NOVANEWS
The dilemma facing I$raHell is whether to continue to clash publicly with the U.S. or try to rehabilitate relations, influence the quality of supervision at the nuclear sites,and help craft a final agreement.
Haaretz
Amid the cries of woe echoing from the cabinet since Sunday, we could have expected the former intelligence chiefs to join the government’s battle to convince the world of the dangers of the Geneva agreement. But that didn’t happen.
“When I heard the reactions in Jerusalem, I mistakenly thought for a moment that Iran had begun to develop a nuclear warhead,” said former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin. His predecessor, Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, warned about the expected damage from the increasingly bitter rift between Israel and the United States.
Yadlin and Ze’evi aren’t Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, the former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service, who openly opposed an independent Israeli attack on Iran and launched a caustic attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
In the years since they left the Israel Defense Forces, the two former MI chiefs have carefully maintained a statesmanlike tone. Although they believe that a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis is preferable, they often explain Israel’s concerns in the foreign media.
The two have also refrained from direct attacks on Netanyahu. But they’re refusing to join the chorus in Jerusalem. Both believe that the interim agreement in Geneva, though not without flaws, is preferable to the other possibilities – a continuation of Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon or an Israeli attack against the wishes of the international community.
Yadlin and Ze’evi’s views raise the question of what the current security chiefs think, at a time when the ministers are attacking the agreement. It’s always tough to know this; the intensity of Dagan and Diskin’s criticism of Netanyahu’s Iranian policy was only fully revealed after their retirement. But we can assume that the top professionals don’t share the assumption of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon – who in previous rounds played a key role in urging restraint – that it was possible to make Iran crawl to a surrender agreement in Geneva.
For a long time Israel’s security chiefs have criticized U.S. conduct in the region and the Obama administration’s alleged naivete in handling the Iranian threat and the civil war in Syria. It would be foolish to expect Israel to encourage the president and praise the agreement, which has considerable shortcomings from Israel’s point of view.
But the agreement is a fait accompli. The dilemma now facing Israel is whether to continue to clash publicly with the U.S. administration or try to rehabilitate relations, influence the quality of supervision at the nuclear sites during the interim period, and help craft the final agreement with Iran, if one is reached.
Although the United States apparently feels an obligation toward its worried allies in the region – Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – the Americans could also adopt an opposite policy, one that’s tough and confrontational. In recent weeks, there has been an evident decline in Washington’s willingness to compromise with Israel on sensitive security issues.
It seems Netanyahu is right in his assumption that the interim agreement doesn’t significantly roll back Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. If the agreement collapses after the designated six months, the Iranians will only need a few months to enrich enough uranium to produce a nuclear bomb. The follow-up to the interim agreement also fails to deal seriously with Iran’s efforts to produce a nuclear warhead, or with its development of ground-to-ground missiles, which threaten every capital in the region.
The question at this late stage is what alternatives Israel has. It was Netanyahu who decided in previous years not to attack the nuclear sites. And now Iran is gradually emerging from its international isolation thanks to the negotiations with the world powers. For a moment it seemed that Israel, as it quarrels with the United States and the European Union on settlement construction, insisted on filling Iran’s shoes as international pariah.
The feelings of shock and anger in Jerusalem are legitimate, but they can’t be a work plan. Continuous “we told you so” and “the whole world is against us” presumably contains another danger. It could spur a messianic attitude that would end up in military or intelligence adventures, even though it’s clear that these aren’t supported by Israel’s security chiefs and would only worsen the conflict with Washington.
