The letter reiterated the demands that the Obama administration had already leaked to the news media in advance as its position in the talks with Iran: an end to 20 percent enrichment, shipment of all 20 percent enrichment uranium out of the country, and the closure of the Fordow enrichment site. But it also insisted that nothing should be offered to Iran in return for those concessions except further negotiation.
But as the third-round talks with Iran were ending in Moscow, Mofaz, who was in Washington to consult with U.S. officials on the Palestinian issue, departed publicly and dramatically from Netanyahu's policy on Iran. In a speech at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy on June 19, Mofaz startled the audience by suggesting that the greatest threat to Israel did not come from Iran, as Netanyahu has insisted since becoming prime minister, but from its conflict with the Palestinians.
Referring to the Palestinian issue -- not the Iranian nuclear program -- Mofaz warned, "Time is not in favor of Israel" and added, "This year -- next year -- we have to decide."
Mofaz sounded more like the Obama administration than the Netanyahu government on the question of an Israeli military option. "We should ask ourselves how much we would delay the Iran program -- for how many months, for many years," he said, "and what will happen in our region on the day after."
Even more significant, however, was his comment on the "time limit" on tolerance of Iran's nuclear program as being when "the Iranian leader will take the last step to having a bomb." Mofaz thus appeared to align himself with Obama's red line rather than the Netanyahu and Barak position, which is that Iran must not be allowed to have much more of its enrichment capabilities in an underground site protected from an Israeli strike.
Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom, who was deputy national security adviser in 2000, told IPS that the position on Iran and Palestine expressed by Mofaz -- and especially his position on the "time limit" -- were potentially significant. If Mofaz has sufficient clout in the government, Brom said, it would "increase the probability of a more positive position of this government" on Iran.
The Mofaz position that a Palestinian peace settlement is crucial and urgent -- and that Iran is not -- effectively reshapes the priorities of the Israeli security policy. Netanyahu became prime minister in 2009 with a position that the threat from Iran made a Palestinian settlement unlikely, if not impossible.
Even before adding Mofaz, Netanyahu was unable to muster a majority in the nine-member Israeli "security forum," which must approve a decision to go to war, according to a May 31 Ynet News report. Only Netanyahu, Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were said to be supporting an attack on Tehran's nuclear facilities, at least in principle. The other six, including IDF Chief Gantz, Mossad Chief Pardo and Mofaz, were all opposed.
Netanyahu's strategy of using AIPAC and Congress to pressure Obama may well continue, but the pretense that Israel may attack Iran if its enrichment program continues is likely to be quietly phased out once the U.S. election campaign is over.
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