DESPITE Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s declaration this week that Iran poses “an existential threat to Israel”, a former Mossad chief who is visiting Australia said Tehran lacks the military and strategic capability to destroy the Jewish State.What is not at all clear is why--after the appeasement, concessions, and actions Israel has taken against her own citizens and best interests--we should make such an assumption.
“Israel is indestructible today. It’s not so simple just to think you can have a device on your hand and you will able to hurl it on to a certain location and wipe out a nation,” Efraim Halevy told an Australian Friends of the Hebrew University dinner at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Monday.
Halevy, who ran the spy agency from 1998-2003, rejected assertions that Israel faced an “existential threat” during its recent war with Hezbollah. Such claims have “eroded Israel’s self-confidence”, he said.
“Israel has known of this threat [from Iran] for more than a decade-and-a half and has watched this threat grow – you must assume that Israel was not sitting on its hands ... or [waiting] for someone else to do the job.”
Technorati Tag: Israel and Iran.
I would agree with Halevi on his rejection of assertions that Israel faced an “existential threat” during its recent war with Hezbollah. Not that I have heard many people holding this view. We got a warning that we should heed, that's all.
ReplyDeleteRe Iran - this is another story. The Ayatollahs should be watched around the clock.