he was offered no other military options, Netanyahu’s choices (once diplomatic efforts had failed) boiled down to either approving the IDF’s delusional plan or letting the ships proceed unmolested, which would effectively have ended the blockade of Gaza. Had a strong NSC with the resources to devise its own operational proposals existed, Netanyahu might have had some better choices.
A Turkish high criminal court has unanimously accepted an indictment seeking life sentences for four former Israeli military commanders over their alleged involvement in the 2010 killing of nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman and the Andalou Agency reported Monday.
The indictment seeks nine counts of aggravated life imprisonment for former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, OC Israel Navy V.-Adm. Eliezer Marom, former Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin and former IAF intelligence head Brig.-Gen. Avishai Levy.
Former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi said Monday that he hoped common sense would prevail, in response to reports that a Turkish high criminal court had unanimously accepted an indictment seeking life sentences for him and three others over the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid. He also expressed hope that Turkey would reestablish diplomatic ties with Israel.
...
"From the beginning of the affair, I appeared before every forum, sometimes on my own, to defend IDF soldiers who performed their job out in the field on behalf of Israel," Ashkenazi said. "If the price of what I did is not being able to visit Turkey - I am willing to pay that price."
Diplomatic sources stressed Wednesday that no official information had been received about an announcement by Turkey that it planned to indict former IDF commanders over the Marmara affair, but said "If it's true, this won't bring us to a good place. We will need to weigh our steps."
"We also have ways to bother them in the international arena. If this is the path they want, we also know what to do. They have plenty of Achilles' heels. We don't want escalation, but if this is the game – we'll play," the sources said.
Last July, Caroline Glick wrote a piece in the JPost that she called the Palace Coup (my blog of it here), in which she explained how a group of senior Israeli officials, led by former Mossad director Meir Dagan and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, thwarted the appointment of Yoav Galant as IDF Chief of Staff. Galant was the choice of both Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu because he favored acting against Iran.
Fast forward nine months. Unsurprisingly, the current IDF Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, tells Haaretz that Iran is not going to develop a nuclear weapon because they are - get this - rational. This is from the New York Times' soon-to-be bureau chief Jodi Rudoren (the last link).
The Israeli military chief described the Iranian government as “rational” in interviews published Wednesday and said he did not believe it would build a nuclear bomb, appearing to put some distance between himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
“I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile,” the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, told the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people,” General Gantz added. “But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous.”
...
Several analysts saw his comments as more in line with the views of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, including the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, than with the harder line taken by the government. They were also seen as parallel to the position of his United States counterpart, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“What he said,” said George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in an Associated Press article, is “consistent with the views of the U.S. military leadership, the U.S. intelligence community. What’s interesting is why he said it out loud.”
Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli expert who lives in Tel Aviv, told The Guardian newspaper that Mr. Gantz’s comments were “a welcome development” that “takes the hysterics out of Israel’s public assessment of the Iranian nuclear program.”
Three points: First, I believe that Ganz is wrong, as do many, many (maybe even most) Israelis.
Second, let's assume for a minute that Ganz is right and Iran does not actually develop a nuclear weapon. Let's say that - like Japan - they go to the edge and stop. Do we really want to live with a nuclear-capable Iran? Most Israelis do not.
Third, looking back on Glick's article, you should all be struck by the importance of the circumstances in which Gantz was appointed. Once again, the branja, the country's wealthy Ashkenazi (no relation to the former IDF chief of staff) elite has imposed their will on the country by force, because they know better than us. When will it stop?
I urge you all to read this important column by Evelyn Gordon to understand that the situation with the Leftist media here in Israel is every bit as bad as it is in the US.
Because this column is behind a paywall and I got it directly by email from Evelyn, I am going to post the whole thing. If any of you would like to get Evelyn's columns directly by email, you can email her at EvieGordon@gmail.com.
The media’s dangerous failure By EVELYN GORDON 12/03/2012
We now know a politicized press fed us false information for years about a vital security issue.
State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss has done the Israeli public a great service. And in so doing, he has highlighted the glaring failure of Israel’s other self-proclaimed watchdog of democracy – the media.
