Israeli defense minister talks tough on Iran

(AP) JERUSALEM – Israel’s defense minister warned Monday that as long as Iran poses a threat to

Israel with its nuclear program, all options are on the table, a reference to a possible Israeli attack.

Ehud Barak was speaking before The Foreign

Press Association, which represents journalists covering Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Israel and the West

suspect Iran is trying obtain nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.

Barak said, “I believe it

is well understood in Washington, D.C., as well as in Jerusalem that as long as there is an existential threat to our people,

all options to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons should remain on the table.”

 

Israel considers

Iran a threat to its existence because of its nuclear and missile development programs, frequent reference to Israel’s

destruction by Iranian leaders and Iran’s support of violent anti-Israeli groups in Lebanon and Gaza.

Barak and

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have frequently hinted at the possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s

nuclear facilities but have not made an open threat.

“I have enough experience to know that a military option is not a

simple one,” Barak said of a potential strike. “It would be complicated with certain associated risks. But a radical Islamic

Republic of Iran with nuclear weapons would be far more dangerous both for the region and, indeed, the world.”

His

remarks come as a steadily growing chorus of Israeli ex-security officials speak out against an Israeli strike on Iran.

Former internal security chief Yuval Diskin recently caused an uproar when he said the government is misleading the public on

the level of effectiveness of a military strike.

Other critics have warned that Israel could do no more than delay

Iran’s nuclear development for a few years at best, and an Israeli attack could trigger punishing retaliation from Iran and

its proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza — and possibly set off a regionwide war, dragging the U.S.

in.

Barak concentrated on the perceived threat to Israel, dismissing the case of the critics.

“Parts of the

world, including some politically motivated Israeli figures, prefer to bury their heads in the sand,” Barak said

Monday.

Barak said that time is running out for a strike, as “Iran’s military nuclear program will be sufficiently

developed and suitably concealed, rendering the facilities immune to surgical attacks.”

Iran is believed to have

multiple underground nuclear sites.

 

Barak also addressed a year of upheavals in the Middle East that

have overthrown several leaders, and Islamist political parties have gained prominence.

“Israel has found itself

sitting as an island of stability in a stormy sea, a sea in which the waves of radicalism are growing in strength,” Barak

said.

Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, but relations have been cool. Some Israelis warn that the rise

of Islamists to power in Egypt could endanger the treaty, but the dominant Muslim Brotherhood has said the pact will be

preserved.

At the same time, many Egyptians want changes in its conditions, particularly the limits on Egyptian forces

in the Sinai desert, near Israel’s borders.

Sinai has become increasingly lawless over the past year. A gas pipeline

between Egypt and Israel has been bombed repeatedly, Palestinian militants used Sinai to infiltrate into Israel and killed

eight people and smugglers use the desert to smuggle migrants and drugs into Israel.

“We urge Egypt to contain

lawlessness in the Sinai Peninsula,” Barak said. “This is imperative in order to keep our two nations firmly on the path of

peace, a peace that has contributed so much to so many for so long now.”

Barak also addressed Syria, where a bloody

14-month uprising against President Bashar Assad is in progress. Israel and Syria are bitter enemies.

“Whatever

follows Assad’s bloodstained regime will be greeted with Israel’s extended hand of peace,” Barak said.