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ABSTRACT
This article examines the debates in Israel between 2009 and 2013 over Iran’s nuclear programme as a reflection of a particular type of civil–military or civil–security relationship. It analyses how key actors within that relationship – particularly those with an intelligence background – engaged with media outlets in Israel and further afield to influence domestic and international opinion over how best to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In so doing, it seeks to address one fundamental question: are governments in Jerusalem any longer the final arbiters over deciding what is in the national security interests of the State of Israel?
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Dr Alan Craig, Professor Yigal Sheffy, and Professor Yehudit Ronen for their generous help, hospitality, and advice in the research and writing of this article. Any errors are of course the sole responsibility of the author.
Notes
1 Gili Gohen, ‘Israel’s security chiefs rejected orders to prepare for Iran strike in 2010’, Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 4 November 2012. The story was very quickly picked up by the foreign media. See for example Sheera Frenkel, ‘I’m ready for war with Iran says PM, after army vetoed attack orders’, The Times, 6 November 2012; Harriet Sherwood, ‘Israel “planned Iran attack” in 2010’, The Guardian, 5 November 2010.
2 Interview with Ronen Bergman, Chief Correspondent for Security and Intelligence Affairs for Yediot Aharanot, Tzhala, Tel Aviv, 1 August 2013.
3 Ethan Bronner, ‘A former spy chief questions the judgement of Israeli leaders’, New York Times, 3 June 2011; Yossi Melman, ‘Ex-Mossad chief Dagan: military strike against Iran would be “stupid”’, Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 8 May 2011. Well before Dagan’s outspoken remarks, another former head of the Mossad, Efraim Halevy, had warned of the untold consequences of an attack on Iran which could last for a 100 years and, as such, should only be considered as a last resort. See ‘Ex-Mossad chief says strike Iran could “affect us for 100 years”’, Ha’aretz, 26 July 2008. This view contrasted with that of his erstwhile colleague and predecessor as head of the Mossad, Shabtai Shavit, who in 20008 suggested that Israel had only a year to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. See ‘Former Israeli spymaster: we have a year to hit Iran nukes’, Ha’aretz, 29 June 2008.
4 Interview with Major-General (Res.) Amos Yadlin, Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Tel Aviv, 29 July 2013. Yadlin is currently the Director of the INSS. In 1981, he was one of the IAF pilots involved in the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osiraq and between 2006 and 2010 he was director of Agaf Modi’n (Military Intelligence Directorate of the IDF).
5 For a traditional account of Israel’s civil–military relations see Amos Perlmutter, Politics and the Military in Israel 1967–77 (London: Frank Cass, Citation1978). More critical accounts are to be found in Uri Ben Eliezer, The Making of Israeli Militarism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Citation1998); Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy (Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, Citation2006). Some academics have identified what they refer to as ‘waves’ in the study of civil–military relations in Israel. Foremost among these scholars is Stuart Cohen. See Stuart Cohen, Israel and Its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion (London: Routledge, Citation2008), 1–15.
6 Oren Barak and Gabriel Sheffer, ‘The Study of Civil–Military Relations in Israel’, in Oren Barak and Gabriel Sheffer (eds), Militarism in Israeli Society (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Citation2010), 17–18.
7 Ibid., 18–21.
8 Ibid., 21.
9 Ibid., 25.
10 Oren Barak and Gabriel Sheffer, ‘Israel’s “Security Network” and Its Impact: An Exploration of a New Approach’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 38/2 (Citation2006), 251–53. The argument was elaborated yet further in Gabriel Sheffer and Oren Barak, Israel’s Security Networks: A Theoretical and Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, Citation2013).
11 The Gate Keepers (שומרי הסף), directed by Dror Moreh, Cinephil, Israel, released 2012. A longer version of the documentary was broadcast in Israel, where, inevitably, it proved controversial, not least among some former security officials who felt that the comments expressed by these former heads of the Shabbak betrayed the trust invested in them by the officers they had commanded. Nonetheless, it met with widespread international acclaim and was nominated for the category of Best Documentary in the 2012 Academy Awards.
12 For example, see Guy Rolnik, ‘Is Israel’s defense establishment a giant interest group?’, Ha’aretz, 28 January 2014. In this interview, Sheffer concluded that the security network worked to entrench a particular understanding among the Israeli public of the conflict with the Palestinians which aided the process of resource allocation.
13 Barak actually complained that opposition to an attack that was felt at an elite level was precisely because of what he termed a ‘public scare campaign’. Gide Weitz, ‘Former PM Barak: To go nuclear, Iran is waiting for the world to be paralysed’, Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 16 January 2015.
14 Yoram Peri, ‘The Media and the Military: From Collusion to Collision’, in Stuart A. Cohen (ed.), Democratic Societies and Their Armed Forces (London: Frank Cass, Citation2000), 186–87.
