Syria prefers deterrence over peace with Israel – Haaretz – Israel News.

It’s a good thing we can rely on the Kuwaiti press. Two reports that appeared in the daily Al-Rai Al-Aam provided a detailed explanation of the root causes of the tension characterizing relations in recent months between Israel, Syria and Hezbollah. The newspaper removes the remnants of secrecy over what reports in the Israeli press vaguely referred to as “weapons that tilt the strategic balance,” arms that Syria has provided to Hezbollah. According to the Kuwaitis, these are Scud ballistic missiles that the Lebanese organization has obtained despite Israeli warnings to Damascus.

Scuds are weapons in a league of their own. This will be the first time that any terrorist-guerrilla group can boast of possessing ballistic missiles of the kind that usually comprise the arsenals of organized armies. In recent years, Hezbollah has amassed an extensive and dangerous array of rockets, all in defiance of Israeli threats and international condemnation.

The Scud will serve as an important, significant addition to the group’s cache of projectiles, even though it would be reasonable to assume that these arms will only be deployed as a last resort. The question, ostensibly, is who determines the proper timing of a last resort. Iran would prefer that the Scuds be used as a response to any Israeli attack against its nuclear installations, while Hezbollah may view Scuds as the fitting Lebanese answer to a more local clash with the Israel Defense Forces.

Israelis remember the Scud as a not particularly lethal weapon with absolutely no accuracy, the type of missile launched by Iraq that hit population centers in Greater Tel Aviv and the Haifa area during the 1991 Gulf War.

The Kuwaiti newspaper does not specify which brand of Scuds was given to Hezbollah. Is it the older B and C models, or perhaps the newer, more precise incarnations? According to various reports emanating from Western sources in recent years, Hezbollah is already in possession of rockets with a range of 300 kilometers, enough to cover most of Israel. The Scud C, whose range is double, will enable the militia to strike targets south of Dimona, a wide swath of territory that is largely uninhabited and whose strategic significance is marginal. The most noteworthy difference is the size of the Scud’s warhead. The Scud C can carry one ton of explosives, twice as much as its predecessors.

The missing piece of information is the level of the missiles’ accuracy. A Scud D is capable of repeatedly striking an area a few hundred meters in radius. Providing Hezbollah with such a weapon, if it was indeed given this missile, will enable it to systematically threaten not just Israel’s population centers but also strategically sensitive sites, including army command posts and key infrastructure installations.

Nonetheless, it should be remembered that the Arrow missile defense system has already proven its ability to intercept Scud missiles. In a joint U.S.-Israeli test in the summer of 2004, the Arrow easily shot down an incoming Scud B missile. More so than the Zilzal missile that was destroyed by the Israel Air Force before it could be launched during the Second Lebanon War, the Scud leaves a “signature” which makes it easy for intelligence to identify and destroy.

It was no coincidence that on the day after these reports emerged, Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke boastfully of “the best pilots and planes in the world” during a visit to the Ramat David air base. Barak vowed that the IDF can act against “threats both near and far.”

What does Syria have to gain from these developments? Much like the leaders of Turkey and Iran, it appears that its president, Bashar Assad, is not overly impressed with the declarations emanating from the Obama administration. Since entering office, Assad has assumed a different stance than that of his father, Hafez. While the father was cautious in forging close ties with Iran and made sure to keep a distance from Hezbollah, his son does not hesitate to embrace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Nasrallah.

Even if the Syrians are interested in peace with Israel in exchange for the Golan Heights, for the time being they do not sense that there is a genuine Israeli partner with whom they can reach agreement. Thus they prefer to bolster deterrence, which will prevent Israel from once again striking their territory, as it did in September 2007.

Currently, there is no stick that can threaten Syria and compel it to reconsider its alliance with Hezbollah. The West continues to coddle up to Damascus, and even the heads of the anti-Syrian camp in Lebanon, namely Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, make pilgrimages to the presidential palace while fully cognizant of the new balance of power in the region. If the Americans won’t come to their rescue, they will be left to their own devices in dealing with the Syrians. It is doubtful whether the delayed stationing of the American ambassador in Damascus will be enough to affect a change in Syrian policy.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, is making clear that it has no interest, for the time being, in another war with Israel. It is, however, continuing to prepare for this possibility. The militia’s representatives occupy positions in the Lebanese government, yet for Hezbollah it is important to stress its unique standing in the Lebanese arena: that of the only resistance movement that poses a considerable threat to Israel. Most importantly, the Shi’ite Hezbollah will continue to act as the long arm of Iran in case of an Israeli assault against the Persian country.