Last week, Lindenstrauss published a draft report on the dysfunctional relationship between two men who headed Israel’s defense establishment for years: Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. The report wasn’t made public, but media leaks reveal that Lindenstrauss didn’t assign blame equally. Barak, he found, sometimes treated Ashkenazi badly (no surprise; his abysmal interpersonal skills are notorious). But it was Ashkenazi whose staff, with his knowledge and consent, actively dug for dirt about Barak. It was Ashkenazi who for months concealed an explosive document from his civilian superiors, despite believing it revealed a genuine effort to subvert the choice of his successor (it later proved a forgery). And it was Ashkenazi who, after the document came to light, was less than candid with both the public and the police about his relationship with suspected forger Boaz Harpaz, an ex-army officer with a checkered past.
It’s obviously deeply disturbing that the chief of staff, who ought to be devoting himself night and day to Israel’s defense, was instead busy digging for dirt about the defense minister. But it’s equally disturbing that if it weren’t for Lindenstrauss, the public would never have known: Years of media reports about our dysfunctional defense duo put all the blame on Barak, portraying Ashkenazi as simon-pure.
Worse, this wasn’t innocent human error: It was a deliberate choice driven by the media’s ideological agenda.
Put bluntly, Israel journalists don’t like either Barak or his boss, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. They loathe Netanyahu for refusing to make far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians; they loathe Barak for joining Netanyahu’s government and then splitting the Labor Party to remain there; and they loathe both men for their hawkish line on Iran. So anyone who opposes Netanyahu and Barak is guaranteed a sympathetic media ear, especially if he portrays himself as being victimized for his “moderate” political views.
And that’s precisely what the politically savvy Ashkenazi did: He told the media Barak hated him because he opposed a rash attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And since this fit neatly into the media’s preconceived narrative, journalists lapped it up and sought no further.
Fortunately, Lindenstrauss did: He interviewed hundreds of people and listened to thousands of hours of tapes from Ashkenazi’s office (where all conversations were routinely recorded). And he concluded that the feud had nothing to do with Iran, and everything to do with Ashkenazi’s personal ambition: his desire to expand his own power and unwillingness to submit to his civilian superior.
This egregious media failure is frightening for several reasons. First, Ashkenazi’s political ambitions were no secret. And if it weren’t for Lindenstrauss, he might well have swept into office in another few years on a wave of media adulation. Out of sheer ignorance, Israelis might have elected a power-hungry officer who disdains civilian control over the military and wastes his time and energy on the lowest form of petty politicking.
Second, it precluded any real investigation of the IDF’s capabilities: Having adopted Ashkenazi as its white knight, the media could hardly risk undermining his image by seriously examining his job performance. Hence, for instance, we were assured that he had “rehabilitated” the army after the Second Lebanon War, without any real evidence: Its 2009 success against Hamas in Gaza says nothing about its ability to defeat Hezbollah, a far tougher foe.
Third, the media’s bias condemned Israel to years of an incredibly dangerous situation – one in which its two top defense officials were barely on speaking terms – by depriving Barak of the usual democratic remedy: He couldn’t simply fire Ashkenazi and appoint a new chief of staff, because the media would have crucified him. In other democracies, firing insubordinate officers is standard practice: See, for instance, US President Barack Obama’s dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2010. But by portraying Ashkenazi as a saint rather than the insubordinate officer he was, the media made his dismissal politically untenable, even if it were legally possible (an open question, given the Supreme Court’s 1996 ruling that “apolitical” civil servants can’t be fired without good reason: Who knows whether the court, absent Lindenstrauss’ findings, would have deemed the dysfunctional Barak-Ashkenazi relationship sufficient reason?).
And finally, it raises a deeply disturbing question: What else are we not being informed of due to the media’s ideological bias?
In an unwittingly revealing op-ed last week, Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit wrote that Ashkenazi considered his insubordination legitimate because he was “subordinate to four elected officials that the public considered illegitimate – prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu, and defense ministers Amir Peretz and Barak.” I have no idea whether Ashkenazi actually thought this. But Shavit clearly does, and so do many of his colleagues.
