Israel claims thwarting Iranian plot to assassinate Netanyahu and others

Iran plotted to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, the Shin Bet announced on Thursday, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Iranian efforts were particularly intense following the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which most of the world has attributed to Mossad. However, Israel has made sure not to take any credit for it.

In addition, the Islamic Republic, at a somewhat more vague level, explored assassinating former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other top Israeli defense officials.

The plot was to use an Israeli businessman, named by Israeli media as Moti Mqman, 73 years old from Ashkelon, who spent extensive time living in Turkey and had financial dealings with both Turkish and Iranian persons to develop assassination plans in Israel.

To effectuate the plan, in April of this year, Turkish citizens Andrei Farouk Aslan and Guneid Aslan contacted the Israeli businessman to conduct financial transactions, inviting him to the Turkish city of Samandag to meet with two representatives of a rich Iranian named Edi. In May, the meeting was held.

But when he was told that Edi could not leave Iran for Turkey, he agreed to have himself smuggled by car from Turkey into Iran, where he met Edi and a member of the Iranian security establishment named Haj.

The Israeli businessman initially had requested one million dollars before undertaking any activities.

The Israeli businessman later visited Iran a second time in August and received 5,000 Euros as part of the start of his undertaking financial, logistics, and weapons-related actions for accomplishing the plot, including potentially converting a Mossad agent into a double agent.

During the second visit to Iran in August, he was smuggled again into Iran from Turkey, this time in a truck, and met again with Edi, though this time also with multiple other unidentified Iranian security officials. During this meeting, they asked him to assist with the assassination plots.

The Israeli businessman was also requested to take videos of certain Israeli sites for surveillance and intelligence gathering purposes as well as to deliver threats to Israeli citizens who Iran had contacted to carry out missions that were not complying with Iranian directives.

Also, during the second visit to Iran, the Iranians asked the businessman if he would be able to recruit Russians and Americans who could be used to kill Iranian figures opposed to the regime who live in Europe and the US.

The Shin Bet did not provide any indications that the Israeli businessman made any significant progress toward any of the terror activities. Still, it did stress that any involvement with hostile Iranians, let alone in Iranian territory itself, during a time of war, was viewed as a very serious security crime.

Further, the Shin Bet said that Iran appeared to be continuing a hard push for such terror activities, such that uncovering this one plot did not bring an end to the danger.

The businessman was indicted on Thursday.

It was unclear why the Shin Bet published the disclosure on Thursday, two days after it published the attempt by Hezbollah to assassinate former defense minister Moshe Yaalon.

In addition, it was unclear if there was any coordination between Iran and Hezbollah regarding the various plots or a delineation of who would target who.

Questioned about the timing, the Shin Bet initially responded that the cases were published based on when the indictments were being filed and when the relevant courts lifted the gag order relating to them.

The Jerusalem Post noted that the Shin Bet and law enforcement have significant control over the timing of filing indictments and requesting lifting gag orders, and as such the initial answer did not really answer the question. The Post is still waiting for further clarifications.

Questioned about whether Turkish authorities are cooperating with Israel against its citizens involved in the plot - which it has sometimes in the past - the Shin Bet had not yet responded.

Issues of cooperation between Israel and Turkish authorities are extremely sensitive, though Ankara has publicized some such cooperation in the past when Iran tried to kill Jews inside Turkey, and the Mossad helped Turkish authorities thwart the plot.

 

 

Gallant demands investigation against Netanyahu

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday called for a state inquiry into failings around the October 07, 2023 Hamas attack, saying it should investigate Gallant himself and his boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gallant made the comments at a graduation ceremony for new military officers, also attended by Netanyahu, whose coalition government is already strained by infighting.

The state inquiry, he said, "must be objective, it needs to investigate all of us, those who make decisions and those who carry them out, the government, the military, and the security agencies."

"It must investigate me, the defence minister, it must investigate the prime minister," Gallant said, to cheers from the crowd.

Netanyahu has dismissed past calls to form a state inquiry into the October 07 attack, which caught Israel off guard and sparked the war in Gaza, saying that examinations into what happened should be carried out once the war ends.

Only the government can decide to form a state commission of inquiry, which has a broad mandate and its findings carry weight. The chief justice of the Supreme Court chooses its members.

