Israeli ex-spy chief opposes Iran attack
Sunday 29 April 2012
Printable
EmailIsrael's warmongering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was left fuming at the weekend after a former senior intelligence official publicly opposed his policy of a military strike on Iran and accused his government of failing to actively pursue peace with Palestinians.
Ex-Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said that the plan being pushed by the Prime Minister and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak risked speeding up any Iranian nuclear programme.
Mr Diskin, who served as the head of the internal intelligence agency until last year, told a public meeting on Friday: "I don't have faith in the current leadership of Israel."
He added that "one of the results of an Israel attack on Iran could be a dramatic acceleration of the Iran programme.
"They will have legitimacy to do it more quickly and in a shorter timeframe."
Iran says that its nuclear development programme is aimed only at meeting its energy needs.
However the Israeli right has been sabre-rattling for months over the prospects that Tehran is developing a bomb.
But last week Israel's military chief Benny Gantz also said he believed that sanctions would be more effective than strikes in convincing Iran not to develop nuclear weapons.
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