Israeli opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot, considered a front-runner in the coming general election, has described an alleged Israeli intelligence plot to install former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the country's new leader as “an insane idea”.
According to reports in The New York Times and Haaretz this week, the plan was initiated and overseen by former Mossad director David Barnea, and involved launching a strike on Mr Ahmadinejad's home at the start of the Iran war to free him from detention.
Haaretz reported that Mr Barnea had met Mr Ahmadinejad in Budapest in 2024.
Critics of the plan say that its audacity reveals Israel’s misunderstanding of the durability of the Iranian regime, which, despite facing heavy bombardment, an economic crisis and massive popular protests at the beginning of the year, is only increasing its military actions.
“I said at the time that anyone who talks about changing the regime through the use of force is detached from reality, unfamiliar with history and doesn't understand the challenge,” Mr Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party, told a conference this week.
He also criticised alleged plans to use thousands of Kurdish fighters to help overthrow Iran's government, an idea he said “reflects how profoundly disconnected were those who thought it was possible to topple the Iranian regime”.
The New York Times reported that Mossad operatives drove Mr Ahmadinejad to a safe house after the attack on his residence, but that he later left after losing faith in the plan. The former president was seen last week at the funeral of Iran's former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli air strikes at the start of the war.
Mr Ahmadinejad’s office on Wednesday dismissed the New York Times report as fake and “Hollywood-style claims”.
Mr Eisenkot said Israel should have focused on three objectives in Iran – “stopping Iran's nuclear programme – and there's no need to lie by saying they already had nuclear bombs – halting its missile programme and neutralising Hezbollah”.
