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Dominic Waghorn November 04, 2009 1:29 PM

Is Israel in the advanced stages of preparing to attack Iran to destroy its alleged nuclear facilities?

I asked two of Israel’s leading journalists in the field of defence and security. This is an interview with Dr. Ronen Bergman author of ‘The Secret War with Iran’.

DW: Is apprehensive about the current diplomatic track and the current nuclear offer from western nations?

RB: Israel is convinced that this is a major achievement for the Iranians. Israel is convinced that Iran is determined to have the bomb, Iran is trying to reach it as soon as possible and Israel thinks that the present agreement and the engagement are lowering the economic pressure on Iran and therefore make it far more possible for it to continue. So from the Israeli point of view this is a major error of the west and paradoxically it makes the chances of an Israeli attack much much higher.

DW: But it would make it harder for Israel to carry out the attack in the sense that international opinion will be against Israel, won’t it?

RB: I always try to explain to non Israelis that they will not be able to understand Israelis or Israeli politicians and the Israeli decision making process without understanding how profound how deep is the memory of the holocaust in the overall character of the Israelis. AT the end of the day the first priority of the Israeli Prime Minister would not be American rage, European condemnation or Iranian retaliation, the first priority is that Israel, the Jewish people would never face another Holocaust. And therefore if the time comes when the Israeli Prime Minister receives information that Iran is on the verge of having a bomb I would suspect that he would have only one choice, one decision to make.

DW: Does the current Prime Minister have what it takes to make that decision?

RB: I think so and campaign slogans have a tendency to become reality and Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it his campaign slogan. Not on my shift. Iran will not become a nuclear military state. I believe that even if Iran becomes a military nuclear superpower it does mean the end of Israel but it surely means the end of the political career of Benjamin Netanyahu and he understands that as well.

DW: Does the Israeli military believe it’s capable of knocking out Iran’s nuclear military potential.

RB: No, nobody is talking about the full destruction of the project. Everyone is talking about the delay and now the calculation is how long and what’s the price. The Israeli military, the Israeli Air Force, the Israeli intelligence community is all preparing for a possible strike. Theoretically even if tomorrow the prime minister orders the strike the plans are ready the planes are ready the pilots have been practising this for a very long time. It can be commenced tomorrow. The assessment is that a successful attack would result in a delay of three to four years. Is it enough, of course not, but the hope in Israel is that with such a delay, at the end of the day, the regime would collapse before they close the gap. The overall assessment is that Israel knows enough about the Iranian attempts to hide the facilities from the international community so it is able to destroy facilities that Iranians are convinced are not going to be hit in such at attack.

DW: Do you personally think it will happen?

RB: If history continues on its current path, yes. AT the end of the day, Israel will attack. The Iranians have expressed no willingness to stop the project. They see it as a necessity as an insurance policy for the regime to have the bomb. They don’t want to bomb Israel but Israel on the other hand still adopting the Begin doctrine, saying that Israel would never tolerate the existence of an atomic bomb in the hands of a country that calls for its destruction.

DW: The problem is that if they do strike it only puts it back three years but gives Iran the ability to say, well we weren’t building the bomb but we are now because of what just happened to us and then they will have much of the world’s opinion on their side. It could be totally counterproductive for Israel.

RB: And I could add numerous calculations and motivations why not to attack. It would unite the Iranian people behind the regime. It will ignite a series of terrorist bombings throughout the world against Israel. It will raise oil prices. It would create rage from the Oval Office, but the first reason why such an attack would occur is that the Israeli Prime Minister would never accept the existence of non conventional warfare, of an atomic bomb in the hands of a country like Iran.

DW: Can you explain that fear and the fear Israelis have about this to an audience in the UK to help them understand how they feel about it here?

RB: The first prime minister of Israel David Ben Gurion used to say “My worst nightmare is that I brought the survivors of the holocaust to Israel and their sons and daughters would face another holocaust. The fear of extinction, the existential threat is profound to anything happening in Israel, any sort of decision any sort of thinking any sort of mindset derives from the holocaust. And when Ahmedinejad is talking about the destruction of Israel and trying to have the bomb this immediately translates in the minds of Israelis into what Hitler used to say and what Hitler did. Israel is a tiny country. Israel cannot even sustain even one nuclear blast. Therefore from the Israeli point of view the only way to combat it is not by a balance of deterrence but by preventing the other side from having it in the first place.

This entry was posted on November 5, 2009 at 8:30 AM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.