The Institute for National Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said in its annual report, released Tuesday, that Iran will possess nuclear weapons unless military action is taken against it, and Israel would be capable of carrying out such an attack

“Time is working in Iran’s favor, and barring military action, Iran’s
possession of nuclear weapons is only a matter of time,” the institute said in a statement distributed at a news conference where it released its annual assessment of the Middle East’s strategic balance.

Israel considers Iran to be its most serious threat. It dismisses Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is designed solely to produce energy and is worried by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has not ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, but has said he hoped other ways could be found to keep Tehran from becoming a nuclear power. In 1981, Israel destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor in a surprise air attack. (more…)

Israel on Tuesday will test, for the UN, an underground installation in the Negev desert designed to monitor any attempt by arch-foe Iran to test nuclear devices, the daily Yediot Aharonot reported.
The test will consist of three strong explosions Israel will deliberately set off in the northern Negev using 15 tonnes of liquid explosives, to see how they register on equipment at the underground site.

Each blast will be equivalent to a seismic tremor of 2.4 on the Richter scale, the report said.

The facility is equipped with seismographs and other equipment able to detect earth tremors and transmits the data directly to the International Atomic Nuclear Agency (IAEA) in Vienna via Israel’s nuclear research facility at Nahal Sorek, the paper said.

The new underground testing center is in the mountains near the Red Sea beach resort of Eilat.

“The station will assess earth tremors, and ways to predict them and other underground and surface activity, such as nuclear tests,” the paper quoted Rami Hofshteter of the Lod Geophysics Institute near Tel Aviv as saying. (more…)

Nothing short of a military strike will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, an Israeli newspaper quoted a respected Israeli think tank as concluding on Friday.

“There is no longer a possibility for effective sanctions to stop Iran,” retired Brig.-Gen. Zvi Shtauber, of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Jerusalem Post.

“Our conclusion is that without military action you won’t be able to stop Iran,” Shtauber said.

Shtauber and former Israel Air Force intelligence officer Yiftah Shapir compiled the institute’s annual report on the military balance in the Middle East. (more…)

Russia is the only country in the world capable of averting the “nuclear holocaust” that a confrontation between Iran and Israel could bring about, Russian Jewish Congress head Vyacheslav Kantor said Wednesday, news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

“Everyone understands wonderfully that Israel posseses nuclear weapons, while Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, but already has the means to deliver them, and needs about two years before it will be in full possession of them,” Kantor said.

“And today, Russia is the only country that has the unique ability to speak with all parties in the potential future conflicts that are still possible to avoid. That is Russia’s historic mission,” Kantor said. (more…)

UNITED NATIONS — Iran demanded Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council condemn what it said was Israel’s clandestine development of nuclear weapons and “compel” it to place all its nuclear facilities under U.N. inspection.

If Israel refuses to comply, Iran said the council must take “resolute action” under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which authorizes a range of measures from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military action.

Iran insists its own nuclear program is a purely peaceful effort to develop energy, but the United States and many European nations believe Tehran’s real aim in enriching uranium is to produce nuclear weapons. The Security Council is currently debating a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its enrichment program. (more…)

But this time it’s between France and Israel

After French troops in southern Lebanon almost shot down an Israeli fighter jet that was diving toward them on Nov. 17, France warned the Israeli ambassador that Israel was constantly breaking the UN-brokered ceasefire by operating over-flights in the south and in other regions.

The Israelis at first claimed the incident had not happened and pointed out they did not have a policy of authorizing flyovers. Later, under pressure from the French, who are leading the UN mission (UNIFIL) in Lebanon, an Israeli government spokesman admitted there had been an incident but downplayed it, saying it was misunderstood. (more…)

Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to declare that the policy of targeted killings of Palestinian militants is illegal.

The court noted that not every killing complied with international law, but said the legality of operations should be assessed on a “case by case basis”.

The ruling came in response to a petition from two human rights groups.

In recent years, Israeli operations have targeted many suspected militants and left dozens of civilians dead.

The practise of targeted killings dates back to the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. (more…)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told a conference in Tehran questioning the Holocaust that Israel’s days are numbered.

“Just as the USSR disappeared, soon the Zionist regime will disappear,” he said to the applause of the participants.

