Former Mossad Chief Still Taking His Show On The Road

Last month, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy was taking his show to Australia:

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.

“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.

This week, Halevy has taken his show to Budapest:

Former head of the Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, said on Sunday that Iran would never be able to destroy Israel and that its efforts to develop nuclear capabilities were not an existential threat, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking at an international law convention in Budapest, Halevy said that Israel has a number of ways to deal with an Iranian nuclear threat.

Apparently Olmert and Halevy have something of a philosophical debate going about the nature of "existential threats." But the question is: who is Halevy trying to convince? There was a time that this kind of talk would inspire us with confidence that Israel really did have something up its sleeve and there is nothing to fear--but Entebbe was 30 years ago and the memories are fading.

There is little about the current government to inspire confidence, not even reports--from outside of Israel--that Olmert is ready to use targeted assassinations to deal with Hamas. Talk about Israel dealing with Iran has been going on for so long that at this point it is hard to imagine that anything will be done to stop the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear capabilities. Reports about Iran slowly securing its grip around Israel only add to the tension. Defense Minister Peretz working at cross-purposes from Olmert don't help either.

Where is the leadership?

Technorati Tag: Israel and Olmert and Peretz and Halevy.