Yet with regard to Netanyahu (unlike Olmert and Peretz, who indeed hemorrhaged public support after the Second Lebanon War), this assertion is simply untenable. Not only was he elected prime minister in the legally prescribed manner (by assembling a coalition), but almost every poll taken over the last three years has shown that he will also likely form the next government, and that the public continues to deem him better qualified to run the country than any of his rivals. So on what grounds does Shavit conclude that the public considers Netanyahu “illegitimate”?
There’s only one possible answer: What Shavit means is that the media considers Netanyahu illegitimate. It dislikes his positions and doesn’t want him as premier. And therefore, all’s fair in the effort to undermine his government – even undermining Israel’s security by idolizing an insubordinate officer consumed with petty politics, and thereby precluding his dismissal.
As long as this remains true, the public has no hope of getting honest information from the media about any government action, any more than it did on the Barak-Ashkenazi feud. That’s a devastating indictment of Israel’s media – and far more dangerous to the country’s long-term health than any spat at the top of the defense establishment.
Israel's cabinet ministers tend to know a little bit about everything. Yuval Steinitz, who is Israel's Finance Minister, is no exception. He has a PhD in Philosophy and was Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. I say that as an introduction: Don't treat his comments about Iran's potential nuclear weapons capabilities as coming from some sort of Ben Bernake lite.
Steinitz told CNBC on Wednesday morning that Iran could potentially have intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the East Coast of the United States within 2-3 years.
Let's go to the videotape.
I guess that 2-3 year timeline assumes that Obama is reelected. I would hope that if a Republican wins, Iran would at least be stopped from developing ICBM's.
Ron Paul has made a couple of clever comments that give the (false) impression that Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi agree with Paul on Iran. Shmuel Rosner explains.
2.
On caucus day, Senator Rand Paul made references both on TV (CNN, Wolf Blitzer) and in other interviews to some notable Israelis. He named both the head of Mossad Tamir Pardo, and the former IDF Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi.
One should wonder: Why would a Senator from Kentucky remember the names of high ranking Israeli officials? There’s a reason: In Paul’s book, Pardo and Ashkenazi are ideological allies in his quest to prove that Iran isn’t as big a threat as some Americans claim it to be. That is why statements such as the one Pardo made a couple of days ago are so tricky. What he said is this: “What is the significance of the term ‘existential? If you said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an ‘existential’ threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop. That’s not the situation. The term is used too freely.” Ashkenazi is also reportedly one of the more moderate voices on Iran, and opposes military confrontation. But he has also said, many times, that “The best course of action is to go with sanctions”, a course that as far as I know is not one Paul would be advocating for.
Paul’s use of Pardo and Ashkenazi was not a fluke or sudden revelation, but rather one of the tactics chosen by the Paul team as a way of proving that Paul’s position regarding Iran is not as extreme and problematic as his opponents would want it to seem. It is quite ironic, though, that the candidate seen as least supportive of Israel is now utilizing those arch-Israelis to make his position more valid.
3.
Evoking such luminaries of security and defense plays well into the story the Paul campaign rightly raises in every opportunity: Paul has support from American military men and women more than any other candidate. But just to make sure we’re all on the same page, I must say this: Paul’s usage of Pardo’s and Ashkenazi’s position is misleading. Both think that Iran is dangerous. Both think it is not just dangerous to Israel but to the region and to the world. Even if they oppose a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, what they oppose is an Israeli attack – and would probably have a different view if asked about the possibility of an American attack.
I'm sure they would. Perhaps it's time for Romney, Santorum and Gingrich to call Paul on it.
If you read the previous post, you already know that I spent Sunday at an amusement/water park with Mrs. Carl and the six youngest kids. For the record, that basically means that I was the driver and the custodian of our 'stuff.' There was one ride - maybe two - in the whole place that was suitable for adults. And neither Mrs. Carl nor I were going on it. Mrs. Carl went swimming with the two daughters, but I delegated taking the three little boys swimming to son # 2 (age 23). I thought it would be too cool for swimming and didn't particularly feel like going. No matter. In a closed amusement park in Israel, even the 7-year old was allowed to run around by himself. The lost children announcements all dealt with 2 and 3-year olds (really!).