Gallant has broken ranks with Netanyahu before.

Last year, after months of nationwide protests against government plans to curb Supreme Court powers, Gallant said proposed legislation should be dropped, warning the public dispute could hurt national security.

Netanyahu immediately sacked him, spurring tens of thousands of Israelis to take to the streets in support of Gallant. The veteran prime minister eventually relented and Gallant kept his job.

Gallant has since clashed with Netanyahu over Gaza strategy, prompting some members of their Likud party to call for him to be dismissed from his post.

 

 

 

 

 

Netanyahu dissolves war cabinet

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the six-member war cabinet, an Israeli official said on Monday, in a widely expected move following the departure from government of centrist former general Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu is now expected to hold consultations about the Gaza war with a small group of ministers, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer who had been in the war cabinet.

The move was announced as US special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Jerusalem, seeking to calm the situation on the disputed border with Lebanon, where Israel said tensions were bringing the region close to a wider conflict.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had killed a senior operative in one of Hezbollah's rocket and missile sections in the area of Selaa in southern Lebanon.

The military also said its operations were continuing in the southern parts of the Gaza Strip, where its forces have been battling Hamas fighters in the Tel Sultan area of western Rafah, as well as in central areas of the enclave.

Hochstein's visit follows weeks of increasing exchanges of fire across the line between Israel and Lebanon, where Israeli forces have for months been engaged in a simmering conflict with Hezbollah that has continued alongside the war in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes on both sides of the Blue Line that divides the two countries, leaving eerily deserted areas of abandoned villages and farms hit by near-daily bombardment.

"The current state of affairs is not a sustainable reality," government spokesperson David Mencer told a briefing.

Netanyahu had faced demands from the nationalist-religious partners in his coalition, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, to be included in the war cabinet. Such a move would have intensified strains with international partners including the United States.

The forum was formed after Gantz joined Netanyahu in a national unity government at the start of the Gaza war in October. It also included Gantz's political partner Gadi Eisenkot and Aryeh Deri, head of the religious party Shas, as observers.

Gantz and Eisenkot both left the government last week, over what they said was Netanyahu's failure to form a strategy for the Gaza war.

An agreement to halt the fighting in Gaza still appears distant, more than eight months since the October 07, 2023 attack on Israel led by Hamas fighters that triggered Israel's military offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and destroyed much of Gaza.

Although opinion polls suggest most Israelis support the government's aim of destroying Hamas, there have been widespread protests attacking the government for not doing more to bring home around 120 hostages still being held in Gaza and against Netanyahu's handling of the war.

Protesters calling for new elections clashed with police in Jerusalem on Monday. By sundown, a crowd of thousands had gathered outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, before marching to Netanyahu's private home.

Some protesters tried to break through barriers set up by the police, who pushed them back. At one point a bonfire was lit in the street, and police used water cannon to disperse the demonstration.

The northern border was relatively quiet on Monday, the second day of the Muslim Eid celebration, compared with previous days, when rocket fire set off widespread brush fires in heatwave conditions.

A survey for the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank, found 36% of respondents favouring an immediate strike against Hezbollah, up from 26% a month earlier.

Israeli aircraft and artillery have pounded southern Lebanon and last week killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike against a command and control centre that drew a further intensification of attacks.

In addition to attacks by missiles and anti-tank rockets, there has been a marked increase in drone attacks that have underlined the strength of the arsenal Hezbollah has built up since the last major conflict between the two sides in 2006.

 

Can Israel succeed in stopping new Iran deal?

It seems that Israel might once again try to replica ‘2010 moment’ which on the surface may seem like a path to war but a bluff aimed at seeking attention.

More than 13 years later, the events of 2010 are still something of a mystery in Israel. Then, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, regularly threatened military action against Iran but stopped short of launching a strike.

Today, the ministers who were members of the security cabinet back then and the IDF officers who briefed them regularly are still conflicted about what happened. Were Netanyahu and Barak serious about attacking Iran and simply stopped – as they later claimed - due to the opposition they met within the defense establishment, or were they bluffing all along, using threats against Iran to stir panic in Washington, London and Berlin and get the world to ratchet up sanctions against Tehran?

