Barak further noted that a third plan for an attack on Iran in 2012 was aborted due to the bad timing as Israel had to conduct a joint military exercise with the US.
Advertisement
The interview excerpts were aired by Israel’s Channel 2, which stressed that Barak had sought to prevent them from being broadcast, but that they had been approved by Israel’s military censor.
“On Friday we were exposed to cabinet deliberations of a preemptive attack on Iran via the story of Ehud Barak, the defense minister at the time”. Barak has reportedly confirmed the audio’s authenticity to other news outlets.
Netanyahu, accompanied by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, said he came to the northern border to see first hand the army’s preparedness against the threats coming from the North, which he laid at Iran’s doorstep.
In the scenarios envisioned by the IDF, heavily-armed terrorist cells would infiltrate the Israeli side of the Golan and attack Jewish and Druze villages there, necessitating a strong Israeli response in Syria. These efforts have not resolved the nuclear crisis; they have exacerbated it by legitimizing and arming a terrorist state hell-bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on his English-language Twitter account that Iran will “take all possible means to support anyone who fights Israel, is against the Zionist regime and supports resistance”.
The report comes as Israel has been strenuously lobbying against a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that aims to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions’ relief.
“I think that it should remain behind closed doors as a part of a vague understanding that there is a big stick in the bedroom”, he said.
Barak is a former military chief of staff who had a long and highly decorated military career.
Advertisement
Kish, a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, questioned Barak’s motives for making the recordings, saying he was uncertain what “political gain” Barak hoped to achieve, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported.
