Ex-Shin Bet head Diskin: No plans to enter politics
Former Likud minister Sa’ar isn’t about to make a
comeback, either, Piron debating whether or not to quit.
By LAHAV HARKOVUpdated: AUGUST 11, 2015 04:08Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet)(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin has announced that he will not be entering politics.Following a report on Channel 10 News that he told a group of friends his plans, Diskin admitted Sunday night that it is true on Facebook, where he has engaged in punditry for the past two years.Diskin wrote that he deliberated for a mentally taxing and exhausting year-and-a- half and faced many confusing pressures from friends and politicians who tried to tell him that he had to join politics immediately.However, since leaving the Shin Bet in 2011, he wrote, he wanted to take a break from making decisions and leading, after serving the country for 37 years and holding leading commanding positions from 1997-2011, including during post-Oslo Accord terrorism, the Second Intifada, Second Lebanon War and operations in Gaza.“These 14 years left me, at least temporarily, too emptied of urges to lead and make fateful decisions. One can say the opposite is true... I have a strong urge to be like other people, to deal with everyday decisions and not fateful decisions of life and death. I wanted and still want, at this time, to do different things from what I did in the past and perhaps fulfill some personal dreams that were postponed for too many years,” Diskin wrote.The former Shin Bet leader wrote that, while he realizes the importance of joining politics, he still is not excited enough to do it and make the necessary efforts.Diskin said, however, he will continue expressing his opinions.Also Sunday night, former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar denied a Channel 10 report that he is about to return to politics.“Time out in soccer is a minute. Time out in politics is about a year,” he said at a closed meeting of Likud members last week, according to a Channel 10 report.Sa’ar announced his “time out,” which he said was to spend more time with his family, on September 17 last year, shaking up the political scene. He was interior minister at the time and had won the top spot twice in a row in primaries for the Likud list.
Following the report, Sa’ar tweeted: “I didn’t announce last week that the time out is over. I said, and not for the first time, that all time outs come to an end. When that happens, you will all know – from me.”Meanwhile, a Yesh Atid source confirmed that for - mer education minister MK Shai Piron is still considering whether or not to leave politics, as he has been since the last election. If he quits the Knesset, former Hatnua MK Elazar Stern is next on the Yesh Atid list
