WarSclerotic

Iran commander ‘welcomes’ possible Israeli strike  | ajc.com.

The Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran — A senior Iranian commander says a possible Israeli airstrike against his country’s nuclear facilities is “welcome” because it would give Iran a reason to retaliate and “get rid of” the Jewish state “forever.”

The remarks by Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s air force, were reported Saturday by the official IRNA news agency.

Hajizadeh says in the event of an Israeli strike, Iran’s response would be “swift, decisive and destructive.” But he also claims Israeli threats of a strike are just part of a psychological war against Iran.

His comments are the latest in a war of words between the archenemies.

Israel considers Iran an existential threat because of its suspect nuclear program. Iran denies seeking atomic weapons, saying its uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes only.

US-Israeli deal on Iran? No Israeli strike now if Obama pledged a spring attack.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 18, 2012, 2:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

Netanyahu and Barak hold the key to Iran attack.

The White House this week scrambled to reconnect with Jerusalem after the Obama administration was persuaded that Israel was serious about conducting a fall military operation against Iran’s nuclear program before the Nov. 6 US presidential election – notwithstanding the heavy opposition guns firing against it at home and from Washington.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, assisted by their newly-appointed Home Front Defense Minister, were seen deep in practical preparations for this operation and its repercussions, as well an outbreak of hostilities with Syria and Hizballah.

The White House accordingly got in touch with Netanyahu’s office to find out what America must do to convince Israel to back off.
Wednesday, Aug.15, debkafile revealed exclusively that the Obama and Netanyahu were discussing a one-on-one encounter on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session opening in New York on Sept. 18 in order to resume their military and strategic dialog on the Iranian issue broken off by their polar differences.
debkafile now learns that those discussions have moved forward. Handled by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon for the US president and senior adviser Ron Dermer for the prime minister, they focus essentially on a four-point plan embodying Israel’s requirements for delaying an attack.
1.  President Obama will formally inform the two houses of congress in writing that he plans to use military force to prevent Iran from arming itself with a nuclear weapon. He will request their endorsement. Aside from this step’s powerful deterrent weight for persuading Iran’s leaders to give up their pursuit of a nuclear bomb, it would also give the US president the freedom to go to war with Iran when he sees fit, without have to seek congressional endorsement.
2. To underscore his commitment, President Obama would pay a visit to Israel in the weeks leading up to election-day and deliver a speech to the Knesset solemnly pledging to use American military force against the Islamic Republic if Tehran still refuses to give up its nuclear weapon program. He will repeat that pledge before various other public forums.
3, In the coming months up until Spring 2013, the United States will upgrade Israel’s military, intelligence and technological capabilities so that if President Obama (whether he is reelected or replaced by Mitt Romney) decides to back out of this commitment, Israel will by then be in command of the resources necessary for inflicting mortal damage on Iran’s nuclear program with a unilateral strike.
debkafile’s military sources note that an influx of these top-grade US military resources would bridge the gap between American and Israeli ticking clocks for an attack on Iran, and dispel the fear in Jerusalem that delay would give Iran time to bury its key facilities in “zones of immunity” – outside Israel’s reach for serious damage with its present capabilities.
4. If points 1-3 can be covered – and Netanyahu and Barak are convinced the US really means to strike Iran next spring – our Washington and Jerusalem sources report that Jerusalem may be coming around to agreeing to hold back a lone Israeli attack this autumn.

Those sources report that President Obama has not rejected the plan. Donilon was told to keep on talking to Netanyahu and Barak.

Israeli could attack Iran without causing a major war in the region | Tom Rogan | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

While it is likely Israel will attack Iran in the near future, it is not in either party’s interest to allow retaliation to escalate

‘It is now clear that Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu disagree on Iran.’ Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Over the last few days, Israeli newspapers have been consumed by reports that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has decided to launch an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities some time this autumn. Although Netanyahu has an obvious interest in increasing pressure on Iran, it would be an error to regard these reports as simple rhetorical sensationalism. In my opinion, whether this year or next, Israel is likely to use its airforce to attack Iran.

While it is impossible to know for sure whether Netanyahu will act, it is possible to consider the likely repercussions that would follow an Israeli attack. While it is likely that Iran would retaliate against Israel and possibly the US in response to any attack, it is unlikely that Iran will instigate a major war. Albeit for different reasons, Iran, Israel and the US all understand that a war would not serve their interests.

