Netanyahu has no credibility left

No one should let Israeli PM’s lies and distortions condemn the region to further years of instability

The wide-ranging activities of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad have been exposed by the massive leak of spy cables from a wide variety of intelligence agencies published by Al Jazeera and the Guardian . The trawl has exposed how the CIA tried to establish contact with Hamas in spite of a US ban, how South Korean intelligence targeted the leader of Greenpeace, and how US President Barack Obama “threatened” the Palestinian president to withdraw a bid for recognition of Palestine at the UN.

The leaks from Mossad have seriously dented the credibility of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he prepares to make his controversial speech to the US Congress next month, when he will seek to wreck Obama’s search for a resolution of the dispute between Iran and the rest of the world over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Netanyahu’s position on Iran has already been dismissed as “hysterical’ by Mossad. In 2012 Mossad told South African intelligence that Iran “does not appear to be ready” to enrich uranium to the higher levels necessary for nuclear weapons, regardless of the fact that their prime minister was telling the UN General Assmbly that Iran was close to having nuclear weapons.

Several senior members of Israel’s security establishment have been repeatedly riled by Netanyahu’s rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear threat and his advocacy of military confrontation. In April 2012, a former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, accused Netanyahu of misleading the public over Iran through his “messianic” political leadership pressing for military action against Tehran.

The White House is furious with the Republican leadership in Congress for inviting Netanyahu to speak, and has refused to meet him. They are well aware that both the Republicans in the deeply divided Congress, and the Israelis, have made common cause to harm to the Democratic administration and derail one of its key initiatives. It is to be hoped that the Israeli public see through Netanyahu’s nonsense, as should the US Congress. It would be a tragedy if his misleading lies and malignant distortions were to condemn the Middle East to further years of instability and violence.