Report: U.S. confirms Syria gave Scuds to Hezbollah – Haaretz – Israel News.
United States officials have confirmed Israeli allegations that Syria supplied Hezbollah with ballistic missiles capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel’s cities, according to reports in the United States Wednesday.

U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence told the Wall Street Journal that they believe Syria transferred Scud missiles built with either North Korean or Russian technology to the Lebanese militant group.

The American confirmation comes after Israel on Tuesday publicly accused Syria over the missiles.

“Syria claims that it wants peace, while simultaneously delivering Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which is constantly threatening the security of the state of Israel,” President Shimon Peres told Israel Radio.

Later the same day, he said: “Syria is playing a double game. On the one hand it talks peace, yet at the same time it hands over accurate Scud missiles to Hezbollah so that it can threaten Israel.”

The allegations are already having repercussions on Washington’s efforts to restore full diplomatic ties with Damascus. According to the Journal report, senior Republican politicians will press the U.S. Congress to block plans to reappoint an ambassador to Syria.

President Barack Obama in January decided to return a U.S. ambassador to Syria after a four-year absence, appointing Arabic-speaking diplomat Robert Ford to the task of wooing Damascus away from its closest ally, Iran.

But allegations over the Scuds have led to calls for Obama to rethink his policy of conciliation.

“It’s increasingly hard to argue that the engagement track has worked,” the Journal quoted Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying.

The House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday approved Ford’s nomination, but three Republican senators registered their objection.

The Washington Post quoted congressional aides as saying that a full floor vote may be delayed until the administration can provide answers to the Israeli allegations.

IC Publications.

As pressure mounts for new sanctions against Iran, experts say its alleged nuclear weapons programme is struggling to find scientists and technicians and faces sabotage by Western and Israeli agents.

Despite already being the subject of economic sanctions and facing the threat of more concerted international action, Iran is pushing ahead with attempts to enrich large quantities of uranium to make nuclear fuel.

Having said it plans to refine its three or four percent enriched uranium to the 20 percent level that could be used in a research reactor, Tehran is on the threshold of perfecting the 90 percent strength needed for a bomb.

“It’s going slower … than they anticipated. But they are moving in that direction,” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday in an interview with the NBC network.

Once 90 percent enrichment is achieved, it will only remain for Iran to assemble a missile with separate stages, something intelligence agents think Iran has made considerable progress towards over the past three years.

China was continuing Tuesday to resist Western calls for new economic sanctions, disappointing Washington by calling for “dialogue and negotiation” just ahead of a 47-nation summit on world nuclear proliferation.

But in the meantime, Iran has already run into technical difficulties, some related to its limited engineering capacity, others deliberately engineered by Western intelligence in a bid to sabotage the programme.

“The Iranians are still enriching uranium, but they’ve run into some problems,” a senior European official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity to confirm details of a covert international operation.

According to Western experts, Iran’s array of centrifuges has allowed it to produce around two tonnes of weakly enriched uranium, but only at the cost of working its out-of-date equipment almost to breaking point.

In a race to beat imminent sanctions and the possible threat of Israeli or US air strikes, Iranian scientists rely on so-called “dual use” imported civilian equipment to maintain their creaking production line.

This is where Western spy networks come in.

Having identified much of Iran’s international network of buyers and front organisations, legally and illegally gathering the tools Tehran needs, Western agents are able to almost-literally throw a spanner in the works.

“For example, if a certain kind of lubricant is needed for such-and-such a task, it’s delivered to them. Then, six months later, it starts to corrode the material it has been applied to,” one specialist told AFP.

Jean-Pierre Maulny, an analyst at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris, confirmed the practice, which he said was possible thanks to what is known as the “Wassenaar Arrangement”.

Set up in Vienna in 1995 and with 35 members, the Wassenaar group shares information on what other countries are seeking to import in terms of weapons and civilian equipment with possible military applications.

