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Israel's Barak calls for swifter action against Iran
Israel?s Defence Minister Ehud Barak addresses members of the foreign media during a news conference in Jerusalem April 30, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun
JERUSALEM |
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on Wednesday for major powers to speed up efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program, cautioning it would be tougher to confront it once Tehran managed to cross an atomic threshold.
Israeli media interpreted Barak's comments as pushing for a possible Israeli strike against Iran to stop a project the West sees as a drive to achieve nuclear weapons though Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying its program is intended solely for peaceful purposes.
"I am very well aware and know in depth the difficulties and complexity involved in preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons," Barak told a graduation ceremony for security officers, in remarks later released by his office.
"But it is clear to me beyond any doubt that confronting that (nuclear) challenge in itself once it ripens if it ripens, will be infinitely more complex infinitely more dangerous and infinitely more costly in human life and resources," he said.
"This is the time for the entire world to ready for united action, united goal in political desire in order to put a swift and definite stop to the Iranian nuclear project," Barak said.
In his lengthy remarks, Barak said Israel now faced "its most complex challenges ever", adding "we may need to make fateful and difficult decisions with regard to Israel's security," pointing also to what he called growing instability posed by popular revolts in neighboring Arab countries.
"The events of the Arab spring, which have gradually evolved into an Islamic summer, show that at the ultimate hour of decision we can rely at the moment of truth on ourselves alone," Barak said.
The Israeli news website Ynet quoted an unnamed senior official as interpreting Barak's remarks as an attempt "to push with all his might" in favor of an attack on Iran, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet was weighing whether to launch in the coming weeks, media reports said.
Israel has cautioned it saw time as running out before Iran achieves a "zone of immunity" in which Israeli bombs cannot penetrate deeply buried uranium enrichment facilities, and that Western economic sanctions had so far not achieved a goal of stopping Iran's nuclear program.
Netanyahu's ex-deputy, Shaul Mofaz, cautioned this week, just days after quitting the Israeli cabinet in a dispute over a military conscription law, against what he called "operational adventures."
Israeli media saw Mofaz's comments as a hint of possible action against Iran. His remarks also echoed the warnings of other former Israeli security officials against any go-it-alone attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, with some saying such an assault could backfire by spurring Tehran to speed up uranium enrichment.
But the failure of talks between Iran and six world powers to secure a breakthrough in curbing what the West fears is a drive to develop nuclear bombs has raised international concerns that Israel, widely assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, might opt for a military strike.
Those negotiations, Netanyahu said on the Fox television news channel on Sunday, had failed to slow uranium enrichment in Iran "one bit."
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Israel, in glaring contrast to the actions and endless threats of the above referenced parties, has never called for the destruction of those same parties or questioned their right to exist. On the contrary the State of Israel wishes only “to live and let live”.
Given the above status quo, in which Israel’s confirmed enemies have sworn repeatedly they will never waver in their stated goal/s to destroy the State of Israel, which they have attempted but failed to achieve, during numerous wars in the past- no one should be surprised that Israel would, and certainly should, take any and all threats to its survival, most seriously.
Iran cannot seriously believe that it can continuously call for Israel’s destruction, without Israel at some point being forced to make a strategic decision regarding the level of danger that Iran’s repeated threats, represent.
The recent horrendous bombing of a bus in Bulgaria, by a suicide bomber, which killed and maimed so many Israeli tourists, is simply one more eye opening wake up call that there are people in the world whose hate for Jews knows no bounds.
No sane person can, or should, have any doubt/s that if a suicide bomber ever has the opportunity to detonate a portable, suitcase size nuclear weapon at a predetermined targeted location, such a suicide bomber will not hesitate for a moment to exploit such technology, which already exists.
After all why stop at killing five people when you can kill five thousand with no additional effort. Of course there is then the question of how many additional people would also die in the weeks following the original blast, from the ensuing nuclear fallout and radiation. The mind reels at the endless, lethal possibilities of nuclear technology getting into the wrong hands.
There are included in all civilized religious belief systems the idea of “thou shall not kill”. But it also is stated in the Old Testament that if a man knows his enemy plans to murder him and his family in the morning, then that man is not only allowed/forgiven, but obligated to kill that enemy during the previous night to save himself and his family.
If the Holocaust taught the Jewish people, anything, (not to mention the entire world), it is that when one is threatened, either by one individual or entire nation states and their rulers, one must take those threats seriously and act accordingly- and before it is too late.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Never again means precisely that for the State of Israel.
If Israel launches an attack on Iran, be it late or soon, neither Iran not the entire civilized world for that matter, should be in the least bit surprised.
Those who wish ill unto and makes repeated threats to destroy the State of Israel should expect that Israel will feel it has no other option but to take those existential threats seriously and act accordingly.
Clearly, the enemies of Israel have not, even at this late date in history come to understand that what you sow, is what you will reap.
And indeed, surely there is not a thinking person anywhere in the world who can doubt for a moment that Iran, as well as its proxies, will one day come to sorely rue its repeated and open calls for Israel’s destruction.
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