Former Mossad Chief Halevy: Iran Attack ‘Will Impact Region For 100 Years’
– OpEdWritten by: Richard Silverstein
November 5, 2011
Ynet reports (fuller Hebrew version) that Ephraim Halevy, a former Mossad director, said yesterday that Iran poses no “existential threat” to Israel and that attacking it must truly be a last resort. Anyone considering such a strike must realize that it would impact not just Israel, but the entire region for the next 100 years. If this was all Halevy said it would be important, but mere reinforcement of views already expressed forcefully by Meir Dagan, the most recent past Mossad chief. What renders the former’s views even more interesting is that he identifies what he considers an even greater existential threat to Israel: the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox):
Haredi radicalism has darkened our lives. It endangers us even more than Ahmadinejad.
His attack on Haredim is shorthand for an entire range of social developments within Israeli society that includes, but goes beyond merely the ultra-Orthodox. Halevy, who himself was raised in the moderate Orthodox Bnai Akiva youth movement, refers to the increasing religious and political radicalization of the entire Orthodox movement in Israel. There has always been friction between secular and religious within Israel. But in the past, there were streams within the Orthodox movement which held moderate political and halachic views. Parties like the National Religious Party were ones which accepted a separation between synagogue and state. They participated in governing coalitions and were statist in orientation. They didn’t believe the State should be subordinate to the Jewish religion or halacha. Leaders like Josef Burg (Avrum Burg’s father) were also sober-minded and incorruptible.
Today’s Orthodox are increasingly extreme in their views. The moderate religious parties are long extinct. In their place are the ultra-Orthodox, who are much more socially separatist and militant. They view Israeli secular society as a world–and a state apart from them. They participate in politics because of the spoils it brings them in financial subsidies, and not for patriotic reasons. For them, the State of Israel is not an end, but a means toward a successor regime that fulfills the tenets of Judaism as they see it.
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Poster Comment:
This Halevy guy touched a nerve. The dentist hit a live wire without the benefit of novacaine and the patient is now running up and down the block screaming bloody murder.
Gafni appeals to A-G to investigate ex-Mossad chief
By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/06/2011 13:31
Knesset c'tee chair: Halevy's statement that haredim more dangerous than nuclear Iran constitutes incitement; Halevy issues apology. Talkbacks (19)
Knesset Finance Committee chair Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) asked Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein on Sunday to investigate Efraim Halevy on suspicion of incitement for comments he made Thursday night.
Halevy, a former Mossad chief, condemned religious extremism in the IDF, warning that "Israel's true existential danger comes from within." The former Mossad chief also said that religious extremism is a growing peril to Israel's existence and is more threatening than Iran's nuclear program.
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=244537