Once a picture is built up of a possible rogue state’s intentions, other agencies — such as national intelligence services — can act.

Where are Iran’s centrifuges built? Where are those that were to be installed in its recently revealed second enrichment centre outside Qom? Are there other secret sites in Iran? What can be done about them?

Spy agencies want answers to all these questions, and their task could be made easier by the other weak link in Tehran’s enrichment chain: its expert personnel, from skilled welders to top-flight nuclear scientists.

In January, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, 50-year-old Iranian nuclear physicist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb hidden on a motorcycle parked near his Tehran home.

Iran has blamed the attack on either the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or Israel’s Mossad.

Another Iranian physicist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared in June last year on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. US media report that he willingly defected to the CIA. Iran claims he was kidnapped.

Either way, he is no longer available to help build an Iranian bomb.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Barack Obama Iran nuclear

Iran threatens US with nuclear terror

This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world’s nuclear club within a month, raised the pitch of Iranian anti-US rhetoric to a new high Tuesday, April 13, as 47 world leaders gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit. The statement published by Kayhan said: “If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America’s main cities.” For the first time, debkafile‘s military sources report, Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States.

Without specifying whether those elements would be Iranian or others, Tehran aimed at the heart of the Nuclear Security Summit by threatening US cities with nuclear terror.

debkafile‘s Iranians sources report that Tehran is playing brinkmanship to demonstrate that the Washington summit, from which Iran and North Korea were excluded, failed before it began, because terrorist elements capable of striking inside the US had already acquired nuclear devices for that purpose.
Although Iran has yet to attain operational nuclear arms, our military sources believe it does possess the makings of primitive nuclear devices or “dirty bombs.”

In an interview ahead of the summit, President Obama warned: “If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications… would be devastating.”
In another shot at the summit, Behzad Soltani, deputy director of Iran’s Atomic Commission, announced Tuesday: “Iran will join the world nuclear club within a month in a bid to deter possible attacks on the country.” He added: “No country would even think about attacking Iran once it is in the club.”

The Iranian official’s boast was run by the Fars news agency, published by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Behzadi further pointed to the construction of 360 MW nuclear power plant and a 40 MW research reactor in Iran’s central city of Arak, claiming the projects were 70 percent complete.
This plant is generally believed to have been built to enable Iran to produce weapons-grade plutonium as an alternative weapons fuel to highly-enriched uranium and material for radioactive weapons.
Sunday, April 11, debkafile reported that Iran is making much better progress than Western and Israeli intelligence estimates have held toward completing the Arak heavy water reactor.

Along with the strides made in its nuclear manufacturing capacity, Tehran’s anti-US rhetoric has grown more strident in the past week. Thursday, April 8, Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj.Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said if the United States made any military moves on the Islamic Republic “none of the American troops in the region would go back home alive.”
debkafile‘s military sources report the presence of app. 220,000 US soldiers in the countries around Iran, including Gulf bases and waters, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iranian general was reacting to US defense secretary Robert Gates’ warning that Washington’s policy decision to limit the use of nuclear arms if attacked did not apply to Iran and North Korea.

Israel accuses both Syria and Iran of supplying arms to the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah

JERUSALEM — Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday accused Syria of supplying Scud missiles to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah while publicly talking peace.

“Syria claims it wants peace while at the same time it delivers Scuds to Hezbollah whose only goal is to threaten the state of Israel,” Peres told public radio.

According to Arab media and specialised think-tanks, Syria has been sending some of its arsenal of Scud missiles to Lebanon, an allegation denied by Damascus.

“Syria believes it need do nothing more than let itself be courted by the world, while saying one thing and doing the opposite,” Peres, whose post is largely ceremonial, said amid Israeli media reports of rising tensions.

He made the comments just hours before flying to Paris, where he is expected to discuss the issue with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai declined to go into details of the alleged Scud shipments but said that “Hezbollah’s firing capacity has significantly improved.”

Israel accuses both Syria and Iran of supplying arms to the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah, whose deadly attack on an army patrol just inside Israel triggered a devastating in the summer of 2006.

In February, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Lebanon of allowing Hezbollah to develop its stockpile of weapons.

