Participants in the Jerusalem Post's fourth annual conference in New York on June 7 never imagined that they would find themselves under public cross-examination over the actions of Israel’s political and security services during the tense days of 2010, when the government contemplated a military assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Sitting on the panel were former Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi; former Mossad Director Meir Dagan; two former heads of the National Security Council, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland and Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan; and senior columnist Caroline Glick. Moderating the panel was the Jerusalem Post’s editor-in-chief, Steve Linde. The much talked-about argument broke out toward the end of the discussion, when Glick, who is known for her hawkish, right-wing views, claimed that in 2010, two members of the panel “were given an order to prepare the military for an imminent strike against Iran’s nuclear installation, and they refused.”

Quick to protest these allegations, Dagan got into a vociferous argument with Glick. “It was an illegal order,” he said. “You were not there. You don’t know what happened there.”

Glick refused to concede: “Had you not brought in your expert legal opinion to determine whether or not the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister of Israel have a right to order Israel to take action in its national defense, then we would not be where we are today.” She blamed Dagan and Ashkenazi for the current situation, which, according to the Israeli right, leaves the country with no way out. What she was effectively saying is that the heads of Israel’s security forces conducted a quiet putsch against the political leadership, preventing them from launching an Israeli assault against Iran’s nuclear facilities following plans prepared well in advance.

This argument reignited the public debate about the issue in Israel. At the Herzliya Conference in Israel the following day, I asked the country's ninth president, Shimon Peres, about it. “That journalist wasn’t there! How would she know?” Peres raged. “These are issues that should be discussed in the Cabinet, not in the media and not in public.”