Mofaz quit the government last month and told the Knesset last week that he thought Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was planning to attack Iran. While a member of the government and deputy prime minister, Mofaz was a member of the inner security cabinet that decides questions of war.
Mofaz followed up his speech in the Knesset with a press conference in which he pledged that his party “will not embark on any operational adventures that will risk the future of our sons and daughters.”
Mofaz previously served as defense minister and chief of staff of the armed forces. In the past, he has often sounded hawkish on Iran. But in recent months, he has been vocal in warning Israelis about getting out ahead of the United States. He has said it is necessary to give sanctions time to work. And, like President Shimon Peres, he has insisted that Iran is a global problem the entire world must deal with and not just a parochial problem for Israel.
“I think any premature strike would be a huge mistake before we see the [sanctions] process through,” he said last week.
Opinion polls show that most Israelis are opposed to a unilateral Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. By parting ways with Netanyahu, Mofaz has seemingly increased the political risks of a unilateral strike for the prime minister and his party, especially if such a strike goes wrong.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has tried to work his political ways by fomenting a split in the ranks of Kadima since Mofaz withdrew the party from the government.
Tzachi Hanegbi, defected from Kadima and joined the prime minister’s Likud Party. Hanegbi is an outspoken advocate of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and announced last week that his decision to quit Kadima was in response to Mofaz’s decision to quit the coalition with Netanyahu.