Israel estimates Hezbollah’s arsenal at some 40,000 rockets, a significant rise from the group’s 14,000 rockets in 2006, when the 34-day conflict killed 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

It says the stockpile includes rockets with a range of more than 300 kilometres (116 miles), capable of reaching major Israeli population centres.

Vilnai said that Israel would again conduct military exercises this year to prepare for possible rocket attacks by Hezbollah.

Hezbollah is blacklisted by Washington as a terrorist organisation, although it is part of a Lebanese coalition government formed in November by US- and Saudi-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Israel remains technically at war with Syria and Lebanon.

via AFP: Israel accuses Syria of arming Hezbollah.

Sarkozy warns of Israel-Iran war.

Sarkozy warns of Israel-Iran war

By JPOST.COM STAFF
13/04/2010 07:15

French leader: We must act on Iran to avoid “disaster” of IAF strike.

As the Nuclear Security Summit opened in Washington on Monday night, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned that if the world doesn’t act to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear arms, it could be responsible for a war between Israel and the Islamic republic.

“I would not want the world to wake up to a conflict between Israel and Iran, quite simply because the international community has been incapable of acting,” the French president told CBS News.

He said that an IAF strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would be disastrous.

“It would be a disaster. I don’t even want to think about that possibility,” he said. “And the best way to avoid this disaster scenario is to take measures in order to get Israel to understand that we are determined to ensure its security. And Israel, furthermore, must equally make the necessary effort in order to bring about a fair and lasting peace with their Palestinian neighbors.”

Sarkozy reiterated that a nuclear armed Iran would be “dangerous and unacceptable,” particularly in light of “the many statements made by Iranian leaders against the democracy that is Israel.”

He said that patience with Iran had it limits, and so time had come to vote for sanctions against the leaders “who are leading the country to the wall.”

Sarkozy added that while a unified Security Council decision would be best, it must not come at the expense of a resolution that is so toothless that it would achieve nothing.

The French president said that his country could not agree give up its nuclear weapons, since it would jeopardize the nation’s security.

Sarkozy stressed that France was the only country in the world that had actually declared how many nuclear warheads it possessed – which, he emphasized, had been dropped to 300 – and that it had stopped nuclear testing. But he said France could do no more than that at present.

“I feel that if I were to go any further, I could in fact jeopardize the security of my country, and as head of state, I am the guarantor and guarantee of that security,” he said.

The French president went on to say that while everyone would applaud a “virtual world” with no nuclear weapons, that was currently no more than “an awesome dream.”

“I have inherited the legacy of the efforts made by my predecessors to build up arms as a nuclear power, and I could not give up nuclear weapons, insofar as I wasn’t sure that the world was a stable and safe place,” he said. “I will not give up that nuclear weapon because it underpins my country’s security. I will not do so on a unilateral basis in a world as dangerous as the one in which we live in today.”

Iran, Israel and the Bomb – WSJ.com.

As far as grand summitry goes, an American President hasn’t hosted something like the current two-day talk-in on nuclear security in Washington since—well, as the Obama Administration described it, not since the San Francisco Conference of 1945. That meeting created the United Nations and helped establish the postwar world order. The agenda for the party that started yesterday is far more modest, but also hard to dislike.

President Obama invited the leaders of 46 countries to brainstorm ways to secure weapons-grade plutonium and uranium and ensure that terrorist groups don’t get their hands on a bomb. At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. tracked and locked down nuclear material in the former Soviet Union with admirable success through the Nunn-Lugar program. In our current post-9/11 era, al Qaeda and like-minded Islamists badly want a bomb, and this Washington gabfest can usefully focus minds and highlight best practices for governments willing to stop global proliferation.

Any achievements will be modest. Ukraine yesterday agreed to eliminate its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, nearly 16 years after giving up the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union. Kiev isn’t a proliferator of nuclear weapons, and while welcome, this deal won’t make anyone in the free world sleep better at night.

In his remarks on Sunday, President Obama declared that: “The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon. This is something that could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come.”

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Associated Press

President Barack Obama talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

That’s true enough, which only underscores what isn’t on the table this week. Namely, proliferation by Iran and North Korea. U.S. officials say they avoided these touchy subjects to ensure that all countries came on board. China might be annoyed by raising such state-sponsored proliferation, goes the argument, and in any case that’s being pursued at the U.N.