First, the Israeli policy angle. If Netanyahu decides to order an attack on Iran, his focus will be on maximising the success of that action and minimising any negative consequences that might follow. In terms of Iranian retaliation, Israel would expect Iran’s core non-state allies Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah to launch rocket attacks into Israeli territory.

However, present success with advanced defence systems has helped increase Israeli confidence in their ability to absorb this method of retaliation. Beyond rocket attacks, the Israeli leadership also understands that a likely mechanism for Iranian retaliation is via attacks against Israeli interests internationally. Whether carried out by the Iranian Quds Force or Hezbollah, or a combination of both, various incidents this year have shown Israel that Iran continues to regard covert action as a powerful weapon.

The key for Israel is that, while these Iranian capabilities are seen as credible, they are not seen to pose intolerable threats to Israel. Faced with rocket strikes or limited attacks abroad – to which the likely response would be air strikes or short-duration ground operations (not a repeat of 2006) in Lebanon and Gaza – Israel would be unlikely to pursue major secondary retaliation against Iran. Certainly, Israel would not want to encourage intervention by Syria’s Assad alongside Iran (an outcome that might follow major retaliatory Israeli action).

If Netanyahu does decide to take action, Israeli objectives would be clearly limited. The intent would be to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability while minimising escalation towards war. Israel has no interest in a major conflict that would risk serious damage to the Israeli state.

Though holding opposite objectives, Iran’s attitude concerning a major war is similar to Israel’s.

While Iran regards nuclear capability as prospectively guaranteeing the survival of its Islamic revolution, clerical leaders also understand that initiating a major war would make American intervention likely. Such intervention would pose an existential threat to the theocratic project that underpins the Islamic Republic.

Thus, in the event of an Israeli attack, Iran’s response would be finely calibrated towards achieving three objectives:

• First, punishing Israel for its attack.

• Second, deterring further Israeli strikes and so creating space for a reconstituted Iranian nuclear programme.

• Finally, weakening US/international support for Israel so as to increase Israeli isolation and vulnerability.

Hezbollah, Hamas and other non-state allies would play a major role in effecting Iranian retaliation. Iran may also attempt to launch a number of its new Sajjil-2 medium-range missiles against Israel. Again, however, using these missiles would risk major retaliation if many Israeli citizens were killed.

As a preference, Iran would probably perceive that utilising Hamas and Hezbollah would allow retaliation without forcing Netanyahu into a massive counter-response. Crucially, I believe Iran regards that balancing its response would enable it to buy time for a reconstituted, hardened nuclear programme. In contrast to the relatively open current structure, sites would be deeper underground and far less vulnerable to a future attack. The nuclear ambition would not be lost, simply delayed.

As a final objective for retaliation, Iran would wish to weaken Israel’s relationship with the US and the international community. This desire might encourage Iran to take action against US navy assets in the Gulf and/or attempt to mine the Strait of Hormuz, so as to cause a price spike in global oil markets and increased international discomfort.

However, beyond their rhetoric, the Iranian leadership understand that they cannot win a military contest against the US, nor hold the strait for longer than a few days. For Iran then, as with Israel, regional war is far from desirable.

Finally, consider the US. It is now clear that Obama and Netanyahu disagree on Iran. In my opinion, Netanyahu does not believe Obama will ever be willing to take pre-emptive military action against Iran’s nuclear programme. Conversely, Obama believes Netanyahu’s diplomatic expectations are too hasty and excessively restrictive.

The policy distance between these two leaders appears increasingly irreconcilable. If Netanyahu decides to go it alone and attack Iran, the US president will face the unpleasant scenario of having to protect American interests while avoiding an escalation dynamic that might spin out of control towards war. This difficulty is accentuated by Obama’s re-election race and his fear of the domestic economic fallout that may come from the decisions that he might have to make. Again, the simple point is that the US government has no interest in a war with Iran.

If Netanyahu decides to take military action, he will do so in a strategic environment in which Israel, Iran and the US have no preference for a major war. Each state views the prospect of a war as counter to their particular long-term ambitions.

