TORONTO — Contrary to the anxiety of many Israeli politicians, Iran doesn’t pose an existential threat to Israel, says the former director of the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence agency.
Efraim Halevy
Speaking at Beth Sholom Synagogue last week, Efraim Halevy adopted an upbeat approach, describing Israel as extremely strong and indestructible.
Halevy, who joined the Mossad in 1961 and headed it from 1998 to 2002, cautioned that Iran, rather than Israel, should be concerned about its future.
In a menacing allusion to the possibility that Israel might well bomb Iran’s budding nuclear weapon sites one day, he said, “There is great fear and uncertainty in Iran as to what Israel might do.
“We are capable of things the Iranians fear,” added Halevy, whose appearance here was under the auspices of Canadian Society for Yad Vashem.
Halevy said he agreed with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s most recent assessment on Iran. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Barak said Iran would not be an existential threat to Israel’s existence even if it acquired a nuclear arsenal.
Anchoring his remarks to Barak’s analysis, Halevy said, “Israel today is indestructible. It’s not possible to destroy Israel. Israel today has an array of offensive and defensive abilities that make its destruction impossible.”
Yet in a sober aside, he warned that while Iran cannot destroy Israel, Tehran can cause “grievous harm” should the Iranian armed forces retaliate in response to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Saying that Israel has evolved into “a formidable country” in terms of its military prowess, Halevy tried to dampen concerns that Israel is vulnerable. As he put it, “Israel is here to stay, and will stay forever. This is seeping into the mind of our enemies.”
This mindset accounts for the fact that Egypt and Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel and that Saudi Arabia has expressed a readiness to come to terms with Israel if it agrees to withdraw to the pre-1967 armistice lines, suggested Halevy, who is currently chair of the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center and head of the Shasha Center for Strategic Studies at the Federman School of Public Policy at Hebrew University.
“Even Hamas, in its heart, understands that Israel is here to stay.”
Disclosing that he devoted half his waking hours to the Iranian file when he headed the Mossad, Halevy said that Iran’s current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, inadvertently helps Israel.
“He is one of the greatest gifts the Almighty has given Israel,” he said, adding that the Mossad would have had to invent such a figure if he did not exist.
Referring to Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, Halevy caustically remarked, “He has performed an enormous service to Israel by explaining why the world should unite against him. We shouldn’t do anything to disturb him.”
Observing that Iran has been thrown into a leadership crisis since last June’s disputed national elections, Halevy suggested that “the clock has begun to tick,” signifying “the end of this regime.” But he declined to say when it would fall.
Saying he disagreed with a recent comparison by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu equating the rise of Iran with the emergence of European fascism in the 1930s, Halevy said that Israel cannot be likened to a defenceless Jew and that its capability to protect itself is known far and wide.
Israel is one of the world’s most powerful nations and is doing what is necessary to deal with future contingencies. As he said, “We’ve always met and neutralized threats.” In an implicit reference to the Holocaust, he asserted, “It will never happen again.”
Exuding supreme self-confidence, Halevy said that the Jewish People have never been as strong as they are today, notwithstanding the prevalence of anti-Semitism. “We’re stronger than ever. This is not just a statement of bravado, but it doesn’t mean we should be cocksure or oblivious.”
From an operational point of view, however, Israel can’t afford to restrain itself, even if Diaspora communities stand to be threatened, he said, citing Hezbollah’s bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in the mid-1990s following Israel’s assassination of the secretary general of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Saying that Israel focuses on “conflict management” rather than “conflict resolution,” Halevy cast doubt on the chances of an Israeli peace agreement with the Palestinians any time soon. “Conditions for peace don’t exist now.”
But if negotiations with the Palestinians resume, Israel would be negotiating from a position of strength rather than weakness, he said.
Even if both sides manage to sign an accord, the Palestinians would not be able to implement it due to the tenuous nature of its leadership. It would thus remain a “shelf agreement.”
Within the spirit of conflict management, Israel should try to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians. As part of this process, Israel should be prepared to give up “dear tracts of land.”
Calling negotiations a component of conflict management, Halevy said that talks tend to lower the level of violence and hostility and lay the groundwork for future co-operation.
