Bibi and Barak battle for Israeli public opinion over Iran
by Rotem Sella , GATESTONE INSTITUTE
All four of Israel’s major newspapers featured Iran in their headlines in their weekend editions. In Ha’aretz, Ari Shavit, who has been pro-strike, wrote: “Top Israeli Official: the Iranian Nuclear Threat is bigger than the threat faced by Israel before the Six Day War”
That “top Israeli official” (no extra points for guessing who he may be), told Shavit: “If Iran gets nuclear weapons, no one will be able to stop her when she provokes her neighbours,” adding, “what happened in the Rhineland in 1936 will be child’s play compared to happens with Iran.” The official continued: “If we don’t act, Iran will almost certainly go nuclear. If we do act, there is a chance Iran won’t go nuclear in the years to come, or might never go nuclear. Assessing the risks to the homeland, the source told Shavit that the number of casualties Israel would suffer in any war with Iran would be less than the number of casualties suffered by the “Harel Brigade”(part of Palmach) in the 1948 war of Independence.
The description in the article left almost no doubt that the “official” in question is Defense Minister Ehud Bark. Wrote Shavit: “This decision maker is a controversial figure. At times, he was seen as a savior, then dismissed as a leper (?????), and again a savior, then a leper again. Even his opponents, however, agree that he is very intelligent. Even those who disagree with him point to his unique strategic experience, his half-century spent at the very center of Israeli decision making processes. Not just once or twice has he been at the absolute center. One very late night he opened the door to me…with a grand piano at his back he told me his point of view for two and a half hours.”
It is well known around Israel that Ehud Barak plays the piano. Chief of staff in the nineties, then the great white of hope of the left for peace as prime minister in the late nineties, later come back kid as head again of the labor party. Recently, he presided over the splitting of the labor party and the formation of his new ‘Independence’ party and a bedrock member of Netanyahu’s coalition.
In Ma’ariv, meanwhile, the headline read: “37% of Israelis say Iranian possession of nuclear weapons could lead to a second Holocaust.” They then produced a series of polls attempting to gauge the public mood before a strike. 41% of Israelis say only military action will stop Iran, “only” (according to Ma’ariv) 22% believe in sanctions, 35% prefer a US strike to an Israeli one, 40% trust Netanyahu and Barak while 27% don’t.
Unsurprisingly, Israel Ha’yom has also promoted a pro-strike approach. “Iran intensifies weapon development,” screamed the headline, accompanied by a picture of Ahmadinejad flashing his fingers in a victory sign to the Israeli public. The paper quotes the Israeli chief of staff: “we are preparing ourselves for a multi-front confrontation”.
This weekend, the only newspaper that has adopted an anti-strike approach is Yediot-Ha’aronot: “Netanyahu and Barak are determined to attack Iran in the fall”, ran the headline. “Barak,” the story proceeded, “sat top generals down for a meeting in his office, but came across fierce resistance. Later, he again tried to persuade them in a conversation at a Mossad-run location. This didn’t help either. All the army professionals expressed opposition to a strike without the backing of the United States, and asked the same question: what happens on the Israeli home front the day after?”
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When four of out four newspapers in Israel deal with any single subject one can count on the fact that there is a deliberate effort by some personnel to set the headlines on fire. Netanyahu and Barak are now fighting hard to win over the hearts and minds of the Israeli public to a strike on Iran – and the media blitz is a tool they are using to persuade recalcitrant generals.
Barak or whoever. Historians of the future will be puzzled by the fact that Israel even while facing an existential threat, greater than the one on the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967, was still reluctant to discuss the true nature of the Iranian threat. The crucial religious/ideological angle which would give clarity to the Iranian motives is being deliberately avoided. Why?
Telling the truth about the Iranian threat, drop by drop
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/telling-truth-about-iranian-threat-drop.html
David Grossman vs. Bernard Lewis. Whom do you trust more on Iran?
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/david-grossman-vs-bernard-lewis-whom-do.html
The IDF has had at least 15 years to prepare. That was the announced purpose of purchasing F-16I and a few squadrons of special F-15′s.
Their job was to secure a plan and relevant hardware and platforms to execute their plans and missions assigned when called for. The Mossad was given a single major priority that being Iran. They have had that assignment for over 10 years.
