Defense Minister Ehud Barak:'We are Not Taking Any Option Off The Table' Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman: 'The Fact Iranian Regime Continues To Be Acceptable Partner For Dialogue Is Really A Bad Message. It Shows The Bad Guys Are Winners' Lieberman Refers To Building At Settlements Solely Within Existing Construction Lines, As First Suggested By IsraCast
The Iranian regime’s ruthless suppression of the popular unrest leaves many questions hanging in the air.While the world looks on, the Obama administration appears to be ready for business as usual, while preparing to enter a nuclear dialogue with the Ayatollah’s, who have shot and beaten throngs of young protesting Iranians into submission. IsraCast assesses Israeli reaction to the aftermath of the Iranian uprising triggered by a rigged election that will return President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office.
‘Israel is not taking any option off the table when it
come to Iran’ that was the reaction of Defense Minister Ehud Barak when
he addressed the Israel Air Force graduation ceremony for new pilots.
The occasion lent poignancy to Barak’s statement; some of the young
pilots may one day, be ordered to fly their warplanes to destroy the
Iranian nuclear sites, which Israeli leaders have said poses a threat
to Israel’s very existence.The Israeli perspective is that the recent
events in Tehran and other Iranian cities is further evidence, as if
more was needed, of the tyrannical nature of the Iranian regime. That U.S. President Barack Obama’s chances of sweet-talking Iran into halting its Iran’s nuclear weapons project are nil.
Moreover, it will prove to be no more than a waste of valuable time
that the Iranians will obviously exploit to advance their program. The
North Korean file is a case in point. Clearly, a government that has no
qualms about shooting and beating its own people for protesting about a
rigged election must not be underestimated when it threatens its
neighbors with annihilation and proceeds to develop nuclear weapons.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders adopted a low-
key profile in commenting on President Obama’s reaction to the
goings-on in the Iranian election and the regime’s brutality toward the
protesters. This was nor the case for Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman. Interviewed by Time magazine, Lieberman first waded into the
West for not giving support to the Iranian dissidents. ‘This really
fanatic extremist regime is still in power, and the young people, who
are ready to fight and die for change, are not getting any real support
from the West’. Then aside from the veiled reference to ‘change’, the
Foreign Minister added: ‘The fact that this regime continues to be an
acceptable partner for dialogue is really a bad message. It shows the
bad guys are winners’*.
Israelis needed no such revelations
such as the Iranian election and the subsequent bloodshed in Tehran to
understand the danger although others chose, for whatever reason, to
play down the Iranian nuclear threat. For example, up to now Dr.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the the U.N.’s International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, has been pussyfooting about Iran’s
nuclear intentions. Only recently has ElBaradei actually confirmed that
Tehran is really trying to acquire the bomb. Incredibly several years
ago, the Egyptian scientist actually received the Nobel Prize for his
work at the IAEA! Subsequently, President Elect Ahmadenijad’s repeated
threats about wiping Israel off the map may, for some, may strike a
more sinister significance after their seeing the footage smuggled out
of Tehran. But now more than ever, the best course of action
against Iran would resemble the tougher line being implemented against
North Korea. However, Obama will apparently choose to view the
Iranian rebellion as a momentary episode as he pursues his dialogue
with Ahmadenijad and the Ayatollahs. However, learning from the the
past should obviously be taken into account for decision-making in the
present. British historian Ian Kershaw notes that in the 1930s, Soviet
leaders had read Mein Kampf and were aware that Hitler was planning to
destroy the Soviet Union, when Germany was militarily prepared to do
so. At the Congress of the Communist Party in 1934, Nikolai Bukharin
had declared: ‘Hitler therefore calls quite frankly for the destruction
of our state. He says openly that the German people must reach for the
sword….’. Nonetheless the Soviet Russia was taken by complete
surprise after Stalin had thought that his diplomacy and the
Non-Aggression Pact he signed with Germany would buy the necessary time
to prepare for the Nazi onslaught. Yet another example of how leaders
can delude themselves into believing that their mastery of diplomacy is
the answer to everything. And those words about Hitler and how he
‘calls quite frankly’ and ‘openly’, for another state’s destruction
leap chillingly from the page, a stark reminder of Ahmadenijad’s own
genocidal declarations today. It goes without saying that having
experienced one Holocaust at the hands of Hitler, the Jewish people in
its old-new state, is under no illusions about President Obama’s future
dialogue with the Iranian government.
Footnote: Commenting on
Israel’s current dispute with the U.S. on building at the settlements,
Foreign Minister Lieberman said; ‘ We don’t speak about building new
settlements. We don’t speak about expansion. We try to build only
within existing construction lines. We cannot suffocate our own people.
You know babies are born. People get married. We cannot stop life.
People want to build a synogogue or a kindergarten’. On June10th, an
IsraCast analysis concluded: ‘One option for Netanyahu could be that
building would be carried out only within the existing domain of the
settlements and not on land adjoining the settlements’.