Because of this, while serious, Iranian retaliation would be unlikely to produce an escalatory dynamic leading to war. The leadership of each of these states will restrain their respective actions in the pursuit of differing long-term objectives but common short-term ones.

Romney: US must stop Iran’s genocidal re… JPost – International.

‘US military aid would delay Israeli strike’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Arming Israel with extra military capabilities could allay its leaders’ impatience to strike Iran, thus buying time for diplomacy, Obama’s former national security adviser says

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – A former national security adviser to President Barack Obama says that the United States should provide Israel with the military aid that would sway its leaders to delay a strike on Iran‘s nuclear facilities.

Dennis B. Ross, who served as a special assistant to Obama for the Middle East and South Asia from 2009 to 2011, says in an opinion piece published by the New York Times on Friday that by bolstering Israel’s military capabilities with “additional bunker-busting bombs, tankers for refueling aircraft and targeting information,” the US could allay the Jewish state’s impatience to attack the Islamic Republic.

The move would “extend the clock” on a possible military operation, thus allowing the White House to exhaust all diplomatic measures that could deem the military option unnecessary.

Israel impatient to strike. (Photo: Eliad Levy)

Ross, a veteran diplomat well versed in negotiating with senior Israeli officials, states that while both Israel and the US share the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, they differ in their estimated deadline for military action.

“The United States has significantly greater military might than Israel and therefore feels that it can wait substantially longer than Israel before resorting to force,” he writes. “Israel is less patient.”

Civilian nuclear power acceptable

The former State Department and National Security Council official uses his op-ed to lay out a four-point plan meant to “synchronize the American and Israeli clocks” on the military option. The first order of business, he says, is to draft proposal that would allow Iran to maintain nuclear power for civilian purposes only. The proposal would be used as a framework for talks with the Islamic Republic.

The second step in Ross’ plan calls for the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany (the P5+1) to start devising a strategy for the event that diplomacy fails and force becomes necessary.

Ross asserts that neither Israel nor the US can destroyIran’s ability to eventually develop atom weapons, which is why force can only be used in conjuncture with measures that would keep Tehran isolated and under severe economic sanctions that would make it “less able and less willing” to rebuild its nuclear program.

Third, Washington should ask Jerusalem which military capabilities they need to delay a strike. And finally, Ross suggests that the White House should ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu“what sort of support he would need from the United States if he chose to use force – for example, resupply of weapons, munitions, spare parts, military and diplomatic backing, and help in terms of dealing with unexpected contingencies.”

Ross states that in return for Israel’s agreement to push the attack until next year, the US should make firm commitments on all accounts.

“Although some may argue that these actions will make a military strike more likely next year, they are almost certainly needed now in order to give Israel’s leaders a reason to wait,” he says.

US, Not Israel, Primary Target of Nuclear Iran – Inside Israel – CBN News – Christian News 24-7 – CBN.com.

JERUSALEM, Israel — A fundamentally different worldview accounts for reports the U.S. wants the Israeli media to oppose a preemptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a former Israeli ambassador said. 

The thinking is that Israel’s military planning against Iran jeopardizes interests of many of the nations in the world, including the U.S.  That worldview is preventing many from realizing the U.S. would be a nuclear-armed Iran’s primary target.

Over the past few weeks, Israelis have been subject to a pervasive media blitz against a military strike on Iran. This week, a petition urging pilots to refuse orders for a strike against Iran received wide media coverage.

“The prime minister would totally condemn any effort by all political groups, from the far left to the far right, urging Israeli soldiers to disobey orders,” Mark Regev, the prime minister’s spokesman, told CBN News.

But despite all the rhetoric, former Israeli ambassador to Washington, Yoram Ettinger, says the U.S. is in the crosshairs as much as Israel.

“It’s a seemingly unbridgeable gap in worldviews between the Obama administration and Israel whereby the administration does not realize the U.S. and not Israel is the target for a nuclear Iran,” the former ambassador told CBN News.

Ettinger was commenting on an article in Israel Hayom Wednesday alleging that “senior figures in the U.S. administration have been briefing local media outlets in recent weeks against a preemptive Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in an attempt to sway Israeli public opinion.”

But Ettinger says Iran’s goals go far beyond eliminating Israel.

