Former Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak (L) meets with former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the start of their meeting on Aug. 1, 2012 in Tel Aviv. File Photo by UPI/Gali Tibbon/Pool | License Photo

JERUSALEM, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- Israel made plans for a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities three times between 2010 and 2012, a report over the weekend claimed.

Israeli television's Channel 2 broadcast excerpts Friday of taped interviews given by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, to authors writing his biography, in which he said plans were made to strike Iran. Barak served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's defense minister between 2009 and 2013.


Speaking of a 2010 meeting between Netanyahu, Barak and then-Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman, after the three met with the Israeli cabinet and intelligence and security agencies, "the army's answer was that (Israel's) cumulative capabilities did not pass the threshold of an operation," Barak told authors Danny Dor and Ilan Kfir. Another suggestion for an attack, in 2011, ended after Moshe Yaalon and Yuval Steinitz, acknowledged Israel had the capability but the potential losses would be too great. A third potential strike, in 2013, coincided with joint military exercise involving Israel and the United States, and Israel chose not to draw its ally into the confrontation.

However accurate the memory of Barak, 73, the report caused concern and anger in Israel, in part because of the broadcast of such sensitive material.

Netanyahu's office offered no response; Yalons referred to the report as a "distorted version" of events and a statement from Steinitz only said he viewed revealing cabinet meeting information "very gravely."