Former Head of the Israel Security Agency (ISA, aka Shin Bet) Yuval Diskin announced Monday that he would not be entering politics, and explained the reasons for his decision Tuesday morning.
Diskin made his announcement in a talk with the members of Kibbutz Be’eri in the Gaza Belt, whom he told: “I am not entering politics and will not compete in the coming elections.” He also criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and said that he is doing nothing to advance the “two state solution.”
He wrote on Facebook: “Why did I announce yesterday that I will not join any party and will not contend in the elections this year? The problem of the Zionist center-left in the state of Israel is that it is mostly hollow ideologically, that it has no educational growth engine that can energize the public, and mostly the young ‘and restless’ multitudes seeking to make a change, and it has no real leadership, that is willing to put aside its ego out of a vision of the long range target…”
While Diskin says he will not enter politics, he appears at the same time to be paving the way for an eventual political bid, possibly some years down the line. “I have learned that only by operating in a way that tackles the basics, the infrastructure, coupled with faith in the justice of the path and perseverance, can true change be brought about – and this is what I will do,” he vowed.
After his retirement from the ISA, Diskin has been “outed” as a member of the Israeli left wing, and one nationalist critic – Giulio Meotti, writing in Arutz Sheva – has even called him “a threat to the Jewish people.”
“Diskin puts an aura of crimson on Judea and Samaria and advances the notion of removing all Jews from areas handed over to ‘Palestine,’” Meotti charged. “Since 2008, when he warned ‘settlers’ were ready to use violence to derail the peace talks, Diskin has harped on the threat of “Jewish civil war.
“Diskin supports the Geneva Initiative, which calls for the institution of an international regime to include military forces from the EU, UN, US, Russia and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. It would be the end of Jewish sovereignty in Israel and the reinstitution of a global anti-Semitic mandate like that of the League of Nations,” warned Meotti.
Diskin’s calls for a “two state solution” were panned by Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett, but Diskin surprisingly sided with Bennett in the flap over Operation Protective Edge, and lent credence to his claim that were it not for him (Bennett), the operation against Hamas’s tunnels might never have been launched.
