JERUSALEM — The Israeli military chief described the Iranian government as “rational” in interviews published Wednesday and said he did not believe it would build a nuclear bomb, appearing to put some distance between himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile,” the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, told the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people,” General Gantz added. “But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous.”

The question of whether the Iranians are rational has been a critical focus of international debate over how to handle Tehran’s nuclear program, which the government insists is for civilian purposes. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked the Holocaust to describe Iranian nuclear capability as an existential threat to Israel, and he told CNN on Tuesday that he would not want to bet “the security of the world on Iran’s rational behavior,” according to The Associated Press. A “militant Islamic regime,” the A.P. quoted him as saying, “can put their ideology before their survival.”