The two-day conference provoked widespread international outrage.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the forum and British Prime Minister Tony Blair called it “shocking beyond belief”. (more…)

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Tuesday sparked an uproar after an apparent slip of the tongue in which he for the first time listed Israel as a nuclear power, but few expected the blunder to alter the Jewish state’s “policy of nuclear ambiguity.”

Israel, widely considered the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, has for decades refused to admit or deny whether it possesses the atomic bomb.

But on Monday, Olmert appeared to break the taboo in an interview with a German television station as he began a visit to Berlin.

“We never threatened any nation with annihilation,” Olmert said, speaking in English, on the N24 Sat1 station. (more…)

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Thursday that the Jewish state will remain mum on whether it has atomic weapons, following comments by the incoming US defense secretary that the Jewish state was a nuclear power.

“Israel will not say or not say whether we have nuclear weapons,” Peres told public radio. “It suffices that one fears that we have them and that fear in itself constitutes an element of dissuasion.”

The Jewish state is widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, but has never confirmed or denied the suspicions.

“Israel is the only country threatened with destruction. Israel does not threaten any other state,” Peres said.

No, instead they lobby the United States to destroy their enemies for them… (more…)

FBI refused to protect source of Ed Haas in June 2001 when he told them planes would be used to attack New York

Alex Jones was joined on air this week by investigative reporter Ed Haas to discuss an important story he has broken concerning direct evidence of Israeli prior knowledge of and possible complicity in the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

Haas details in his expose how in October 2000, approximately 11 months prior to September 11, 2001, a former Israeli Defense Force member and veteran of the Yom Kippur War overheard a conversation at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery, located in Newark, NJ., concerning the attacks and spoken in Hebrew between three men.

“The Americans will learn what it is to live with terrorists after the planes hit the twins in September.” Hass’s contact said he heard one of the men say. After 11 months of desperately attempting to alert the authorities and being systematically ignored all along the line, the contact watched in horror as the attacks unfolded exactly as he had overheard. (more…)

Predicting Iran will obtain nuclear weapons by the end of the decade, the defense establishment’s new and updated assessment for 2007 does not foresee the United States undertaking a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The chances of an American strike are deemed “low,” according to assessments by the security establishment. Israel also believes that international diplomatic efforts to stop Iran will fail, security sources said.

In an interview with the Post in late September, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said US President George W. Bush would prevent the Iranians from obtaining a nuclear bomb.Asked whether he felt Bush would one way or the other stop Iran going nuclear, Olmert responded: “I believe so.” (more…)

The Israeli government on Sunday approved the creation of a new ministry for strategic affairs, to be headed by a controversial ultra-nationalist and deal mainly with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a senior cabinet official said.

During the weekly cabinet meeting, “all the ministers approved the decision to form the ministry for strategic affairs” under Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beitenu party joined Prime Minister’s Ehud Olmert’s government in October, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The ministry will be responsible “for coordination between the different bodies regarding the different strategic threats Israel is facing,” most notably Iran’s nuclear programme, which the Jewish state and the United States believe is aimed at acquiring a nuclear bomb, despite Tehran’s denials. (more…)

1. The third Lebanon war There will be a war next summer. Only the sector has not been chosen yet. The atmosphere in the Israel Defense Forces in the past month has been very pessimistic. The latest rounds in the campaigns on both fronts, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, have left too many issues undecided, too many potential detonators that could cause a new conflagration. The army’s conclusion from this is that a war in the new future is a reasonable possibility. As Amir Oren reported in Haaretz several weeks ago, the IDF’s operative assumption is that during the coming summer months, a war will break out against Hezbollah and perhaps against Syria as well.

At the same time, the IDF does not anticipate a long life for the cease-fire achieved last Saturday night with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. When the present tahdiya (lull) joins its predecessors that fell apart - the hudna (cease-fire) of summer 2003 (which lasted for a month and a half) and the tahdiya of winter 2005 (which was in its death throes for months until its final burial at the end of the disengagement) - there is a danger that the big bang will take place in Gaza. At its conclusion, like a self- fulfilling prophecy, IDF soldiers will return to the heart of Rafah for the first time in 13 years. (more…)