WarSclerotic

With the country’s papers over the last few days full of reports of an imminent war with Iran, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday said goodbye at the weekly cabinet meeting to Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, who is leaving to take up his post as ambassador to China.

Netanyahu said that he will name a replacement for Vilani in the coming days.

In an apparent reaction to a Yedioth Aharonot story Sunday saying that the home front was woefully unprepared for an attack on Iran and its aftermath, Netanyahu lauded Vilnai and said the country had made huge strides in preparing itself for any contingency.

“Who knows better than you that for dozens of years the government of Israel did not invest sufficiently in home front defense,” Netanyahu said.

In a reference to the first Gulf War and Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles, Netanyahu said, “The missile era began in 1991, with the Gulf War, and there are those who say even before that. I think there’s been a big change during this government.”

|For example, Netanyahu said, “A separate ministry to deal with this issue was set up, meetings every two week have been held with him, Vilnai, and other ministers to deal with the issue and assess the situation, and billions of shekels have been spent on home front defense, including the Iron Dome, the Arrow and other weapons systems.

He also said Israel had developed perhaps the most advanced warning system in the world. Netanyahu added that while it is impossible to say that there are no problems with home front defense, all the threats facing the homefront today are dwarfed by one threat: Iran.

The comments come amid a flurry of commentary and speculation from current and former government officials on how Israel should deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, many of them voicing criticism at the open discussion of a possible military strike.

Playing down the imminence of such an attack, Vice Premier Silvan Shalom called for imposing stricter sanctions against Iran

In a Sunday interview with Army Radio, Shalom said “At this time we can bring the US to accept the right choices, and that is to impose even stricter sanctions that are made to subdue and topple the Iranian regime and perhaps bring it to abandon its nuclear program.”

On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a press briefing that a military strike could wait while the West pursues diplomatic options, in part because “we feel confident that we would be able to detect a break-out move by Iran towards the acquisition of a nuclear weapon.”

Former Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi responded on Sunday, telling Israel Radio that there is no certainty that intelligence agencies will discover Iranian nuclear advancements in time, and that essential information may only be uncovered after the fact.

Hanegbi went on to condemn the public debate on a possible military strike, saying that the flood of headlines and articles in the media are a serious betrayal by those trying to tie the government’s hands.

Meanwhile, Iran announced that it will host a meeting on promoting “the issue of Palestine and the Intifada” and “liberating the Holy Qods” (Jerusalem), the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Sunday.

According to IRNA, the meeting on the “Islamic Awakening and liberation of Palestine” on Monday ahead of ‘Qods Day’ (‘Jerusalem Day’), an annual Iranian anti-Zionist event organized by the Organization of the Culture and Islamic Communication, will include high-ranking Iranian officials, ambassadors from Islamic countries and Palestinian groups.

It is intended to promote ideas on “the influence of the Islamic Awakening on the issue of Palestine and the Intifada” and “focus on ways to attain the ultimate goal of liberating the Holy Qods which embodies the dignity of the world Muslims.”