“Iran is not developing nuclear capabilities to eliminate Israel as a number one target, but rather to advance its historical vision of controlling the Persian Gulf,” he explained.

“Concern over a preemptive attack would be dwarfed by non-preemption, which would reap regional and global havoc, enable Iran to become nuclear and mean the demise of an American presence in the region.”

A nuclear-armed Iran would cause a “meltdown” in neighboring Gulf States and strengthen ties between Iran and Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico, which would bring the danger right to America’s doorstep.

“It would not only provide a tailwind to Islamic terrorism in general, but also to sleeper cells on the U.S. mainland,” he said. And, it would bolster and intensify nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and beyond.

Still, the pressure from Washington continues. According to the Israel Hayom report, a high-level Israeli security source quoted on the Walla! website called the media leaks “a blatant and extreme attempt to directly influence the debate in Israel.”

The report further stated that remarks by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at Tuesday’s press conference in Washington included information from closed-door meetings with Israel, which he said should not have been talked about “so publicly in the media.”

“The attitude of the present U.S. administration is [based on] a faulty assumption that Iran is an Israeli rather than primarily and most importantly an American problem,” Ettinger concluded.

Hezbollah’s Nasrallah threatens to kill ‘thousands of Israelis’ if attacked.

Friday, 17 August 2012

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group could strike a limited number of targets in Israel which if hit would lead to mass casualties. (Reuters)

  inShare

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned on Friday that his Lebanese Shiite militia would make lives of Israelis “a living hell” if it is attacked, threatening to kill tens of thousands of Israelis by striking specific targets in Israel with what it described as precision-guided rockets.

“There are targets in occupied Palestine (Israel) which could be targeted by a small number of missiles,” Nasrallah said.

“If we are forced to use them to protect our people and our country, we will not hesitate to do so… and that will turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists into a living hell,” he said in a speech marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day.

Nasrallah warned of “tens of thousands of deaths, and not just 300 to 500 dead,” adding that Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, had fixed its targets.

Israel, the only Middle East country outside the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons.

“Hitting these targets with a small number of rockets will turn … the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists to real hell, and we can talk about tens of thousands of dead,” said Nasrallah.

Nasrallah was speaking on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, marked each year on the last Friday of Ramadan in accordance with a tradition established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late supreme leader of Iran.

In case of any Israeli attack on Iran over its controversial nuclear program, “the response will be enormous,” he warned. Any such action would present the Islamic republic with “the opportunity is has been dreaming of” since it was founded in 1979.

Israel and Lebanon are officially in a state of war, and the Jewish state fought a devastating war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.

Last month, Israel accused Iran and Hezbollah of planning attacks in “over 20 countries” in remarks just days after a deadly attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and their local bus driver.

Iran denied the charges but Hezbollah refused to comment.

Hezbollah follows the example of its backer in marking Quds Day, a show of support for the Palestinians over the disputed holy city of Jerusalem.

“I tell the Israelis that you have a number of targets, not a large number … that can be hit with precision rockets … which we have,” Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said in a broadcast speech.

He said he would not name the targets and did not say whether the rockets were newly acquired weapons.

Nasrallah said his group could strike a limited number of targets in Israel which if hit would lead to mass casualties – a possible reference to Israeli nuclear facilities, though he said he did not spell out what he meant.

Israel’s debate over Iran: To strike or not to strike | The Economist.

Aug 17th 2012, 16:21 by The Economist online | JERUSALEM

 

WITH the weekend in sight, Israelis are congratulating each other: there has not been a war here this week after all. Seven days ago, they were less sanguine.

But the more circumspect among them are keeping their congratulations low-key. They know that next week could be just as tense and worrying. As could the weeks after that. Although economic sanctions are starting to pinch, Iran’s nuclear programme spins on. And despite increasingly strident American admonishments, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, remains resolutely determined to stop it, by force if necessary.

This weirdest of weeks began with an unequivocal headline in the weekend edition of Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. “Netanyahu and Barak are resolved to attack Iran in the autumn”, it read. Inside the paper, and in Haaretz, the country’s leading left-leaning paper, the defence minister, Ehud Barak, explained in chilling detail why he and Mr Netanyahu were resolved to attack even though the preponderance of opinion in the defence establishment opposes unilateral Israeli action.

