At least two key advisers helping hold Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back from a threatened war with Iran have been sidelined in a party primary to pick candidates for a January 22 election, political sources said yesterday.
They have been the most vocal against the military option
Dan Meridor and Benny Begin, two of eight Cabinet ministers who form Netanyahu’s inner council, were trounced in an internal election by more hawkish members of the ruling Likud party on Monday, raising doubts over their return to the next government.
Both men have opposed attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities unilaterally during secret deliberations by the inner council, according to an Israeli official, and their likely ouster could point to a strategic shift closer to confrontation.
“They have been the most vocal against the military option, along with (Moshe) Yaalon and (Eli) Yishai,” the official told Reuters, referring to two other ministers from the forum, which lacks statutory authority but has often paved the way for formal policymaking by Netanyahu’s coalition government.
Israel says Iran is developing nuclear weapons and has threatened to take military action to guard against what it sees as a mortal threat. Tehran dismisses the accusation.
The United States and other Western powers share Israeli fears about Iran’s intentions but have urged Netanyahu to show restraint to prevent the eruption of a new Middle East war. Israel is presumed to have the region’s only nuclear arsenal.
The loss of Meridor and Begin would be partly off-set by the planned retirement of fellow forum member Defence Minister Ehud Barak, announced separately on Monday. The centrist Barak has, with Netanyahu, most publicly advocated striking Iran should international sanctions fail to curb its uranium enrichment.
A fourth forum member sidelined in the primary by right-wing Likud was Civil Defence Minister Avi Dichter.
Dichter only joined the Netanyahu Cabinet in August and has not publicly shared his views on tackling Iran, yet he is widely seen as war-wary.
Under the previous, centrist government, he was the only minister not to support Israel’s 2007 bombing of a suspected Syrian atomic reactor, according to a Cabinet official at the time. Dichter has declined to comment on that episode.