By TIA GOLDENBERG
JERUSALEM (AP) — A rising chorus
of Israeli voices is again raising the possibility of carrying out a
military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities in what appears to be an
attempt to draw renewed attention to Tehran's atomic program — and
Israel's unhappiness with international negotiations with the Iranians.
In recent days, a
series of newspaper reports and comments by top defense officials have
signaled that the military option remains very much on the table. While
Israeli officials say Israel never shelved the possibility of attacking,
the heightened rhetoric marks a departure from Israel's subdued
approach since six world powers opened negotiations with Iran last
November.
Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has been an outspoken critic of the international
efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran. He has spent years warning the
world against the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and fears a final deal
will leave much of Iran's nuclear capabilities intact.
But since the global powers
reached an interim agreement with Iran last November, Netanyahu's
warnings about Iran have been largely ignored. A frustrated Israeli
leadership now appears to be ratcheting up the pressure on the
international community to take a tough position in its negotiations
with Iran.
A front-page
headline in the daily Haaretz on Thursday proclaimed that Netanyahu has
ordered "to prep for strike on Iran in 2014" and has allocated 10
billion shekels (2.87 billion dollars) for the groundwork. Earlier this
week, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon hinted that Israel would have to
pursue a military strike on its own, with the U.S. having chosen the
path of negotiations. And the military chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, said
this week that Iran "is not in an area that is out of the military's
range."
An Israeli military
strike would be extremely difficult to pull off, both for logistical and
political reasons. Any mission would likely require sending Israeli
warplanes into hostile airspace, and it remains unclear how much damage
Israel could inflict on a program that is scattered and hidden deep
underground. In addition, it would likely set off an international
uproar, derail the international negotiations and trigger retaliation on
Israeli and U.S. targets.
Yoel Gozansky, an Iran
expert at the Institute of National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think
tank, said the comments were meant as a wake-up call to the world.
"It was in a coma. It has awoken
suddenly," he said of the military-option talk. "Someone has an agenda
to bring up this subject again, which has dropped off the agenda in
recent months, especially after the deal with Iran."
Netanyahu
has long been at odds with his Western allies over how to dislodge Iran
from its nuclear program. He has called the interim agreement a
"historic mistake," saying it grants Iran too much relief while getting
little in return, and fears a final agreement would leave Iran with the
capability to make a bomb.
Israel
believes that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, a charge Iran
denies. Israel says a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an existential
threat to the Jewish state, citing Iranian calls for Israel's
destruction, its development of long-range missiles and its support for
hostile militant groups.
During
a swing through Washington early this month, Netanyahu tried to draw
attention to the Iranian issue in stops at the White House and in an
address to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group. Israel then engaged in a
six-day PR blitz when naval commandos seized a ship in international
waters that was carrying dozens of sophisticated rockets Israel said
were bound for militants in the Gaza Strip and sent by Iran. The effort
was capped by a display of the seized weapons.
But beyond placid acknowledgments
from world leaders, the ship's seizure did little to change the course
of negotiations with Iran.
Netanyahu
said the world's indifference to the naval raid was "hypocritical," and
he lashed out at Western leaders for condemning Israeli settlement
construction while ignoring Iran's transgressions.
Netanyahu's
past warnings have been credited with bringing the Iran issue to the
fore and galvanizing world powers to take action on the nuclear program.
He made headlines in 2012 when he drew a red line on a cartoon bomb
during his speech at the U.N. General Assembly.
Yaakov
Amidror, who recently stepped down as Netanyahu's national security
adviser, said the threat of a military strike is a real possibility.
"We
aren't playing a game of neighborhood bully. This is a stated policy of
the state of Israel and has been made clear ... to anyone who meets
Israel's representatives."
But if Israel is trying to raise
the alarm again, the move comes at an inopportune time. The urgency of
the Iran issue has taken a backseat to more pressing international
crises, namely Russia's annexation of the Crimea peninsula. With world
powers charging forward with negotiations with Iran, threats from Israel
are likely to be ignored at best. At worst, they could alienate
Israel's closest allies.
Gozansky
said the renewed threats were largely empty because if Israel carried
out a strike with diplomacy underway, it would be seen as a warmonger
out to destabilize the region. But he said the threats could nonetheless
serve as leverage on Iran while it conducts talks. Netanyahu has
suggested that may be the case.
"The
greater the pressure on Iran," he said in his speech to AIPAC, "the
more credible the threat of force on Iran, the smaller the chance that
force will ever have to be used."
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