Israel’s security experts were wrong so many times, says Ya’alon

Over the past 22 years, ever since the signing of the Oslo Accords, our security experts have been wrong on many occasions, says Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in response to the charges leveled by a group of retired senior security officers at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today.

Speaking at a security conference at Bar-Ilan University, Ya’alon says: “I, too, was wrong! I also supported it. I didn’t know. I thought that a territorial compromise would bring us to the end of our travails and to tranquility.”

He says that in 1995, as the head of military intelligence, he had his awakening, realizing that each concession only draws more fire.

Then, too, he notes, the public discourse revolved around hope and the need to act in the pursuit of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that Israel’s willingness to trade land for peace, to a Palestinian leadership that had not made its peace with a permanent Jewish presence in Israel, is what led to the Second Intifada and its 1,000 victims.

“Each time they create a new golden calf,” he says.

He says derisively that, without celebrations on the lawn or conferences or lawyers drafting worthless papers, Israel has managed, over the past several years, despite the daunting upheaval in the region, to remain an island of stability in the Middle East.

Red lines and shared interests, coupled with a “lack of paternalism” have helped achieve this, he says.

“I hope we do not wind up longing for these past six years,” he says.

He also adds that Israel is continuing to prepare for how to thwart Iran from gaining the ability to build a nuclear weapon, and says that over the summer Israel managed to squeeze Hamas and shut down many of the Gaza terror group’s smuggling channels.

— Mitch Ginsburg