Six former Israeli spymasters yesterday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of jeopardizing the country’s future as it prepares to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding next month.
The surviving former heads of the Mossad intelligence agency voiced their opinion of the fourth-term, right-wing leader in a joint interview excerpted on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s best-selling newspaper and a regular Netanyahu critic.
Netanyahu had no immediate response, but a senior member of his governing coalition brushed off the censure.
Danny Yatom, who headed the Mossad during Netanyahu’s first stint in office in the late 1990s, called for his ouster, accusing him and his aides of “putting their interests ahead of national interests” as corruption investigations deepen.
Police on Monday questioned Netanyahu over his alleged dealings with the country’s largest telecommunications company, one of three cases against him.
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and opinion polls showed his popularity is still high.
Yatom also voiced concern about “the inertia in the diplomatic sphere, which is leading us toward a bi-national state [with the Palestinians], which would spell the end of [Israel as] a Jewish and democratic state.”
Some have argued that if Israel fails to quit occupied territory, it could one day face a choice between remaining a democracy or securing a Jewish majority by denying Palestinians voting rights.
“We have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren here, and I want them to live in a healthy country — and the country is sick,” Zvi Zamir, Mossad director from 1968 to 1974, was quoted as saying. “We are in a critical medical state. It could be that the country had symptoms when Netanyahu took over, but he has brought it to the grave condition of a malignant disease.”
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond.
Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett, a hardliner in Israel’s conservative coalition government, took to Twitter to dismiss the allegations aired by the former spymasters as “simply untrue.”
“The country is in an excellent condition,” said Bennett, who has cast himself as a possible successor to Netanyahu. “Among most of our leadership, the good of the country is first and foremost .... Israel is going in a good direction!”
Meanwhile, the nation’s leading demographics expert yesterday defended military figures indicating parity between Jews and Arabs.
Sergio Della Pergola, a demographer at Hebrew University, said the number of Arabs is nearly equal that of Jews if you include the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Nationalist lawmakers attacked a top military officer in parliament for saying there are 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, accusing him of inflating the numbers.
Della Pergola says the military’s figures align with his data and to suggest otherwise is “childish.”
Additional reporting by AP
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