Ten days earlier Mr Netanyahu had appeared on prime-time television to remind the nation that, as in every democracy, the final decision on war was the elected government’s to make, and the army’s obediently to carry out. He had not yet decided, he said. But he would not shrink from the decision. The prime minister also held a series of unattributable briefings with key opinion-makers arguing the case for a last-resort Israeli attack.

That was the backdrop to Mr Barak’s public assertions in last’s weekend press that despite all the rational, political, military, strategic arguments which could be marshaled against a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran– Israel might have to strike nevertheless. Basically, Mr Barak contended, Israel could not afford to rely on American commitment to preventing Iran attaining a nuclear bomb: “Ronald Reagan did not want to see a nuclear Pakistan, but Pakistan did go nuclear. Bill Clinton did not want to see a nuclear North Korea, but North Korea went nuclear.”

Moreover, America was far more likely to act, Mr Barak argued, if it felt Israel was on the brink of exercising its own, albeit more modest, option of military action. That option, Mr Barak believes, will soon disappear as Iran comes closer to producing weapon-grade uranium and buries its nuclear facilities deeper under the ground. “If Israel forgoes the chance to act and it becomes clear that it no longer has the power to act, the likelihood of an American action will decrease… We cannot wait to discover one morning that we relied on the Americans but were fooled because the Americans didn’t act in the end…. Israel will do what it has to do.”

Unlike Mr Netanyahu, Mr Barak is not suspected of favouring the Republican contender to the Democratic incumbent in America’s upcoming presidential election. That made his weekend interviews sound all the more credible, and all the more ominous. People naturally set to sweeping out their air-raid shelters and queueing to upgrade their gas masks at civil defence stations.

Israeli defence sources let it be known meanwhile, that recent intelligence material, familiar to the Americans, showed that Iran had advanced much farther and faster in its nuclear programme than America had previously thought. This produced—as was presumably intended—more apocalyptic headlines in the Israeli media, which were duly relayed across the Atlantic.

The atmosphere has been somewhat cooled by a rare and stern public appearance by America’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, at the Pentagon on August 14th. He dwelt on the huge disparity between his country’s strike capacity and Israel’s. In Jerusalem his message seemed clear: “Don’t do it! If it becomes necessary, we will do it and do it much more effectively”. But the point of contention between the two countries remains unresolved: who decides when it becomes necessary?

Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, says it should be the Americans. He went on television on August 16th to assure Israelis that they can rely on President Obama. In a direct—and constitutionally questionable—interference in policymaking, the 89-year-old president warned against a unilateral Israeli strike. The prime minister’s office lashed back at him: “He has forgotten what his job is”, officials there said.

As the week wound down and the tension eased, the “they’re just bluffing” punditry got into gear again, in Israel and in Washington, DC. Western intelligence sources do not think the Israelis are bluffing, but nor do they think there is much more than a one in five likelihood of a strike this year. Yet unless the Iranians return pretty soon to the negotiating table with a good deal more seriousness than before, those odds could begin to fall quite quickly.

Why Israel shrugs at retaliation after attack on Iran – CSMonitor.com.

The threat of a simultaneous war with Iran’s proxies – Hezbollah, Syria, and Gaza militants – is a key consideration for Israel as it weighs an attack on Iran. But Iran’s allies may not be as keen about going to war for the ayatollahs as Tehran would like, and the Israelis know it.

In this Aug. 7 photo provided by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, meets with Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in Damascus. Op-ed contributors Daniel Nisman and Avi Nave write: Mr. Jalili’s visit ‘was meant to remind the Israelis that Iran’s proxies on Israel’s northern doorstep remain ready and willing to plunge the region into chaos if Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities.’
(SANA/AP/file)

By Daniel Nisman and Avi Nave
posted August 17, 2012 at 10:04 am EDT

Tel Aviv

Last week Iran sent a high-level envoy, Saeed Jalili, on a particularly controversial public-relations tour to Lebanon and Syria, the most explosive corner of the region. After ruffling feathers during a Beirut stopover, Mr. Jalili traveled to Damascus to meet with President Bashar al- Assad, where he declared the ties between Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah to be an “axis of resistance.”

