Why so many of Israel's security hawks have become doves
In Israel, many top intelligence and security leaders have grown much more moderate during their service, but the prime minister and his cohorts would rather brand them as leftists than analyze why.
When the chairman of the Likud argued June 25 that serving in the Mossad and the Shin Bet turns their chiefs into leftists, it kicked off a political storm. The public commotion sidelined an opportunity to hold a real and significant discussion of why the Israeli security chiefs have concluded that a peace agreement with the Palestinians will best serve Israeli interests.
Knesset member David Bitan's remarks, which he made in an interview at a cultural event in Beersheba, were a populist counter-response to the harsh criticism former generals Moshe Ya'alon and Ehud Barak directed at the prime minister at the Herzliya conference on June 16.
The chairman of the coalition scored double points: He ingratiated himself to Netanyahu and attacked the leftist generals in a style that will likely only add to his appeal among right-wing voters. Bitan is a veteran Likud operative. For years, he served as the head of the Rishon LeZion Likud branch office before he was elected to the Knesset. He isn’t among the radical, ideological right in the party, but falls in line with what he sees as the prevailing sentiment. In the interview on Saturday he related how Meir Dagan, before he was appointed chief of the Mossad, came to him at the Likud office in Rishon LeZion and sought to run on the party's list for the Knesset.
''Dagan was an extreme rightist when he entered the Mossad, but came out the opposite. … Something happens to you over the years in these positions. I believed it’s a development that happened to them in that job,” said Bitan. In his view, something bad happened during their service. They turn, God help us, “leftists.” Former Shin Bet chief and present Yesh Atid politician Yaakov Peri thought Bitan overstepped and should retract his vitriolic statement, which was meant to mask “paralysis, passivity and a lack of progress in the policy of the government of Israel.”
