Israel's Netanyahu planned to attack Iran 3 times since 2010, Israeli media reports

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had late-stage plans to attack Iran at least three separate times between 2010 and 2012, but was prevented from pulling the trigger at the last minute on each occasion, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said in a taped interview broadcast over the weekend on Israel's Channel 2 news.

Barak, defense minister from 2009 to 2013, believed with Netanyahu and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that Iran was getting close to a point where Israeli airstrikes would be more complicated and less effective, he told biographers Danny Dor and Ilan Kfir. The heads of Israel's intelligence agencies reportedly talked them down the first time. "At the decisive moment, the army's answer was that [Israel's] cumulative capabilities did not pass the threshold of an operation," Barak said in the interview. In 2011, Israel's military said it had the capacity to strike, but members of Netanyahu's security cabinet argued the prime minister down, Barak said. The third near miss reportedly interfered with joint U.S. training exercises.

In more recordings broadcast on Monday, Barak said that "Bibi is weak." Referring to an appointment Barak opposed, he said Netanyahu "doesn't want to take difficult steps unless he's forced to." In a separate conversation, Barak summed up Netanyahu's personality: "Bibi himself is shrouded in a kind of deep pessimism.... In the balance between fear and hope he generally prefers to be more fearful." Barak reportedly opposed the public airing of the interviews.

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Netanyahu's office told Haaretz on Monday that "it's time to stop all this irresponsible talk about matters relating to national security." The prime minister "continues to act responsibly and aggressively on behalf of Israel's security and its citizens," the statement said. "He is not burying his head in the said, is pointing out the dangers and threats as they are, and is acting firmly and decisively, as he did just a few days ago in Syria." Lawmaker Tzakhi Hanegbi said that Israel's military censors should have prevented the recordings from being broadcast at all, adding that he plans to summon the chief censor for an explanation.