Jalili is an iconic figure, whose position as the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council also affords him the role of chief negotiator for Iran’s contentious nuclear program. Amidst a deadlock in negotiations and a rehashing of threatening rhetoric, Jalili’s visit was meant to remind the Israelis that Iran’s proxies on Israel’s northern doorstep remain ready and willing to plunge the region into chaos if Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities.

It appears however, that Iran’s allies in the eastern Mediterranean may not be as keen about going to war for the ayatollahs as Tehran would like – and the Israelis know it.

The threat of a simultaneous war with Hezbollah, Syria, and Gaza militants is the primary concern for the Israeli security establishment as it weighs a strike on Iran. Dubbed “the long arm of Iran” at the Israel Defense ForcesI headquarters, Hezbollah in Lebanon is said to possess more than 70,000 missiles that can strike as far south as Israel’s nuclear reactor near the city of Dimona – nearly 140 miles from the Lebanese border.

Combine this arsenal with the more than 10,000 rockets and missiles in the Gaza Strip and with Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons, and the threat to Israel’s home front is the most formidable since the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.

And yet, Israeli leaders seem content to shrug off this threat. On two recent occasions, Defense Minister Ehud Barak boldly estimated that Israel would sustain 300 to 500 casualties in a conflict with Iran and its proxies. Such an estimate suggests that Mr. Barak himself does not believe that Israeli cities will bear the full brunt of Iran’s “long arm” as a consequence to a strike.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also dismissed the danger of regional conflict by stating that these threats to the home front are “dwarfed” by a nuclear Iran.

Judging from their statements, Hezbollah leaders aren’t so sure they want to enter into a conflict with Israel at Iran’s behest. In February 2012, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said, “I tell you that the Iranian leadership will not ask Hezbollah to do anything. On that day, we will sit, think and decide what we will do.”

Mr. Nasrallah’s hesitation is understandable. Entering into broad conflict with Israel would result in even greater destruction to Lebanon than in the 2006 Lebanon war. This time, Hezbollah would be unable to replenish its stockpiles or rebuild destroyed villages so easily. Nasrallah’s guarantor in Damascus is on his last legs, while his primary bankrollers in Tehran have already cut funding to the group as a result of sanctions and diversion of resources to Syria.

Further, entering into a conflict with Israel would likely severely damage Nasrallah’s private militia, benefitting his sectarian rivals by stripping him of the only warranty of his political hegemony in Lebanon.

Next door in Syria, Assad faces similar concerns. A conflict with Israel could compromise his military advantage over an increasingly powerful rebel army, including the chemical weapons stockpiles so necessary in securing the protection of Alawite enclaves as the civil war intensifies.

Meanwhile, Iran’s relationship with militant groups in the Gaza Strip has witnessed a dramatic shift in the midst of the Arab Spring. As Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior leader of Hamas in Gaza, put it in March, “If Israel attacks us, we will respond. If they don’t, we will not get involved in any regional conflict” – though an Iranian report had him directly contradicting that statement and promising to retaliate “with utmost power.”

Regardless of how the Iranian media may present Mr. Zahar, Hamas seems to be returning to its Sunni loyalties, cozying up to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and away from Iran. Further, the trauma from the 2009 armed conflict with Israel in Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, continues to keep rockets off the Hamas launching pad. The sole mission of a  300-strong guerrilla force employed by Hamas is to impede rocket attacks by smaller splinter groups. Such attacks have recently flared.

Despite the weakened state of Iran’s proxies, an Israeli strike on the ayatollah’s nuclear program will not be without consequence. Hezbollah and splinter Gaza militant groups are likely to attack Israel in a display of their solidarity, albeit only in a limited effort. Judging from past flare-ups, these groups understand Israel’s red lines, knowing exactly what ranges and what rates in which to fire their rockets while avoiding drawing the Israel into a confrontation which could compromise their grip on power.

Netanyahu seems willing to go down in history as the prime minister who saved Isrel from a nuclear Iran. And he’s counting on minimal retaliation from Iran’s proxies if Israel strikes first. But as Barbara Tuchman, the World War I historian, once said, “war is the unfolding of miscalculations.”

