An interview with Tamir Pardo, who argues that Israel’s military campaign has been flawed from the start
In John le Carré novels, the spies often lie and keep secrets even when they don’t have to, because it’s a “mentality,” le Carré once explained, a way of living “you never shed.” So it was notable when 250 veteran Israeli intelligence officers recently signed their names to an open letter demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu throw away his plans to escalate the war on Gaza. The war, they wrote, “doesn’t contribute to any of the declared objectives, and will lead to the death of hostages, soldiers and innocents.” At least six other similar petitions have circulated, signed by reservists, retired officers, and veterans from various branches of the Israeli military. “That’s the first time that’s happened in Israel,” says Tamir Pardo, our guest on Radio Atlantic this week and one of three former Mossad directors who signed the open letter.
After my interview with Pardo, in Tel Aviv, he asked me to emphasize one thing: His position on the war does not make him a “leftist,” he said. And I could see his point all around me in Tel Aviv, where opposition to the war has spread far beyond the Israeli left, and far beyond the families of the remaining Israeli hostages. In a recent poll, 70 percent of Israelis said they don’t trust the government, and about the same portion said they want a deal with Hamas to return the hostages and end the war—something the government has resisted even in this latest round of cease-fire talks.
The protests are not, for the most part, focused on the suffering of Gazans, as protests are in other parts of the world. They’re primarily about returning the hostages. But Pardo and others made clear to me that they believe the war is not serving Israel in any way. They want it to end.
Read More: Mossad’s Former Chief Calls the War in Gaza ‘Useless’
