Netanyahu's war with His Generals (Israel-Iran‪)‬

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is locked in a confrontation with Israel's generals, past and present, over launching a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear program, an event that could plunge the region into conflict. "Nothing like this has ever happened before in Israel's history," declared J. J. Goldberg, a widely read columnist with The Forward, a Jewish weekly published in the United States. "It's not the Iranian nuclear project they're scared of, nor Hamas, nor the unrest that's rocking the Arab world. Israel has always faced dangers and it's always come out on top. What scares them most is their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu." The current commanders of the armed forces and the intelligence services are, in public at least, circumspect, as always, when it comes to discussing the political leadership and government policy. But of the 18 living former chiefs of Israel's security establishment, eight have made known their opposition to Netanyahu's strategic thinking. These include former military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, former head of the General Security Service Yuval Diskin and former Military Intelligence director Amos Yadlin. Another four former chiefs, Goldberg observes, "have made their alarm publicly clear though they aren't aggressively campaigning right now." Six of the others retired years ago and are keeping their thoughts to themselves. Two - former armed forces chiefs of staff Ehud Barak and Moshe Yaalon - support Netanyahu. But both are serving in his cabinet, Barak, Israel's most decorated war hero, as defense minister and Yaalon as strategic affairs minister. The most dramatic and most spectacular criticism came on May 8, when Meir Dagan, an army major general who retired on January 6 after eight years as director of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, declared that a military strike against Iran's contentious nuclear program "is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." He declared that Netanyahu, backed by Barak, was intent on plunging Israel into "a dangerous military adventure in Iran," that was almost certain to trigger a regional war that would ultimately threaten Israel's very existence.