Daniel Nisman is an intelligence manager at Max Security Solutions, a risk consulting firm based in Tel Aviv. You can follow him on Twitter @dannynis. Avi Nave is a political consultant based in Tel Aviv. A version of this op-ed appeared in Israel Hayom.

It’s business as usual, Israelis say, as they get in line for gas masks | The Times of Israel.

Feverish media speculation about an attack on Iran has penetrated Israelis’ highly developed shell of apathy. But they’re lining up for protective kits without undue stress — like Americans doing the Christmas shopping early

Israeli postal workers distribute gas masks to residents of Jerusalem this week (photo credit: Noam Moskowitz/Flash90)

In a small shopping mall in southern Jerusalem, the effects of a recent flurry of apocalyptic media reports were visible a few steps from the Delta underwear store and a Chinese massage stand: A crush of more than 100 people waiting for a harried postal worker to hand them a brown cardboard box with a gas mask inside.

Authorities have been urging Israelis to pick up gas masks for several months, with little apparent effect; two weeks ago, residents coming to the distribution point at the Hadar Mall did not have to stand on line at all. On Thursday, however, a crowd of Jerusalemites – Arabs, Jews, a few men in black hats, the elderly, parents with young children – clutched yellow number stubs and waited for more than an hour to get the kits that are meant to protect them in case of a chemical or biological attack.

Daniel Hasson, a resident of the nearby neighborhood of Talpiot, carried his small daughter as he waited. The crowd, he said, was partially due to “hype in the media.”

“I’m standing in line to get a gas mask because I have to, but I have nothing against the Iranian or Syrian people,” Hasson said.

“Israelis want to make sure that they have what they need and they don’t want to wait for the last minute, because if things get serious the crowds will be too big,” he said. “It’s like avoiding the rush by getting your Christmas shopping done in August.”

The drip of stories hinting at impending war with Iran has continued for several years but reached an unprecedented pitch in the past week. The new reports appeared to be coming from the highest echelons of the government. A long prime-time report aired Friday night on Channel 2, the country’s most widely watched station, made it seem that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was imminent. A front-page interview the same day in Haaretz with an unidentified senior official who was clearly Ehud Barak, the defense minister, delivered the same message.

Adding to the perceived dangers is the unraveling of Syria, home to a considerable stockpile of chemical weapons and an unknown but clearly growing number of jihadi groups who might be inclined to use them. Taken together, those fears appear to have penetrated Israelis’ highly developed shell of apathy and cynicism and spurred them to action — even if that action has not been to dig graves in parks, as they famously did before the Six Day War, but rather just to drive to an air-conditioned mall and wait on line for kits that most seem to assume they will never use and which won’t particularly help them if they do.

Earlier this week, the official in charge of gas mask distribution told Channel 10 TV that there had been a “100 percent increase” in the number of masks being handed out. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said Thursday that 4.2 million kits had been distributed since 2010, covering 45 percent of Israel’s population. When the project ends 57 percent of Israelis will have kits, the military said.

Building engineers have also reported a sharp spike in requests for bomb shelter inspections.

On Tuesday, a neighbor emailed retired physician Robert Goldstein, 63, to suggest they make sure their apartment building’s bomb shelter was in order. “That sparked my interest,” Goldstein said. Anecdotal evidence indicates that similar conversations – about emergency food stocks, or about finally disposing of the neighbors’ castaway furniture that has cluttered the communal shelter for years – have been taking place with some frequency in homes across the country in the last week or two.

Though he believes there will be no strike against Iran before the US elections in November, Goldstein arrived half an hour before the distribution station opened Thursday to take a number. He joined a crowd that was certainly large and impatient but showed no obvious signs of undue stress.

Israelis crowd a gas mask distribution point at a shopping mall Thursday (photo credit: Times of Israel/Matti Friedman)

“Israelis are very tough and resilient people. The Jewish people has a long history of withstanding whatever the world dishes out,” he said.

Sam Wolff, 26, was pushing his son in a stroller. He arrived after the distribution center opened at 11 a.m., took a number, and discovered there were more than 100 people ahead of him in line.

Coming to a mall to pick up a gas mask because of fears of imminent  war, he suggested, was the kind of thing Israelis were used to doing.

“This is just part of life – nothing’s out of the ordinary,” he said. “It’s just something to deal with, like we deal with everything else.”