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Comment and Opinion

Haaretz: Ex-Mossad chief said what should be clear to everyone – Israel has never been so close to attacking Iran, by Anshel Pfeffer

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“I don’t envy the Iranian intelligence officer who is trying right now to make some sense out of all this.

Let’s stick with the most likely premise, that Halevy is still responsible and therefore not revealing any secrets that have come his way. He is fully aware of his position and that our Iranian intelligence officer will believe an ex-Mossad chief is always a Mossad chief and take his words as coming from the top. Halevy would not have risked causing any misunderstanding on the Iranian side – unless he was certain that he was saying absolutely nothing new, and if he is being so specific as to even mark out the period in which an Israeli strike is likely – twelve more weeks, roughly the time left from now until just before the U.S. elections, then he must assume the Iranians already believe this.

So if Halevy has spoken so plainly out in the open, he is only doing what we all can do for ourselves, hear what Netanyahu and Barak are saying, without any concern for diplomacy or operational secrecy, observe the anxious scurrying of senior administration officials, flying across the Atlantic to meet with them and see how just about everyone in Israel’s upper echelons are no longer leaking to the media, but opening the taps up full-blast.

It’s out there in the open, Halevy knows it but so does anyone who can read a paper or watch the news on television; in Jerusalem, Washington or Tehran. It may never happen, but for the next three months, Israel is at the closest point it has ever been to attacking Iran.”

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