Even if most of the anti-war optimists are correct Israel should still attack Iran.
Even if Israel fails to stop, delay or inhibit Iran’s’ drive for nuclear weapons, Israel should still attack.
Even and especially if the whole world condemns Israel or worse, we should still attack Iran.
We should attack Iran even if it means a break with America and the EU.
Israel would need to use tactical Nukes for any attack to succeed even partially and I think this is what is holding up the show and the resistance of most of our military and security elites.
Israel waited too long, the price for being a cowardly vassal of America.
Now the costs have multiplied and Israel won’t be the second country to apply Nukes in the region we will be the first. NO CHOICE!!
Israel will lose it’s Nuclear deterrence if Iran gets the bomb weaponized. Other countries in the region will follow sooner or later.
I would nuke a small oil field in Iran just to hit home to the West that Israel as yet don’t have the oil power but we hold the matches and nobody and I mean nobody has the power to deflect us if we decide to bring the world back to the stone age. That should be Israels overriding message. We have the matches and therefore the ultimate power so “don’t fuck with us”.
We don’t need the Israeli air-force or the IDF to prevent massive missile and rocket attacks against us. Nuke em with the first detection of a missile strike.
Not to use our power to save Jewish lives is criminally treasonous.
Israel’s Reality See Here:
All things considered, I think the immediate target for neutralization should be the Iranian national leadership. No mothers or fathers of all bombs are needed. Achmedinajad, Khomeini, the chiefs of the Revolutionary Guard and the rest of the junta all live in private houses, the locations of which undoutedly are as well known to the Israeli targeters as are the private houses of Netanyahu and Barak to the Iranian targeters. Whoever gets in the first kill almost always prevails in these kinds of fights. Any such action taken should be timed to take place within a single 5-second time frame, before any news could be spread or even panic-striken telephone calls made.
This would mean the elimination of some 10-20 people and probably their immediate households. But it could save the world from a war that almost certainly would be fought with nuclear weapons. At stake here, if the situation is ignored, will be a piling-up of unavoidable and terrible circumstances. Those consequences apply not only to the population of Israel but also to all the other inhabitants of the Middle East. The avoidance of just that situation calls for the most ruthless, implacable, and focused and pre-emptive defense measures.
Who would have argued against such a policy, had it been carried out across the whole of Germany in 1933, assuming that the governments of all Europe known then what would happen to their countries, to Europe, and to the human race during the next 12 years?
The overall goal here should be to induce the kind of instability in the enemy state as has occurred in Syria. A replacement government, with the ayutollahs removed from power, probably would be much more likely to negotiate getting rid of any weapons-grade uranium threats. And with that threat gone, what the new leadership might think of the Jews in general and the State of Israel in particular would not be consequential. Who knows? Not a few Iranians might even thank the Jews for getting their personal freedom restored to them. In any case, the destruction would be minor.
There are many people who shrink from ruthless, implacable and totally-focused attack planning. But one thing is certain: Israel must waste no more time dithering in hopes of being saved by the USA.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Iran’s government and Iran’s infrastructures must be the first targets quickly followed by the destruction of their elite ground troops.
At least Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas will certainly react on Iran’s behalf and the harm to us will be significant before those are neutralized.
Iran does not have an air force and their long range rockets number less than 50.
Either the Chinese or Russians have provided and probably man good air defenses but most are dedicated to what they consider are critical nuclear related facilities.
Once paralyzed, special ground units must deal with the nuclear facilities. Neutralizing them and safely dismantling and destroying the locations after the radioactive materials are removed.
Bombing critical state, active nuclear facilities can cause widespread ecological disasters.
As Yamit and others accurately point out, Israel navigated the “US – Israel relations” while under the influence. We allowed ourselves to be seriously damaged credibility wise. That phenomenal error led us to be now exposed to existential dangers far greater than those we faced in the past.
If due to our lack of past leadership Israel is forced to use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent Iran’s sure reach for nuclear weapons, strikes may be against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The results would be horrific but unavoidable.
We certainly walked ourselves into a very bad set up.
I am very concerned about the 90 nuclear bombs the US administration re positioned in Turkey.
Pr. O trying to blackmail Israel! The cost for Israel is getting bigger by the day.