In any event, because I was limited to Twitter on Sunday, I almost missed an important article in Haaretz which was blogged by Jonathan Tobin (those who read my Twitter feed may have seen this retweeted already - hint, hint). I have written many times on this blog that the rumor here in Israel was that the IDF never tried to rescue Gilad Shalit because his family was staunchly opposed to any rescue attempt fearing what happened to Nachshon Wachsman HY"D (May God Avenge his blood). Actually, as Tobin points out, it's worse than that. The IDF totally abdicated responsibility - and ought to have to answer for it.
But an article in today’s Haaretz offers at least a partial answer to a question many friends of Israel have been wondering about in the days since the announcement of the deal with Hamas to free Gilad Shalit: Why was the Israel Defense Forces unable to rescue him at any point during his more than five years of captivity?
According to Ronen Cohen, a recently retired colonel in Israel’s military intelligence, “The IDF never took responsibility for the soldier and did not even set up a team to deal with bringing him back. They simply passed it on to the Shin Bet [security service].”
Cohen said the IDF had “partial intelligence” about Shalit at one point but that this information ceased to be relevant in December 2008 when Operation Cast Lead — Israel’s counter-attack against Palestinian missile fire from Gaza — took place.
It should be specified that cracking Hamas’ Gaza stronghold is a challenge that would daunt any military strategist. The densely packed area is a warren of refugee housing that provides a plethora of places to hide weapons, personnel and captives. It is entirely possible if not likely any rescue operation would have resulted in Shalit’s death as well as the deaths of many of the soldiers sent to rescue him.
Nevertheless, the fact that the IDF never set up a unit or operational group specifically tasked with the Shalit problem is troubling. Perhaps the chain of command mandated that, as Cohen says, once Shalit was kidnapped he became the responsibility of the intelligence services. But the result of this failure to prepare or work on this critical situation was made clear when, as Cohen also points out, Israel failed to take advantage of the chaos in Gaza during Cast Lead to try to rescue Shalit.
Read the whole thing. The IDF would undoubtedly defend itself by placing the blame on the two previous chiefs of staff - Dan Halutz (2006-08) and Gabi Ashkenazi (2008-11). But that's not an answer. Did the IDF reevaluate the standing orders regarding Shalit when Halutz resigned? When Ashkenazi wasn't reappointed? If not, why not?
In a post which is behind the JPost paywall, but which I received by email in full, Evelyn Gordon wonders whether the government controls the IDF anymore.
Ironically, the one officer who evidently did take the Sinai threat seriously was the man the government wanted as chief of staff: Yoav Galant. According to the Haaretz report, the last significant boost in the IDF’s deployment along the southern border occurred four years ago, when Galant, as GOC Southern Command, allocated more resources to this border from within his own command.
There’s obviously no guarantee that Galant would have beefed up the border further had his appointment gone through. Nor would an increased troop presence necessarily have prevented the negative outcome of the Eilat attacks: the loss of both Israeli and Egyptian lives and the consequent diplomatic crisis with Egypt. But war with Egypt would clearly be disastrous, and it ought to be equally clear, as I wrote both in May and last week, that enough such border incidents could eventually spark one. Hence trying to prevent such incidents should be top priority.
And as it turns out, the government actually did try: It decided over a year ago to boost deployment along the southern border, and it chose a new chief of staff who took the Sinai problem seriously.
But a coterie of unelected officials thwarted its efforts. Two successive chiefs of staff reportedly ignored its deployment order, while the state comptroller, attorney general and Supreme Court joined forces to nix its preferred choice to succeed Ashkenazi – and did so, incidentally, over alleged offenses far less serious than rank insubordination. That left the government scrambling for a last-minute replacement whom the legal mandarins would deem acceptable. And on this score, Gantz qualified.