15 Ibid., 191.
16 Shlomo Shpiro, ‘Media Strategies of Intelligence Services’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 14/4 (2001), 494–95.
17 Interview with Dr Ronen Bergman, Chief Correspondent for Security and Intelligence Affairs for Yediot Aharanot, Tzhala, Tel Aviv, 1 August 2013.
18 Ari Shavit, ‘The enemy within’, Ha’aretz Magazine, 30 August 2002. Ya’alon has since gone on to become a Likud Knesset member and minister of defence. While still noted for his hardline attitudes towards security, he does advocate a political settlement with the Palestinians.
19 Uri Ben Eliezer, Old Conflict, New War: Israel’s Politics towards the Palestinians (London: Palgrave Macmillan, Citation2012), 165. According to this account and with the blessing of Ariel Sharon, Dichter told his surprised audience, ‘One has to say with candour: the security establishment and the Shin Bet did not provide the nation of Israel with the protective vest it deserved.’
20 Interview with Ambassador Efraim Halevy, Ramat Aviv, Israel, 1 August 2013.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 A case in point is Israel’s destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar in northeastern Syria, close to the Euphrates, in September 2007. Several discreet leaks were made to overseas news outlets, and quickly picked up by news agencies in Israel, regarding a mysterious air raid on an unidentified target in Syria. The story eventually appeared in Ha’aretz and the New Yorker in 2012. See Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, ‘Revealed for the first time: a mission in Syria that never took place’, Ha’aretz, 10 August 2012; David Makovsky, ‘The Silent Strike: How Israel Bombed a Syrian Nuclear Installation and Kept It Secret’, New Yorker, 17 September 2012, 24–40.
24 On the impact of the Stuxnet virus in particular see Sean Rayment, ‘Cyber wars’, Sunday Telegraph, 26 June 2011.
25 Jeffrey Goldberg, ‘The Point of No Return’, Atlantic Magazine, September 2010, <www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/09/the-point-of-no-return/8186>.
26 Ronen Bergman, ‘Will Israel attack Iran’, New York Times, 25 January 2012, <www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/magazine/will-israel-attack-iran.html?>.
27 Interview with former member of the National Security Staff, Tel Aviv, 31 July 2013. This individual had extensive experience of dealing with Iran. Name withheld on request.
28 One comparable example is what has been called the ‘revolt of the generals’, when, in the run-up to the June 1967 war, senior IDF officers made it clear to the public that Israel’s security was being undermined by the timidity of the elected politicians. The argument that the IDF effected bullied the government of Levi Eshkol into condoning pre-emptive strikes against Syria and Egypt, action that usurped civilian control of the military, has, however, been challenged by more recent scholarship. See Mordechai Bar-On, ‘The Generals “Revolt”: Civil–Military Relations in Israel on the Eve of the Six Day War’, Middle Eastern Studies 48/1 (Citation2012), 33–50.
29 Interview with former member of the National Security Staff, Tel Aviv, 31 July 2013
30 Interview with Major-General (Res.) (and former head of Agaf Modi’n) Amos Yadlin, INSS, Tel Aviv, 29 July 2013.
31 Amos Harel, ‘Former Mossad chief briefed comptroller about Iran strike plans’, Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 2 December 2011.
32 Dror Moreh, ‘Diskin: Bibi, Barak motivated by personal interests’, Yediot Aharanot (in Hebrew), 6 January 2013.
33 Amir Oren, ‘Former Israeli intelligence chief: Netanyahu and Barak dangerously stoking flames of war’, Ha’aretz, 17 August 2012.
34 Tony Karon, ‘Israel’s “Threat” to bomb nuclear facilities is central to its Iran strategy’, 22 July 2011, <http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011.07/22/israels-threat-to-bomb-nuclear-facilities-is-central-to-its-iran-strategy/#ixzz1Sqf7mT60>.
35 Interview with Ambassador Efraim Halevy, Ramat Aviv, Israel, 1 August 2013.
36 Ari Shavit, ‘Former Mossad Chief: An attack on Iran likely to foment a generations long war’, Ha’aretz, 1 September 2012.
37 See for example the poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (Peace Index) in February 2012. From a sample of 600 respondents, 62.9 per cent of those Israelis questioned opposed an attack on Iran without the support of the United States. The poll data can be accessed at <https://owa.dur.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=SjCEIxlsn0Kn7gcnTa0rjnj2FgcGy9IIIbetzPrZzmZkTK3KFh27cWYl28WtlTnlNxw6Oj_lk4A.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.peaceindex.org%2ffiles%2fThe%2520Peace%2520Index%2520Data%2520-%2520February%25202012.pdf>. See also ‘Ha’aretz Poll: Israelis split over military operation against Iranian nuclear facilities’, Ha’aretz, 3 November 2011.
