Jerusalem – “The Iranians can’t do to us anything that the Israeli civilian hasn’t encountered already before,” said Maj. Gen. (res.) Professor Yitzhak Ben Yisrael yesterday. Mr. Ben Yisrael is a member of the Kadima faction of the Israeli Knesset Parliament and spoke in the wake of reports written in the United States as if Israel were planning to attack Iran by the end of 2008.

In an interview with the daily Makor Rishon-Hatzofeh yesterday, Mr. Ben Yisrael, who previously served as the director of the Defense Ministry’s Weapons And Technologies Development Program, said: “What can the Iranians do? They can shoot missiles. They have the same quantity of missiles and the same range of warheads as Saddam Hussein fired in 1991. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t a great disaster either. The second thing is that they can tell Hezbollah to shoot at us. We already went through that experience two years ago. Just that this time, I expect, the IDF won’t make the mistake it made last time when it let Hezbollah fire without hindrance. That’s why, if something happens, it can be expected to be different than what we had two years ago.” Mr. Ben Yisrael underscored that “as long as the Iranians don’t have an atomic weapon, the things that can be expected to happen, if at all, are of the type that I spoke about.”

Mr. Ben Yisrael believes that Israel’s situation has not only not worsened, but has actually improved. “If we compare it to the situation in 1991, in the meantime we have the Arrow, so that most of their missiles we’ll be able to down. That situation is better than what we had before.

“If I might quote President Shimon Peres, I heard him once at a ceremony honoring people who won the Israel Security Award saying: ‘We are a strange country. We have all kinds of capabilities but that’s a secret; we mustn’t talk about them. What can we talk about? Only our weaknesses. So all the time the picture that supposedly comes across is that we only have weaknesses and we don’t have capabilities and the public walks with its head hung low.’ I agree with him, we have more capabilities, the situation won’t be worse than in the past, if it happens at all.”

Security Expert: Iranians Are Undoubtedly Under Pressure

Mr. Ephraim Kam, a colonel in the Israeli reserves who serves as deputy director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said yesterday in an interview with the daily Israeli newspaper Maariv that, “In the past months, pressure has been mounting on Iran to suspend its nuclear program, from a number of directions. True, the U.N. Security Council is finding it difficult to tighten the sanctions that it has already imposed on Iran in three rounds, because Russia and China are opposing tighter sanctions, but the U.S. administration and European governments are imposing severe restrictions on the activity of Iranian companies and banks and making it difficult for Iran to receive aid from international financial institutions – and this pressure is more painful for Iran”.

Mr. Kam added that “Israel will reach a juncture of decision whether to stage a military operation against Iran when several conditions are fulfilled. Firstly, when it is clear that the diplomatic path for stopping Iran has failed and run its course. In the meantime, all countries, including Israel, prefer to exhaust the diplomatic path. Secondly, when it is clear that the US has decided not to carry out the move itself. In the meantime, the Bush administration does not rule out a military move, but the administration’s time is limited, and every month that passes reduces the chance that it will take action. Thirdly, when the buildup is completed of capabilities that will increase the chances of the success of a military operation. This means that there is still time until Iran obtains nuclear weapons, but there is not a lot of time – and it is running out. And as the conditions mentioned above are fulfilled, the Israeli government may be called upon to address one of the most difficult and complex decisions that have ever faced a government in Israel.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.