“The nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and bad for the region. It makes me sick to say that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is right, but it’s true. There are plenty of holes in the agreement, and it has a negative effect on our position in the region.” Former Labor Party Minister Ephraim Sneh said that in a very pessimistic interview with Al-Monitor. Sneh has been warning about a nuclear Iran for two decades now. He began expressing his concerns long before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made that fight his life’s mission. Though he is a dove on the diplomatic front, Sneh proved to be a hawk on security matters, while serving as deputy minister of defense and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In the interview he asserted, “The curse of the settlements hovers over the nuclear agreement as well,” and warned of Netanyahu’s ongoing intervention in internal US politics, which has already caused enormous damage to Israel’s foreign policy.
The full text of the interview follows:
Al-Monitor: In hindsight, how did Israel reach a point in which there is such an agreement, which you describe as bad?
Sneh: Netanyahu made plenty of mistakes from the very start. The few right things that were done involved military issues, and even that was initiated under [former Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert. As far as diplomatic matters are concerned, you could say that 100% of everything Netanyahu did was mistakes. The diplomatic handling of it was a failure by the very fact that it turned the Iranian issue into a means for the Republicans to lash out at President [Barack] Obama. That is how we distanced the Democratic Party from us. If there was once a united, bipartisan front in support of Israel, encompassing both Republicans and Democrats, on this particular issue the Democrats decided to position themselves next to the president. The Israeli actions were mistaken, and have served foreign interests. Going over the head of the president of the United States serves foreign interests. It is not in the interest of the State of Israel, and it is not in the interest [of] Israel’s security.
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