Thirty years ago, I was a young Reuters correspondent in Tel Aviv. It was a sleepy June day, as I recall -- the festival of Shavuoth. People were at the beach, or hiking in the hills or in synagogue.
That afternoon, I went to the office to begin what I thought would be a quiet shift on the news desk. The streets of the city were deserted.
At four, an announcer came on the radio and declared that Israeli planes had bombed and destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor on the outskirts of Baghdad. I'll never forget the jolt of excitement that seized me, nor my frantic rush to the telex machine to get the news to the world. It was my first really big story -- and still one of my biggest. I still have in my files the bulletin I sent to the world that day.
International condemnation of the attack was instantaneous and pretty well universal. The UN Security Council condemned the operation as a "clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct." The United States supported the resolution and suspended delivery of four F-16 aircraft to Israel.
The General Assembly demanded that Israel pay compensation to Iraq. France and Britain said the reactor had no military applications. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher compared it to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The New York Times said it was a "sneak attack" and an act of "short-sighted aggression." The Los Angeles Times called it "state-sponsored terrorism."
Later analysis has been kinder to Israel and to its Prime Minister Menachem Begin who ordered the strike. It became abundantly clear over time that the reactor was in fact a nuclear weapons facility and the world grew to understand much more about the brutal nature of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Saddam had already launched an unprovoked attack on its neighbor Iran the previous September, setting off eight years of war in which Iraq used chemical weapons. No sooner had that war ended than in 1990 Saddam invaded Kuwait. Had Iraq possessed a nuclear weapon during either of those conflicts, how much more dangerous would the world have been? How much more difficult would it have been to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait? How much likelier would an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia have been?
In 2007, when Israeli planes destroyed another facility in the Syrian desert, the reaction was much more muted, possibly because neither Israel nor Syria said much about it at the time. It took over two weeks for Israel even to officially acknowledge the attack.
Again, over time, Israel's actions have been vindicated. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Commission confirmed that the plant was a covert nuclear reactor designed to produce plutonium. The IAEA is expected at its next board meeting to cite Syria for noncompliance with the non-proliferation treaty and send the matter to the Security Council.
The Iraqi and Syrian operations are examples of Israel braving international condemnation to defend its vital security interests. At the same time, Israel did the entire world a huge favor in both cases.
The case of Iran is more complex and the world is trying to curb Tehran's illegal nuclear weapons program through sanctions. But the threat is real. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his speech to Congress last month:
A nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. It would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger throughout the world. I want you to understand what this means. They could put the bomb anywhere. They could put it on a missile. It could be on a container ship in a port, or in a suitcase on a subway.
That's why the military option -- the option of last resort -- remains on the table.
Follow Alan Elsner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alanelsner
Aviv Kochavi, chief of Israeli defence intelligence
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/25/iran-working-bomb-israel-intelligence-head/
Barak, minister of defence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110505/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_iran_1
Degan, former Mossad Cheif.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Israel+stupid+bomb+Iran+Mossad+chief+says/4748975/story.html
Reality on the ground is that Iran hasn't made the decision of pursue nuclear weapon development, but if they do, there is nothing Israel or US could do to stop them. The best course of action is engagement that is being advocated by former Ambassadors from UK, Germany, France, Itally, Sweden and Belgium to Iran.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/09/opinion/la-oe-ambassadors-iran-20110609
TEPCO press releases at least do not boast or selfcongratulate like this when releasing flawed radiation reports.
Israelis and their apologists in the west must "get" these two realities before their own singularity sucks them in like a black hole devours all matter in its vecinity: Israel is not the center of the moral universe, but at its fringe, holding on by a thread; the community of nations will write no more blank checks so that it can continue to carry out its six decades policy of land theft and agression; the sun is setting on its superpower patron, which will soon be forced to turn its attention to rebuilding its own nation, as opposed to maintaining the status quo in the Middle East.
Why would you even think of putting the interests of America's children over the interests of Israel?
The only thing worse than a large scale Israel & Allied attack on Iran's facilities, is a much larger nuclear war 5-10-15 years down the road.
Iran cannot "surprise" anybody with a nuclear weapon. They have to be tested. One minute after Iran tests a single nuclear weapon, Israel and the USA will know about it. At that point, Iran will have no working nukes and Israel will have over 200. The USA has thousands to spare. There is no Iranian nuclear threat, period.
BTW, I thought Reagan's Star Wars thing stopped missiles? So that whole thing was a waste of money?
As far as attacking nuclear plants. The author seems to be saying that an Iranian attack on Israel's nuclear facilities would be totally justified.
Much like Tyler Durden, the Israeli government does not even realize that it has become the very thing it fears. With an undeclared, likely unsecured nuclear arsenal, Israel has the ability to hold its neighbors hostage with thinly veiled threats of utter destruction should any harm come to Israel. The only thing that may be keeping the Israelis from delivering on that threat is the nuclearization of Pakistan. Paradoxically, it is the most destructive weapons known to man that can maintain peace in the Middle East.
If you are interested in knowing what Arabs think, follow this link:
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/08_arab_opinion_poll_telhami/08_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.pdf
Polling is quite clear on what the Arab populations beleive about the amount of threat coming from Iran and Israel
You must be refering to all the dictators that you support.
If Israel tries to launch such an attack, we should reduce their air force to scrap metal.
God made a promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 that He would make Abraham a great nation, the Jewish nation, which is guaranteed by the Abrahamic Covenant. In Deuteronomy 30, the Lord also promises in the Land Covenant, that this Jewish nation will have a land to live on forever. By the way, it will be ten times the size of the land they have today. The day of Pentecost in 30AD is the day when Christians came into existence and the Church began, Acts 2. But remember, the Church did not replace God's promises to the Jewish people. The Church has not replaced God's plan for His chosen people, the Jewish people.
"Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch" (2003) as saying "I consider it all hopeless at this point. ... We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under." He quoted General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
"In a separate article, Richard Lightbown argues that Israel 's use of white phosphorus and other toxic metals, and its suspected use of depleted uranium, in the war against the people of the Gaza Strip has put the whole of the Strip's population and its environment – air, soil, groundwater and possibly seawater – at risk of serious long-term injury and contamination. He also observes that The goldstone report mentions phosphorus in paragraph 896: Medical staff reported to the mission how even working in the areas where the phosphorus had been used made them feel sick, their lips would swell and they would become extremely thirsty and nauseous."
http://www.countercurrents.org/cook150411.htm