Former IDF Chief Gantz Opposed Iran Strike

Recently retired IDF chief  Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz personally blocked plans for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, Gantz indicated in an interview with Israeli media.

When asked by a reporter: “Were there junctions at which you stood in recent years, [about] which you can say — ‘Had I not been there, it would have turned out differently’?”

“I think so,” he answered.

Gantz said that plans for a military strike on Iran, though advanced, never reached an operative stage.

“This thing never reached the stage of ‘take off and fly.’ It never reached there,” Gantz said.

“Because of what they heard from you, among other things?”

“I want to believe and think that they listened and took what I said into consideration,” Gantz replied.

In 2012, Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak were reportedly on the verge of ordering a strike on Iran. The plan was scuttled, however, due to the fierce opposition of then-Mossad Head Meir Dagan and then-Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

According to one media report, Netanyahu and Barak went so far as to put the military on war alert, before drawing back from the edge.

This article appeared in print on page 6 of the March 3rd, 2015 edition of Hamodia.