Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen said last night (Saturday) in an interview with “Meet the Press” that he is “closer than ever” to joining politics, but added that he has not yet made a final decision. “I’ll see, I don’t know yet, I haven’t decided yet “, he noted. “I think that politics is an important thing, people who come, they should be highly valued for… but we also see the prices that people pay, the fact that they can’t always make changes, politics today is not an easy quagmire. Therefore a decision has to be made. You can say I’m closer than ever.”
Regarding Hamas’ decision, the former head of the Shin Bet said: “Our definitions for the end of the war should be that the leadership of Hamas does not control Gaza – dead, imprisoned or in exile. If they decide to go to Algiers or Qatar, I don’t see it as a problem. Hamas has suffered a severe and not yet fatal blow. If there are 6 battalions – it is not human. If, for that matter, we reach a situation where the fighting stops and 6 Hamas battalions remain, they will go wherever they want to control in the future, and if a force enters, it will encounter the armed battalions.”
Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen | Photo: News 12
“It is important to topple the government and also to harm Hamas,” explained Cohen. “Today we have two levers that we cannot let go of. One is the threat of the strength of the IDF in preparation for the occupation of Rafah. Two – the fact that the IDF is at the Netzer checkpoint and is delaying the entry of people from the north to the south – this is a dramatic leverage. We cannot give up these two things before the abductees come home.”
When asked what Hamas would consider a defeat, he replied: “Taking land from them is a very serious injury. The second thing is to topple the government. We will probably stay in the axis and remain inside the territory until the Hamas rule no longer exists and there will be a security reality, I hope by agreement, in the Philadelphia axis in cooperation with the USA and with the consent of Egypt.”
“I don’t see importance in establishing settlements,” declared Cohen. “Factories can be built and there are things that need to be done there, perhaps the opening of Rafah towards Egypt. The segment of the day following – Israel’s insistence is neither appropriate nor wise. We need to define that an organization that calls for our destruction cannot be our neighbor and if it is a neighbor it cannot rule Any other party that is willing to take the reins in a demilitarized zone, and this is a matter of a process of years, perhaps many years, it is in our interest to have such a force.”
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