Counterpunch

Generals and secret police chiefs get together for an attack on the politicians.

In some countries, they arrest the president, occupy government offices and TV stations and annul the constitution. They then publish Communique No. 1, explaining the dire need to save the nation from perdition and promising democracy, elections etc.

In other countries, they do it more quietly. They just inform the elected leaders that, if they don’t desist from their disastrous policies, the officers will make their views public and precipitate their downfall.

Such officers are generally called a “junta”, the Spanish word for “committee” used by South American generals. Their method is usually called a “putsch”, a German-Swiss term for a sudden blow. (Yes, the Swiss actually had revolts some 170 years ago.)

What almost all such coups have in common is that their instigators thrive on the demagoguery of war. The politicians are invariably accused of cowardice in face of the enemy, failure to defend national honor, and such.

Not in Israel. In our country we are now seeing a kind of verbal uprising against the elected politicians by a group of current and former army generals, foreign intelligence and internal security chiefs. All of them condemn the government’s threat to start a war against Iran, and some of them condemn the government’s failure to negotiate with the Palestinians for peace.

The American Conservative

“Bibi” Netanyahu was disgusted.

“My initial reaction is that Iran has gotten a freebie. It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation.”

The Israeli prime minister was referring to Saturday’s meeting in Istanbul of the P5-plus-1 — the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany — with representatives from Iran.

Subject: Iran’s nuclear program. After a “constructive” meeting of one day, all agreed to meet again in Baghdad, May 23, and departed.

For Bibi, it was a strategic defeat.

For Israel’s goal is a halt to Iran’s enrichment of uranium and the removal of enriched uranium from that country.

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