One of the most high-profile anti-government voices belongs to Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad spy agency, who once described an Israeli attack on Iran as “the stupidest idea” he had ever heard of.
Yuval Diskin
The former director of Israel’s internal security service has launched a frontal assault on the Iran policy of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, describing Israel’s current prime minister and defence minister as “messianic” politicians who could not be trusted.
Yuval Diskin, who retired from his high-profile post at the helm of the Shin Bet only last year, told a meeting on Friday: “My major problem is that I have no faith in the current leadership, which must lead us in an event on the scale of war with Iran or a regional war.”
According to an account of the meeting in Haaretz, the Israeli daily, Mr Diskin added: “I don’t believe in either the prime minister or the defence minister. I don’t believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings.”
The harsh comments by Mr Diskin are the latest in a series of open attacks by former security and intelligence officials on the Israeli government over the Iranian nuclear threat.
According to analysts and officials, the criticism suggests that Israel’s defence and security establishment is more reluctant to support military strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme than politicians such as Mr Netanyahu and Mr Barak.
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