Really? Nuclear material in the hands of well-run democracies that play by international rules isn’t likely to fall into the hands of terrorists. However, were Iran to develop an atomic bomb and the means to deliver a warhead, the danger automatically rises that the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism might share it with its friends in Hezbollah or Hamas. Or imagine a North Korea hard up for cash and willing to sell a device to al Qaeda.

The restrictions on sensitive topics evidently doesn’t apply to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled plans to attend after Turkey and Egypt declared their intention to turn the spotlight on Israel’s presumed nuclear arsenal. Who wants to travel across the ocean to listen to insults?

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently declared the Jewish state “the principal threat to peace in the region today.” But Israel’s nukes aren’t prompting him or the Saudis or Egyptians to kick-start their atomic programs; an Israeli bomb poses no threat to them. An Iranian bomb would.

In our view, “the single biggest threat to American security” would be to allow Iran to defy years of effort by the world’s leading nations and become a nuclear power. That would unleash a new age of proliferation that would swamp this week’s attempts at controlling nuclear materials. Prevent an Iranian breakout, and the risk of an al Qaeda nuclear attack falls sharply. High-profile nuclear summitry has its uses, but it won’t mean much if Mr. Obama dodges the hard decisions necessary to stop the world’s most dangerous proliferators.

U.S. official: China agrees to support new Iran nuclear sanctions – Haaretz – Israel News.

		U.S. President Obama and China’s President Hu Jintao, left, on Monday. (AP)

China shares U.S. concerns about Iran’s nuclear program and agreed to direct its officials to work on a UN sanctions resolution against Tehran, a U.S. official said after talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Jeffrey Bader, Obama’s top China adviser, said Obama and Hu, meeting on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit, talked at length about Iran and discussed nuclear non-proliferation.

Obama stressed to Hu the need to act urgently against Iran’s nuclear program, and Hu agreed that Beijing would help craft a UN resolution, Bader said.

The White House had hoped the one-on-one meeting would help determine whether China was serious about moving forward with the United States, Britain, France, Russia and Germany in forging a new round of UN sanctions on Iran.

“The resolution will make clear to Iran the cost of pursuing a nuclear program that violates Iran’s obligations and responsibilities,” Bader told reporters after the meeting. “The Chinese are actively at the table in New York.”

Bader said the two presidents agreed that their delegations should work on a Security Council resolution on a new round of Iran sanctions “and that’s what we’re doing.”

Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the United States still expects a UN resolution by this spring.

Bader said Obama’s meeting with Hu “was a sign of international unity” on Iran. Western powers want to deter Iran from what they see as a drive to develop nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its program has only peaceful, civilian purposes.

China, which holds veto power in the Security Council, had recently shown an increased willingness to pressure Iran while signaling it remained reluctant to take some of the toughest measures proposed by Washington and other Western powers.

Following the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said that President Hu had told Obama in “positive and constructive” talks on Monday that Beijing wanted to resolve bilateral economic friction through consultations.

China and the United States also “share the same overall goal on the Iranian nuclear issue,” Ma said in a written statement after the two leaders met on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in Washington. Ma provided no details on the talks and repeated China’s standard call for “dialogue and negotiations” with Iran.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Obama made no mention of his talks with Hu but said he expects the 47-nation summit to make progress toward locking down loose nuclear material.

“It’s impressive. I think it’s an indication of how deeply concerned everybody should be with the possibilities of nuclear traffic, and I think at the end of this we’re going to see some very specific, concrete actions that each nation is that will make the world a little bit safer,” Obama said.

Speaking to ABC’s Good Morning America earlier Monday, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said that while he supported sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program he felt those sanctions should not harm the Iranian people.

On the subject of imitating new sanctions against Iran geared at forcing it to abandon its nuclear program, the Russian president said that “it’s not whether it’s a good thought or bad thought, I’m talking about something else.”

“The sanctions is a tricky thing which works seldomly. You yourself were busy with politics, and you know that sanctions is not without conditions,” Medvedev said, adding but sometimes you have to do that.”

“What kind of sanctions? We have spoken about that with President Obama yesterday. Sanctions should be effective and they should be smart,” the Russian President said.