38 See David Remnick, ‘Letter from Tel Aviv: The Vegetarian: A Notorious Spymaster Becomes a Dissident’, New Yorker, 3 September 2012, 22–28; Makovsky, ‘The Silent Strike, 24–40.
39 Max Fisher, ‘The UK thinks a strike on Iran would be illegal; denies US access to its bases’, Washington Post, 25 October 2012. Sensitive to the controversy surrounding the UK’s decision to support Washington in Afghanistan and, more controversially, in the invasion of Iraq, the coalition government of David Cameron allegedly made it clear that if the Obama administration decided to launch air strikes against Iran the UK would deny the United States access to ‘British airbases that are strategically located on remote islands’. This oblique reference to Diego Garcia was apparently contained in legal advice circulated to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence which, while conceding that Iran had been engaging in illegal uranium enrichment, indicated that this was not clear evidence of intent to build a nuclear weapon.
40 Ari Shavit, ‘Former intelligence chief breaks his silence on Iran’, Ha’aretz (in Hebrew), 13 September 2012.
41 The interviews are still available on YouTube. The CBS 60 Minutes interview can be accessed at <https://m/youtube.com/watch?v=1eC6oCmvQ0>. The BBC Hardtalk interview can be accessed at <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7b-Ed-9FyRM>.
42 Natan Sachs, ‘Israel’s Spy Revolt’, Foreign Policy, 10 May 2012, <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/arricles/2012/05/10/israels_spy_revolt?>.
43 This was certainly the view of Ronen Bergman, who believed that his article for the New York Times Magazine with Ehud Barak was taken very seriously by former US defence secretary Leon Panetta, who feared increasingly that Israel was preparing to strike between April and July 2012. Bergman believes that as a result the White House, while placing pressure on Netanyahu to desist from any military action, redoubled its efforts to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. Interview with Ronen Bergman, Chief Correspondent for Security and Intelligence Affairs for Yediot Aharanot, Tzhala, Tel Aviv, 1 August 2013. See also Amos Harel, ‘Bottom line of Congress speech: Iran strike off the table’, Ha’aretz, 6 March 2015.
44 Christopher Hope, ‘We foiled Iranian nuclear weapons bid, says spy chief’, Daily Telegraph, 13 July 2012.
45 See Seamus Milne, ‘Secret cables reveal Israel’s spies at odds with Netanyahu on Iran’, The Guardian, 24 February 2015. These revelations were part of a tranche of cables released by Wikileaks. Since Dagan had left office over a year before, it is unlikely he would have had knowledge of this assessment although it clearly tilted towards his overall analysis.
46 Several recent memoirs published by senior military officials and policy-makers in London and Washington suggest that the threat of an Israeli preventative strike was taken seriously. In his autobiography, Lieutenant-General Sir David Richards, former chief of the British Defence Staff, disclosed that the likelihood of such a strike was deemed by London to be around 40–50 per cent in the summer of 2012. See David Richards, Taking Command (London: Headline, Citation2014), 324–25. During a visit to Europe in February 2012, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta disclosed to David Ignatius of the Washington Post that he feared an Israeli strike within the next four months. Despite Panetta’s insistence that this was a private discussion, the subsequent story made international headlines and certainly contributed to the added diplomatic momentum towards a harsher sanctions regime against Iran. See Leon Panetta, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace (New York: Penguin Press, Citation2014),
47 Quoted in Shpiro, ‘Media Strategies of Intelligence Services’, 499.
48 Ronen Bergman, ‘Ex-atomic agency chief: Netanyahu using scare tactics on Iran nuclear programme’, Yediot Aharonot (in Hebrew), 15 May 2014.
49 Barak David, ‘Barak: Steinitz, Ya’alon thwarted Iran strike in 2011‘, Ha’aretz, 23 August 2015; Jodi Rudoren, ‘Israel came close to attacking Iran, ex-defense minister says’, New York Times, 21 August 2015.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Clive Jones
Clive Jones holds a Chair in Regional Security (Middle East) at Durham University and is currently the Chair of the European Association of Israel Studies (EAIS). In 2002 he was a senior visiting research fellow at the University of Haifa. He has published widely on Israel’s foreign and security policy. His books include Soviet Jewish Aliyah (Cass, 1994), (with Emma C. Murphy) Israel: Challenges to Democracy Identity and the State (Routledge 2002), (co-edited with Sergio Catignani) Israel and Hezbollah: A Study in Asymmetric Conflict (Routledge, 2010), and (co-edited with Tore T. Petersen) Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies (Oxford University Press, 2013). His book on Britain and the Yemen Civil War (2010) was the subject of a BBC documentary broadcast in 2010.