* Staff challenge PM on wisdom of attacking Iran’s nuclear
sites
* Ex-spymaster calls Netanyahu “messianic” as censure mounts
* U.S. observers: Dissent targets Israel PM’s support base
* Netanyahu aide warns of last-resort war if sanctions fail
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM, April 30 (Reuters) – He may be ready to brave
Iranian air defences, retaliatory missiles and Western
diplomatic blowback in tackling Tehran’s nuclear programme, but
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will find it hard to
fly past flak from his own senior staff.
Remarks by recently retired security chiefs and the current
military commander questioning the views of Netanyahu and
Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Iran have opened a rare rift in a
Jewish state that usually puts up a united front against
regional enemies.
Yuval Diskin, who as former Shin Bet domestic intelligence
chief was effectively in charge of vetting government officials,
on Friday deemed Netanyahu and Barak “messianic” and unfit for
war.
If the Netanyahu government was ever serious about carrying
out a long-threatened, last-ditch and tactically thorny assault
on Iran’s nuclear sites against the misgivings of many Israelis
and foreign allies like the United States, t he criticism from
Diskin and others may have tipped the scales against.
The right-wing premier describes a future Iranian bomb as a
second Holocaust-in-the-making, to be stopped at all costs.
But that case may be tougher to make in the face of derision
from men he once trusted to fend off immediate threats like
suicide bombers, guerrilla rockets and armed infiltrators.
“They genuinely disagree and are trying to signal the
Israeli public, knowing that they retain credibility,” said
Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser to U.S. President
Barack Obama, in reference to Diskin and Mossad ex-spymaster
Meir Dagan, another detractor of Netanyahu and Barak.
“They are raising the costs domestically to the Netanyahu
government of acting.”
A second-term prime minister with solid approval ratings,
Netanyahu is mindful of public opinion, especially with the
prospect of a scheduled 2013 election being brought forward to
within months.
Arguments by Dagan and Diskin that an Iran war could spill
out of control, with knock-on reprisals from Syria and Islamist
militants in Lebanon and Gaza, resonate with Israelis who
demanded commissions of inquiry over the costs of far more
contained border conflicts in 1982 and 2006.
“With this kind of a prospect, many Israelis, regardless of
political stripe, are reminded of past adventures which proved
to be misadventures,” said Amotz Asa-El, a fellow with the
Shalom Hartman Institute, a liberal Jerusalem think-tank.
“REVOLT OF THE DEFENDERS”
Israeli officials accused Dagan and Diskin of using Iran to
settle scores with Netanyahu and Barak after being denied
extended tenures, or to launch political careers of their own.
But Israel’s current top general, Benny Gantz, also clashed
with government messaging last week by describing Iran as “very
rational” and unlikely to develop an atom bomb.
“We are witnessing a very deep fissure between the security
establishment and the political level (which is) quite
unprecedented,” said another U.S. ex-official, who asked not to
be named. He dubbed it a “revolt of the defenders”.
Such American apprehension is dreaded by Israel, which looks
to its guardian ally to spearhead an international sanctions
drive designed to curb Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment.
Netanyahu aides say those negotiations can succeed only if
the world thinks he is poised to attack, despite all the risks,
and that this impression is dented by naysayers who can claim
knowledge of Israel’s secret capabilities and debates.
“If you are against Israel taking military action, the worst
thing you can do is undermine the credibility of that option,”
one senior official said, suggesting that eroding the diplomatic
pressure on Tehran risked making war Israel’s only resort.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the
sensitivity of the issue, said Israel worried that remarks like
Diskin’s could dilute international demands that the Iranians
stop all uranium enrichment, a programme that has bomb-making
potential though Tehran insists it is for peaceful energy only.
“We are already seeing signs of capitulation” to Iran in the
talks due to resume in Baghdad on May 23, the official said.
Such disclosures suggest that Israel’s war footing may have
been as much bluff as true intent. As Diskin put it, “barking
dogs don’t bite”.
Indeed, during his accrued six years in top office,
Netanyahu has not embarked on major military offensives –
leading some critics to describe him as gun-shy.
Then again, Netanyahu would be loath to see Iran go nuclear
on his watch, and has differed with military experts in the
past. He warned against unilateral withdrawals from occupied
Lebanese and Palestinian territories and appeared to have been
vindicated when those evacuations hardened Islamist hostility to
Israel.
Netanyahu’s ideological forbear, Prime Minister Menachem
Begin, beat back scepticism from some of his advisers to order
the 1981 bombing of the nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq. The mission was a success, with world outcry later giving
way to gratitude.
David Ivry, who oversaw the raid as then-Israeli air force
chief, said Netanyahu and Barak might see the required cabinet
approval for a similar Iran strike as enough to test fate.
“In the end, history is the judge,” Ivry said.
(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich)