Based on comments by senior Israeli politicians and military officers in recent weeks, it seems that Israel might once again be in a bit of a “2010 moment”, one which, on the surface, seems like a path to war, but on the other hand might be again a bluff aimed at getting the world’s attention.

There is no denying the escalation in the rhetoric. Last month, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi said that Israel is not indifferent to what is happening in Iran and might need to take action to stop it.

This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a war drill and issued a public threat at a meeting of the security cabinet, saying that Israel can handle the threat from Iran on its own.

And then there was Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said Tuesday that Israelis did not need to worry themselves with the new hypersonic missile that Iran unveiled earlier that day and that if a war were to break out with Tehran’s proxy, Hezbollah, Israel would send it back to the Stone Age.

One would be forgiven for thinking that the beating of war drums means that war is coming. What we have learned over the last couple of decades in Israel is that sometimes war drums mean the exact opposite and are used to deliver messages, oftentimes to allies and not just adversaries.

It seems Israel is using its threats to put pressure on the Biden administration as it negotiates a new interim deal with Iran as a way to stop its enrichment of military-grade uranium. Based on the intensity of the Israeli rhetoric, it seems that the US-Iran talks are proceeding at a faster pace than initially anticipated, and might even be on the verge of an agreement.

As a result, it is interesting to compare the way Netanyahu and his government spoke in 2015 against the original Iran deal with the way they are speaking now. Then, as is well known, Netanyahu accepted an invitation from the republicans and spoke before Congress in direct opposition to the deal, and somewhat to then-president Barack Obama.

While Netanyahu felt the need to do everything possible to stop the bad deal – as can be expected from an Israeli leader - his decision to speak in 2015 in Congress went against the president’s wishes and is still a raw nerve for many democrats.

Would Netanyahu do the same today? The reply is most ‘Unlikely’. The reason is twofold. On one hand, while Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said during his visit to Israel last month that he would invite Netanyahu to Washington DC if President Joe Biden did not, Netanyahu understands that a fight with the administration will not succeed in stopping a new interim deal and will become highly politicized as the 2024 presidential election race heats up.

The second reason is because deep down, Israel wants a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear challenge. It knows that a military option – while viable – will only delay Iran’s pursuit of a bomb and pave the way for the mullahs to gain the legitimacy they need to plow ahead under the claim that a bomb is needed to protect the republic.

While there are some in the Knesset and the defense establishment who are enamored by the military option and cite the success of the destruction of the Iraqi reactor in 1981 and the Syrian reactor in 2007, they would do well to remember that in both cases the reactors were built by external actors – France in Iraq and North Korea in Syria. That is not the case in Iran where the nuclear technical know-how is domestic and knowledge, as is known, is not something that can easily be destroyed.

Israel has always wanted a diplomatic resolution to the threat but one that took Israel’s concerns into consideration and dealt with the fundamental issues – not only Tehran’s nuclear program, but also its development of long-range ballistic missiles as well as the regime’s support of terrorist proxies throughout the region.

The talks that the Americans are engaged in now with Iran are unlikely to meet any of those criteria. From the little details that have leaked about the pending deal, Iran will be able keep its enriched uranium while committing to suspending all high-level enrichment.

In other words, it gets to keep all the uranium it has already enriched, all of its nuclear infrastructure and technical knowledge. What this means is that in the best-case scenario, Iran will only suspend its high-grade enrichment but will not abandon its desire to one day get the bomb. In exchange for this enrichment freeze it will see significant economic benefits.

Can Israel realistically stop this deal or at the very least sweeten it? That remains to be seen and is currently the Israeli objective. Like in 2015, Jerusalem understands that it is unlikely that it will succeed in stopping a new deal.

Netanyahu knows that he has sway in Washington, especially within Republican circles where Israel is looked to as a stamp of approval when it comes to US moves on Iran. Biden might want an interim deal, but he also does not want to do something that will simply give his republican opponents ammo to use against him on the campaign trail.

Can Israel maneuver through this complicated terrain? Can it improve the framework of the deal or receive some other benefit from the US, like security assurances, new weapons systems or maybe even some form of rapprochement with Saudi Arabia?

That remains to be seen. In the meantime, Israel would be negligent not to escalate its own talk against Iran right now. It might not be as glamorous as a speech before Congress or an invitation to the White House, but everything does need to be done to stop Iran.