“They should not lead to humanitarian catastrophe, and the whole Iranian community would start to hate the whole world. And we’re worried that there are a significant number of people which have radical opinions. Do we want that radical thought to be sent to the whole world?,” Medvedev said.

However, the Russian president did not rule sanctions altogether, saying that they “should be smart.”

“They should force or obligate the Iranian leadership to think about what’s next. What could sanctions be? It could be trade, arms trade. It could be other sanctions,” Medvedev said, adding that “sanctions should let the country understand that all who impose sanctions have the same opinion.”

Medvedev said that any new sanctions “should not be paralyzing. They should not cause suffering. Aren’t we in the 21st century? That’s why if we’re going to develop our cooperation in this direction we have a chance to succeed. Better would be to go without sanctions and achieve things politically.

Earlier Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned Obama’s nuclear summit, calling it humiliating to humanity.

On Holocaust day, Israel warns of Iranian threat – News – World – bnd.com.

JERUSALEM — Israel used the solemn occasion of Monday’s annual Holocaust memorial day to call on the world to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to draw new attention to the plight of the dwindling number of survivors.

The wail of air raid sirens pierced the air for two minutes as the country came to a standstill in a yearly ritual remembering the 6 million Jews who perished in World War II. People stood at attention and traffic halted during the moment of silence, as radio stations played mournful music throughout the day.

Israel was built on the ashes of the Holocaust, and preserving the memory of the Nazi genocide plays a central role in the country’s identity.

Israelis stand outside their cars as a siren marking the annual Holocaust remembrance day sounds in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, April 12, 2010. Israelis are marking the annual Holocaust Day in remembrance of the more than 6 million Jews that were killed by the Nazis in World War II. – AP Photo

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At the memorial’s opening ceremony late Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to draw parallels to the rise of Nazi Germany and the development of Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel, like the West, believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and Netanyahu derided the world’s response to curbing Tehran’s atomic ambitions as limp.

“If we have learned anything from the Holocaust, it is that we must not be silent or be deterred in the face of evil,” Netanyahu said.

Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran an existential threat, underscored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated references to the Jewish state’s destruction and Tehran’s support for anti-Israeli militant groups. Israel has hinted at taking military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.

The Yad Vashem memorial authority picked “Voices of the Survivors” as the theme of this year’s commemoration. Sixty-five years after World War II, about 207,000 aging survivors, many of them destitute and alone, live in Israel, down 63,000 from just two years earlier.

In Jerusalem, Yad Vashem opened a new art exhibit on Monday displaying works by survivors.

Among the collection was a painting by Shoshana Noyman, 78, who lost her father and sister during a six-week death march in Ukraine. The painting shows a bearded man, eyes closed with exhaustion, carrying a young girl on his shoulders. She said her father dropped dead of exhaustion at the end of the march, while her sister died from typhus.

“I have no pictures of my family. I drew this from memory. This is how I remember them,” said Noyman, who was forced to stand guard by her sister’s body for more than a week before it could be removed.

At the Israeli parliament on Monday, Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, other officials and survivors read names of loved ones who perished.

Peres recited the names of his family members killed “with 2,060 of their community members in the town of Vishneva in August 1942,” saying the “Nazis and their accomplices assembled the town’s residents in the synagogue that was made of wood and cruelly shot and burned them to death.”

The reading is an annual rite known as “Every Person Has a Name” that tries to break down the 6 million number into stories of individuals, families and communities wiped out during the war. Memorial ceremonies were also held at schools and military bases, while restaurants, cafes and theaters were closed.

The front page of the Yediot Ahronot daily carried a black-and-white photo of a bearded Polish Jew, wrapped in a prayer shawl, kneeling before two Nazi soldiers, his arms raised, fists clenched, before he was executed.

The man was the maternal grandfather of Meir Dagan, chief of the Mossad spy agency, who told the newspaper: “I see that photo every day and vow that something like that will not happen again.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday praised Germany for bringing accused Nazi war criminals John Demanjuk and Heinrich Boere to trial over the past year, but said a “lack of political will” continues to be the major obstacle to punishing others, particularly in post-Communist Eastern Europe.

The center singled out Hungary’s failure to try Sandor Kepiro, whom it accuses of organizing the mass murder of at least 1,200 civilians in Serbia in 1942.