Former Israeli intelligence chief: Israel 'at risk of civil war'

REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Israeli society is heading for civil war and the country must take steps to counter it, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo signaled Tuesday in his first public remarks since stepping down as the spy agency director in January.

“The internal threat must worry us more than the external threat,” he told a press conference in the northern Druze town of Daliyat al-Carmel.

“If a divided society goes beyond a certain point, you can end up, in extreme circumstances, with phenomena like civil war. To my regret, the distance [until we reach that point] is shrinking. I fear that we are going in that direction,” Pardo said.

There was more to unite than divide, Pardo told reporters, as he promoted an event next month to commemorate fallen soldiers from the Druze community. But, he added, some people in Israel sought the intensity that came with division, and “there are some for whom it’s comfortable to emphasize that which divides and not that which unites. I can’t put my finger on a group or a leader. It exists within all the country’s groups.”

Some wished to impose their own ways upon others, he added, and this was doomed to fail.

Asked whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was solvable, Pardo replied in the affirmative, adding that a two-state solution would ultimately be implemented.

“The prime minister has said there will be two states between the [Mediterranean] Sea and the [River] Jordan and he’s right,” Pardo said.

Pardo also criticized the Avigdor Liberman-led Defense Ministry for comparing last year’s nuclear deal with Iran with the Munich Agreement signed by the European powers with Nazi Germany in 1938. History did not repeat itself he said, adding that it was wrong to compare events that had taken place at such different times.

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