Minister Benny Begin is a well-versed warrior on the battlefield of public debate. He has some vigorous public discussions under his belt. I remember the heated debate he found himself in over then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon's behavior under former Prime Minister Menachem Begin during the 1982 Lebanon War. But never did he use words as harsh as those he uttered on Wednesday with regard to former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, during interviews with Army Radio's Micha Friedman and Channel 2's Oded Ben-Ami. In recent months, Dagan has flooded headlines with his assessments and revelations regarding a possible Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, but for the first time, Begin, who is known for his noble words, twice repeated that Dagan's comments were "despicable" and "sickening." It is not every day that you hear such profanities as part of Benny Begin's lexicon.
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Dr. Begin is clearly a democratic man. He is far from being someone who silences opinions. He is a person who grew up under the aegis of his father, with a version of opposition that focuses on free speech as a central tenet of politics. When former prime minister David Ben-Gurion first decided to embark on the 1956 military campaign in the Sinai [known as the Suez Crisis], he summoned Begin's father, Menachem Begin - back then their relationship was characterized by fierce hostility - to update him about the military move. He did so even before he revealed the plan to several of his own ministers. Ben-Gurion trusted that responsibility for the country's security would prevail over the hostility between him and Begin.
Yesterday, against the backdrop of a destructive political debate on Iran, an anonymous political official appeared who was searching for a scapegoat and pointed to Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Reporter Udi Segal told Channel 2 that the official was Vice Prime Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon, but he denied it. In no way is there a basis for this claim.
The first public debates to emerge over Tehran in the media were attributed mainly to Dagan and supporters of former Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. The debates claimed that Ashkenazi, as chief of general staff, and Dagan, as head of the Mossad, supposedly did not have their tenures extended because of their opposition to an attack on Iran, and not because of Ashkenazi's problematic and embarrassing involvement in the Boaz Harpaz affair. All of these whispers, and Dagan's speeches toward the end of his term that bordered on the delirious, as well as his sensational lecture thereafter at an Israeli university, served to ignite the fire.
Begin was not the only one boiling over with anger. His colleague Dan Meridor was also furious. Consider the following comparison: Anat Kamm was convicted for stealing forbidden and confidential materials from the Israel Defense Forces and leaking them to the media, and the court's ruling condemned this with due seriousness. But where does this incident stand in relation to the breach of all the floodgates by senior officials in Israel's defense establishment?
This becomes particularly interesting when you take into account a report by Ha'aretz's Barak Ravid that Begin and Meridor are opposed to an attack on Iran. They may just as well be aligned with Dagan's conclusions. Benjamin Netanyahu, Barak, Begin and Meridor do not have the right to express rage at the conclusions reached by Dagan and by others, but they do have the right to be angry over the fact that he is airing out the government's dirty laundry in public.
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