The outcome obviously raises serious questions about Israel’s security. But it raises even more serious questions about Israel’s democracy. No country can call itself a democracy if its military is not subordinate to the elected civilian government. But in Israel, it turns out, the elected government has no control over the army: It can neither force a recalcitrant chief of staff to do its bidding nor replace him with a successor of its own choosing.
So is Israel in fact still a democracy? Or is it governed by an unelected junta of legal and military officials hiding behind the façade of democratic government? It’s hard to say precisely where the tipping point lies, but the trend is clear: For far too long, the unelected officials have been expanding their power at the expense of the elected ones. And unless the elected government starts fighting back, Israel can kiss its democracy good-bye.
Actually, it would probably be fairer to say that the Supreme Court controls the IDF given the court's continuing insistence on interfering with the IDF's operational decisions (like the 'security fence' route).
Caroline Glick reports how former Mossad director Meir Dagan and former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi may be weakening Israel's defenses against Iran.
Since the beginning of his first term as prime minister 15 years ago, Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently warned that the greatest dangers Israel faces stem from the forces of global jihad generally and the Iranian regime and its nuclear program specifically. After taking office for the second time in 2009, Netanyahu made blocking Iran’s rise to nuclear power his top priority. He ordered the heads of the Mossad and the IDF to prepare plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
Last Friday, Haaretz reported that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi refused to obey his order. Rather than prepare strike plans, Dagan and Ashkenazi warned that such a strike would foment a regional war. That is, rather than do their jobs, they made excuses for failing to fulfill their duty to obey Israel’s elected leadership.
Not wanting to take them on directly, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to wait them out. Dagan and Ashkenazi were both set to finish their terms at the beginning of the year, and Netanyahu and Barak figured they could replace them with commanders who would abide by the government’s wishes. Specifically, Barak and Netanyahu believed that by replacing Ashkenazi with his deputy Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, they would have a military leader willing and able to take on the central challenge of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Barak announced last August that Galant would replace Ashkenazi as IDF chief in January. Galant’s appointment was approved by the government and by the Senior Appointments Commission. But in late January, the government was forced to cancel it. And this week we received new indications that Galant’s appointment fell victim to what has been likened to a palace coup. That is, the government was denied its right to choose its military leader by a group of senior officials who deliberately usurped that power from the government.
In January, we learned that Ashkenazi’s close associate Lt.-Col. (ret.) Boaz Harpaz had forged a document that was transferred by Ashkenazi’s office to Channel 2. The forgery purported to be a memo written for Galant by the public relations firm owned by Eyal Arad – Kadima’s public relations guru. The forged memo detailed a public relations campaign that would discredit Galant’s rivals and Ashkenazi, and so pave the way for Galant’s appointment as chief of General Staff. Channel 2’s broadcast of the memo seriously harmed Galant’s public image.
The police opened an investigation, and Harpaz admitted to forging the document. Despite revelations that Harpaz was in intensive, continuous contact with Ashkenazi’s wife Ronit and had a longstanding close friendship with Ashkenazi himself, the Military Advocate- General decided not to investigate Ashkenazi or any other officer about their ties to Harpaz and his forged document.
Over the weekend, Yediot Aharonot reported that last week Harpaz underwent two lengthy interrogations by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss. Harpaz is reportedly divulging information about his connections to Ashkenazi.
Despite Harpaz’s own admission that he forged the document, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein has abstained, to date, from indicting him. Although jarring, Weinstein’s actions are not surprising. It was Weinstein who personally overturned Galant’s appointment in January.
Harpaz’s defamatory memo wasn’t the only thing working against Galant’s appointment. A previously unknown environmental group called the Green Movement filed a petition with the Supreme Court calling for the cancellation of Galant’s appointment because in the past he had used the state lands around his family homestead in Moshav Amikam without permission. Since his actions were administrative infractions rather than criminal acts, the Senior Appointments Commission concluded that he was fit to serve as chief of staff.
Weinstein felt differently. Claiming that he had ethical problems with Galant’s behavior, Weinstein refused to defend the appointment to the Supreme Court. Weinstein’s announcement forced the government to cancel Galant’s appointment.
Ashkenazi’s chosen successor,Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz, whom Barak had previously eliminated from the running, was appointed instead.
