An adventurist Netanyahu made transparent on television
Israel-Regional, Politics, 4/16/1999

More details have been coming out, gradually, on the military adventures that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu had contemplated over the past three years of his tenure.

The first revelation to the effect came during last Tuesday night's televised debate between Netanyahu and prime ministerial candidate and former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai. The debate, described by many as a tough boxing fight in which Netanyahu failed to win by knock-out and Mordechai won by points, the former defense minister hinted at the fact that Netanyahu did have some kind of military adventures which he, Mordechai, had blocked.

Media analysts agreed that Netanyahu, the television wizard as many called him in the past, had lost his fight against Mordechai in the field he best knew how to manipulate. But on top of that, the television debate was a chance for all viewers to see the Likud's dirty laundry being exposed by Mordechai.

Mordechai was a senior Cabinet member of the Netanyahu government until the prime minister fired him more than two months ago. Without going into so-called state secrets, Mordechai confirmed earlier reports that he was the one who stopped Netanyahu from carrying out a number of risky military adventures that he had planned. "You yourself, Bibi, know where you could have led us had I not acted as a responsible defense minister should act," a smiling and relaxed Mordechai told Netanyahu, who from the start of the debate was nervous and whose body language reflected how uncomfortable the atmosphere was for him.

Immediately after Mordechai was sacked from his post over a dispute with Netanyahu, press reports in Israel said it was him who stood against adventurist decisions that Netanyahu took and that could have led Israel into a very difficult and risky situation. No details were given but some sources at the time said that Netanyahu had planned two major operations, apparently one against Syria and one on Jordanian territory. But Mordechai, said the sources, was fully aware of the repercussions of such moves and voted against them. Some in Israel believe that Mordechai was the one who played a tranquilizer's role in the summer of 1997 when Syrian and Israeli troops in the Golan Heights separately held major maneuvers. At the time, Netanyahu almost took a decision to launch a preemptive attack on the Syrian forces after inaccurate information he received from the Mossad through their fake agent who fabricated reports about Syrian intentions in the Golan Heights. The fake agent, Yehuda Gil, was sentenced some weeks ago to three years imprisonment for feeding his operators in the Mossad with inaccurate information and embezzling Mossad money, which was allocated for his informer who ceased to exist a long time earlier.

Mordechai spoke in the debate about Netanyahu's behaviour during Cabinet sessions and attacked the prime minister very personally, stressing on the fact that Netanyahu was a liar, untrustworthy and a media manipulator. The fight between the two foes, who until recently formed the strongest Likud ground against opposition Labor Party, had served to a great extent Labour leader Ehud Barak who decided to boycott the show and refrained from participating in what his aides called a television gimmick. Political observers insist that Barak was wise to let the two former allies fight each other and expose their dirty laundry because that would serve his ultimate goal of winning the upcoming elections in May and in June should there be a second round.

The famous television debate had in fact been a rare occasion in which Netanyahu was seen almost naked, or at least transparent, before millions of viewers. According to Israel television Channel 2, which aired the debate, the program enjoyed a 45 percent rating (a bit over two million people.) They all sat back at home and watched their media wizard losing a crucial combat in the field he best knew how to manipulate. The most important part of that debate was the fact that Netanyahu could not challenge Mordechai and subsequently did not deny allegations relevant to Netanyahu's policy of military adventurism. Mordechai challenged Netanyahu on the matter but could not carry it any further. He did not want to pose as someone who sacrifices state security for the sake of his election campaign and Netanyahu knew very well that Mordechai could not move even a single step towards incriminating him on the matter.

Some may raise a question on whether Mordechai really surprised the viewers with his revelation. In fact the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Soon after former chief of staff Amnon Shahak resigned his post in June last year, he spared no criticism for Netanyahu. He somehow practiced self-restraint until his first press conference in which he declared he was running for the upcoming elections. "Netanyahu is dangerous for Israel and poses a real threat to state security," said Shahak who served two years under Netanyahu as chief of staff. When a former army general speaks of his boss as being dangerous to state security, one needs no wild imagination to figure out how dangerous the last three years of Netanyahu's rule were. In the meantime, one cannot just turn a blind eye and carry on as if nothing has happened.

The allegations that Mordechai raised in the course of the debate with Netanyahu were further substantiated with details that had not been revealed to date. Left-wing Meretz party member Ran Cohen who is also a member of the Knesset defense and foreign affairs committee confirmed that Netanyahu wanted to carry out "hasty military operations" which Mordechai, in his capacity as defense minister, blocked. However, the head of the Knesset committee Uzi Landau of the Likud Party said that the committee had no knowledge whatsoever that any such possible military actions had been planned.

Cohen named three such plans, only two of which were approved for publication by the Israeli military censorship. "During the US air strikes on Iraq at the end of 1998, Netanyahu wanted to involve the Israeli army in a way that would have created a diplomatic crisis between the US and Israel and could have even led to a rift in their relations.

