Israel’s recently retired former intelligence chief launched a stunning broadside attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak Friday, saying he doesn’t trust their “messianic” leadership and accusing them of promoting a war on Iran that could accelerate, rather than set back, Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon.

“The Israeli public is being spun on Iran, what worries me is that, we are creating a sense that if Israel doesn't act then Iran will get a nuclear bomb,” former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said at the “Majdi Forum” in the central Israeli town of Kfar Saba Friday, according to a translation. 

“I can tell you … that many experts for many years have said that one of the results of an Israeli attack on Iran can be a dramatic acceleration of [the] Iran nuclear program; i.e. what Iran prefers today to do slowly and quietly, they would then have the legitimacy to do quickly and in a much shorter timeframe,” said Diskin, who stepped down last May as head of Israel’s Shin Bet service, which he headed from 2005-2011.

“My main problem on this issue is that I don't have trust in the current leadership of the state of Israel—that could lead Israel into something of the order of magnitude of a war with Iran or a regional war,” he continued. “I don't believe in the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense—I don't believe in people who take decisions based on messianic sentiments.”