Did Shimon Peres prevent Netanyahu from attacking Iran?

Peres told the former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post two years ago that he had stopped an Israeli attack on Iran. 

Former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde revealed in a column on Thursday that former Israeli President Shimon Peres, who passed away this week, confided in him two years ago that he had prevented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from striking Iran.

In conversation at the Peres Peace Center in Jaffa on August 24, 2014, Peres “dropped the bombshell” to Linde and to the Post‘s managing editor, David Brinn, Linde said.

According to Linde, “During the course of the conversation (in which just the three of us sat and chatted over coffee), Brinn asked Peres what he considered the greatest achievement of his presidency. He responded by saying that he had personally intervened to stop Netanyahu from ordering a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.”

Peres told the journalists, “I don’t want to go into details, but I can tell you that he was ready to launch an attack and I stopped him. I told him the consequences would be catastrophic.”

Asked if Linde could report this stunning information, Peres – “with a wry smile” – replied: “When I’m dead.”

The events surrounding the conflict over whether or not to attack the Islamic Republic apparently played out between the summer of 2009 and the summer of 2011.

“Was it in fact Peres, the architect of Israel’s nuclear program, who ultimately foiled an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites? He thought so, although he didn’t say how he did it,” Linde wrote.

By: World Israel News Staff