Perhaps due to fear that Gantz might not stand up to Netanyahu and Barak as he and Ashkenazi did, Dagan shocked the country last month by launching an unprecedented public attack against Netanyahu and Barak. His clear aim was to discredit the option of an Israeli military strike against Iran.
According to Haaretz, Dagan was motivated by his desire to cover up his failure to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Also according to Haaretz, Ashkenazi, together with recently retired IDF intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, supported Dagan’s attacks through off-record briefings.
The government informed the Turkel Committee on Sunday that it wishes to name Benny Gantz to be the next IDF Chief of Staff. The government hopes to have the appointment approved by the committee next week and by the cabinet next Sunday. Gantz would then take over immediately after Gabi Ashkenazi's retirement.
Yoav Galant, whose appointment as Ashkenazi's successor was officially canceled at Sunday's cabinet meeting, appealed to the Supreme Court and lost on Sunday.
So it looks like Benny Gantz will be the next IDF Chief of Staff.
In an earlier post, I reported that Israel may not have an IDF Chief of Staff on February 14 when current Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi is scheduled to resign.
And in Israel, the IDF may not have a Chief of Staff in two weeks, because Defense Minister Barak's candidate for the position has been accused of perjury.
Israel Radio is now reporting that the Attorney General will inform the government on Tuesday that he refuses to defend Galant's appointment from a High Court of Justice challenge.
Prime Minister Netanyahu will now have to decide whether to hand the issue back to the Turkel Committee, which examines senior civil service appointments.
Weinstein made the decision several hours before the deadline set by the High Court to respond to a petition aimed at preventing the appointment. According to the petition, which sparked a public row in recent weeks, Galant allegedly seized state lands and annexed them to his home in Moshav Amikam.
A new appointment would require starting the entire process over and could not be completed by February 14. Defense Minister Ehud Barak and current Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi are not on speaking terms, making it unlikely that Ashkenazi would agree to extend his term for another candidate to be found. Another possibility is for the government to hire a private attorney to defend Galant. Or we have no Chief of Staff in 13 days.
If you're an Israeli, or even if you're not, the latest release from Wikileaks ought to help you sleep well tonight. According to (soon to be former) IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Iran could attack Israel within ten to twelve minutes. But Ashkenazi fears Hamas and Hezbullah more.
IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that Iran has over 300 missiles that could reach Israel within 10-12 minutes, according to cables released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.
During a November 15, 2009 meeting with a US Congress delegation led by Ike Skelton (D-MO), Ashkenazi added that that Israel was prepared for a major war against Hamas.
"I'm preparing the Israeli army in a major war, since it is easier to scale down to a smaller operation than to do the opposite," he said.
Ashkenazi told the delegation that "rocket threat against Israel is more serious than ever. Therefore, Israel has a strong emphasis on missile defense."
He added that although the Iranian threat is serious, the threat from Hamas and Hizbullah, which are funded by Iran, is most acute. Their rockets are more accurate than Iran's, due to their proximity to Israel.
"We therefore believe," Ashkenazi said, "that the next war will take place in the same areas where the previous wars occurred," Lebanon and Gaza.
According to the cables, Ashkenazi said that Hizbullah has over 40,000 rockets, most of which can reach any point within Israel, and Hamas has the ability to strike Tel Aviv.
Disruption of daily life in Tel Aviv is a major goal of Hizbullah and Hamas, and their weapons stockpiles indicated to the IDF that they are aiming for a lengthy conflict with Israel in which they plan to send a "massive number" of rockets into Israel daily.
The chief of staff explained that anti-missile defense systems can not cover the whole country; therefore the IDF sends out drones over Lebanon to "identify potential targets," he said. "So far, the drones have been a success."
And then there's this little tidbit:
In a related cable, from September 2009, Maj.- Gen. Yoav Galant told Senator Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY) that had the IDF enterted main urban areas in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead would have lasted three days, not three weeks.
Well, then we should have entered the main urban areas and totally destroyed Hamas. But given that Olmert, Barak and Livni were in charge at the time, it's not surprising that we had such a weak response.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
