Skip to footer

Bomb Iran? Why 5 top Israeli figures don't want to do it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threat of a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, supported by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, has sparked an unusually public debate in Israel about the wisdom of the move. While nearly all of those involved seem to agree that Iran poses a serious nuclear threat, they disagree about the timing and method of best countering that threat.

Meir Dagan, former Mossad chief

Ronen Zvulun/AP/File
In this January 2011 file photo, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (r.) hugs Meir Dagan, then outgoing Mossad chief, after thanking him at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

  • By Christa Case Bryant Staff writer

Meir Dagan has spearheaded opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran since May 2011 – shortly after he retired as head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad.

He has called such a move “the stupidest thing I have ever heard” and “patently illegal under international law” since Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is operating under the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

He also opposes a unilateral strike because:

  • A surgical attack such as Israel’s 1981 strike against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor is not possible because Iran’s nuclear program is much more dispersed
  • A strike could lead to a regional war and regional, or even global, arms race
  • A strike could cause Iranians to rally around the current regime, strengthening its hand

Coming from a family of Holocaust survivors, he has said that, like Netanyahu, he is determined to protect Israel against existential threats. But he apparently believes that his retirement, along with that of several other colleagues, removed an important counterweight to Netanyahu, or Bibi, as he is known. 

“I decided to speak out because when I was in office, [Shin Bet director Yuval] Diskin, [military Chief of Staff Gabi] Ashkenazi and I could block any dangerous adventure,” he said. “Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi and Barak.” 

1 of 5
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.