‘Cosmic miracle’ to resolve West Bank crisis
JOHANNESBURG: A former head of Israel’s international intelligence agency, Mossad, contends that the only existential threat to the Jewish state is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
“Israel has chosen not to choose, hoping the conflict will resolve itself – perhaps the Arabs will disappear, maybe some cosmic miracle will happen,” the Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper on Tuesday reported Tamir Pardo telling a conference at Israel’s Netanya Academic College.
“One day we will become a bi-national state because it will be impossible to untie the Gordian knot between the two peoples. That is not the way to decide,” said Pardo, despite once leading the security organisation renowned internationally for being involved in clandestine activities that have been criticised in some quarters as unethical.
“Israel has one existential threat. It is a ticking time bomb. We chose to stick our head in the sand, creating a variety of external threats. An almost identical number of Jews and Muslims reside between the sea and the Jordan,” said Pardo.
“The non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (Palestinians living in the West Bank) live under occupation. This is Israel’s definition, not mine.
“The law in this territory is as we have made it, a military justice system that is subject to the authority of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).”
He further asserted that despite Israel withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in 2005, overall responsibility for the coastal territory remained with the Jewish state.
“Israel is responsible for the humanitarian situation, and this is the place with the biggest problem in the world today,” he said.
“Israel must deal with the demographic reality and decide which state we want to be. Life with alternative facts harbours a disaster for the Zionist vision. The key to saving the state requires brave leadership.”
However, the current Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, told the conference earlier that it was Iran that posed Israel’s foremost threat. Iran did not give up its nuclear ambitions, and it is trying to influence and shape the Middle East, Haaretz reported Cohen saying.
“As long as the Ayatollah regime exists, Iran will be the primary challenge for the security establishment, with or without the nuclear deal,” he asserted.
IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, meanwhile, said that the “primary challenge” for the Israeli army was the Lebanese resistance organisation Hezbollah, which operates both in Lebanon and in Syria. – ANA