Iran protest after Israeli minister says: Yes, it's ok to kidnap Ahmadinejad

13 April 2012

An irate Iran has protested after an Israeli minister claimed it was OK to kidnap President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


Senior Israeli cabinet minister Rafi Eitan suggested that Israel could kidnap the Iranian President over threats he has made against the state.

Eitan, a member of Israel's inner cabinet of ministers with security responsibilities who - as a former Mossad agent - was involved in the abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, said such operations were not completely a thing of the past.

Ahmadinejad has made a number of threats against Israel.

Rafi Eitan, left, said Ahmadinejad, right, must be brought to trial for war crimes any way possible - including kidnapping

He recently predicted that it would soon disappear. He has also quoted the view of the late Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, that Israel was a tumour that needed to be erased from history.

Mr Eitan, 81, said the Iranian leader had threatened genocide and should therefore be brought for trial to The Hague, seat of the international war crimes tribunal.

"And all options are open in terms of how he should be brought," he told the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Asked if kidnapping was acceptable, Mr Eitan replied: "Yes. Any way to bring him for trial in The Hague is a possibility."

In a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Iran's U.N. ambassador protested Eitan's comments, as well as the September 3 threat by Israel defence minister Ehud Barak to use force against Iran.

"While the Islamic Republic of Iran has never threatened other nations," Ambassador Mohammad Khazee said it "would not hesitate to act in self-defense to respond to any attack against the Iranian nation and to take appropriate defensive measures to protect itself, its people and its officials."

Khazee called the latest Israeli threats "dangerous" and a violation of international law, the U.N. Charter, and "the basic values of the civilized world."

He called for "a resolute and clear response" by the U.N. Security Council and asked that Ban circulate the letter to its members.

"It is indeed unfortunate that the inaction of the Security Council vis-a-vis the previous threatening statements of the said regime against Iran and other countries of the region has only encouraged it ... to openly threaten to use force against members of the United Nations or to commit criminal acts against their officials," Khazee said.

Eitan was part of the plot to kidnap Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, pictured here in his cell

Eitan was part of the plot to kidnap Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, pictured here in his cell

Israel's U.N. Mission said it would have no comment on Khazee's letter.

Mr Eitan said he was only expressing a personal opinion, but his thinking is shared by many Israelis who believe the Iranian president is the greatest threat to Israel's existence since the Nazis.

Israeli leaders have warned they will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons for fear they will be used to carry out Ahmadinejad's threat to "wipe Israel off the map".

"He is a psychopath of the worst kind," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "He speaks as Hitler did in his time of the extermination of the entire Jewish nation."

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel has compared Ahmadinejad to the Nazis.

"Looking back to German history in the early 1930s, when National Socialism was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said, 'It's only rhetoric - don't get excited'," Ms Merkel told an international security conference in Munich in 2006.

"There were times when people could have reacted differently and, in my view, Germany is obliged to do something at the early stages. We want to - we must - prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program," she said.

But Mr Eitan's view of the Iranian president is not shared by all his old colleagues.

Ephraim Halevy, a former director of the Mossad, said the crazy anti-Israel rhetoric spewing from Tehran was better than any secret service plot.

"Ahmadinejad is our greatest gift," said Mr Halevy. "We couldn't carry out a better operation at the Mossad than to put a guy like Ahmadinejad in power in Iran."

He said Ahmadinejad's incendiary anti-Israel outbursts had united the international community and "proved to everyone that Iran of today is an Iran that is impossible to live with."

In Israel's rough-and-tumble parliamentary system, ministers often speak out without the blessings of the country's top leadership.

During his espionage days, Eitan was involved in the abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960.

Eichmann was the Nazi bureaucrat who oversaw the details of Hitler's "Final Solution" in which six million Jews and millions of gypsies, disabled, homosexuals and others were gassed or shot to death.

He was spirited out of Argentina, tried before an Israeli court in Jerusalem and executed for crimes against humanity.

Mr Eitan later headed a shadowy Defence Ministry unit that recruited Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish-American naval analyst who was caught spying for Israel in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison.

The affair was one of the most damaging episodes in Israel-U.S. relations.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in