Ex-Mossad chief: Israel must decide if it wants to remain Jewish, democratic state

By Lazar Berman

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17 May 2022, 4:04 pm

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Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo participates in the Meir Dagan Conference for Strategy and Defense at the Netanya Academic College, March 21, 2018. (Meir Vaaknin/Flash90)

Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo issues a stark warning about the future of the country, saying that Israel must have a difficult discussion about how it wants to solve its decades-long control over millions of Palestinians.

“What will happen here in 30 years?” Pardo asks at a symposium at Reichman University in Herzliya. “The answer is not clear. Israel… can decide on one state. It is unthinkable that someone would agree to live without rights in the territory in which he resides. We can decide we want one state – for some it would be the end of the Zionist dream, and for some it would be the fulfillment of a dream.”

Pardo headed the Mossad from 2011 to 2016.

“We are not alone in this territory,” he continues, “and to think that someone will run away — we have seen for 74 years that it won’t happen. We must spark the conversation — what do we want, a Jewish democratic state with a firm majority? Or a different type of state, in which we are the minority?”