The second plan that Cohen revealed related to Israeli military action in Lebanon. He said that there was an incident in which Netanyahu, who in the open perceived to pose himself as someone who strives to limit the scope of the Israeli army involvement in South Lebanon, wanted in fact "to expand" an army operation into a major one. Repercussions of such a move would have led to complicated relations not only between Israel and the US but also with many western states and could have even jeopardized Israel's peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt.

After the roadside bomb blast in south Lebanon some six weeks ago in which four Israeli military were killed, including a brigadier general, reports said that the Israeli army had a plan to expand its operations in south Lebanon in retaliation to Hizbollah attacks. That was when Mordechai stepped in and thwarted the plan out of concern that it might ruin Israel's relations with the US. Other military assessments at the time spoke of the possible Israeli land incursion deeper into Lebanon only to be used as a pretext to pull back to the international armistice lines between Lebanon and Israel. In any case, Mordechai's associates leaked the plan to the press and the whole idea was buried before it was born. Mordechai was and is still opposed to a unilateral Israeli withdrawal in south Lebanon.

As to the third instance, Cohen said that approximately one year ago "there was talk of another military action that could have gotten Israel mixed up in a first rate security quandary." He added that had this military action been seen through "we all might have been standing facing a pyre" in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, including a campaign of suicide bombings." Cohen did not get into further details because of state security considerations. However, Netanyahu on this third occasion almost gave his orders to kidnap a senior Hizbollah leader and to bring him to captivity in Israel, sources said. The sources added that the identity of the Hizbollah man had not been disclosed but noted that Netanyahu hoped that the abduction might convince Hizbollah to open a secret channel of dialogue and reach an agreement with Israel on a moratorium on hostilities, if not on a cease fire.

With regard to the Palestinian side of the plan, Netanyahu had contemplated sending a special army unit to conquer West Bank cities, including Nablus and Jericho, from the Palestine National Authority in retaliation to bombing attacks that Hamas carried out in West Jerusalem. He also tried to see what would happen if a special army unit raided the Jericho prison and killed a number of Hamas operatives who had been jailed by the PNA. In another incident Netanyahu raised a question about sending Apache assault helicopters on retaliatory raids against Hamas concentrations in the Gaza Strip. None of those plans ever saw light because Mordechai reportedly thwarted them all.

There were other cases in which Netanyahu pushed for similar kind of moves which, he thought, could boost his image before the Israeli public. Israeli sources said that he spoke highly on a number of occasions of what Menachem Begin did just before the 1981 elections when he sent Israeli airplanes to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad.

When two Mossad agents tried to assassinate the Hamas political bureau chief in Amman, Khaled Mishal, late in 1997, both Mordechai and the head of the General Security Services said they had not been told in advance of the decision. They blamed Netanyahu for failing to report to them in advance so they could at least be prepared in case the army or the security branches were to react to a violent response by the Palestinians.

Similarly, when Netanyahu decided to open up the tunnel underneath the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem in September 1996, he updated neither his defense minister nor his chief of staff. He took the decision despite the high probability of angry demonstrations by the Palestinians in response. The clashes that broke out immediately after the tunnel was opened had claimed the lives of dozens of Palestinians and wounded hundreds of them. Israel's casualties amounted to 16 soldiers killed and dozens of others wounded.

In the televised debate, Mordechai challenged Netanyahu to look him in the eye as he hinted that a secret deal was close to being reached with Syria. He did not go any further. A few days after the debate, however, Israeli sources claimed that the two sides held secret talks in Paris in which they agreed to resume talks from the point where they ceased during Yitzhak Rabin's government but without an Israeli commitment in advance to pull out of the Golan Heights. The sources said that it was Mordechai who handled the talks with Syria in his capacity as defense minister. Mordechai reported the content and the results of these talks to Netanyahu and received his blessing to "go ahead" and to keep at them. It was clear that Israel would have to undertake some sort of withdrawal, not necessarily based on Rabin's formula which said that the depth of the withdrawal would be equal to the depth of peace between the two parties. For some unclear reason, the talks were halted a number of months ago. When Mordechai asked Netanyahu to "look me in the eye," he wanted to say that Netanyahu was willing to make a compromise on the Golan Heights, contrary to his public statements.

Sources close to Mordechai said that the former defense minister differed with Netanyahu after it became clear to him that the prime minister was trying to establish direct contact with the Syrians and to reach an agreement with them without including or even informing the army. The sources added that Netanyahu tried to send messages to the Syrians while bypassing the U.S. and keeping the matter secret even from the military establishment. In those messages, the sources added, Netanyahu agreed to a withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for leaving warning stations on Mt. Hermon and other places, and extensive security arrangements.

According to the same sources, it was the military intelligence, which intercepted Netanyahu's activities and reported them to the defense minister. At that point a harsh confrontation erupted between Netanyahu and Mordechai which was kept absolutely secret until recently. Mordechai was enraged that Netanyahu bypassed him and consulted neither the army nor the US Administration.

Previous Stories:
  Vatican warns Israel against permitting the building of a mosque in al-Nasera   (4/15/1999)
  Israel waiting for final plans to minimize troops in south Lebanon   (4/14/1999)
  Sharon, Netanyahu deny Russian mediation with Syria   (4/14/1999)

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