June 20, 2008 (LPAC)--A senior Israeli source warned yesterday, in discussions with Executive Intelligence Review, that an intense policy brawl has erupted in Israel, over the issue of Israeli preventive strikes against Hezbollah, and bombing raids against Iranian nuclear sites, including the enrichment facility at Natanz. The source reported that the Cheney circles in Washington have been putting tremendous pressure on the fragile Olmert government in Tel Aviv, to carry out preventive strikes against sites in Iran, and against the Hezbollah security infrastructure in southern Lebanon. These pressures come at the same time that progress has been made on a number of key peace negotiating fronts, involving Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.
The source, a U.S.-based Israeli with strong ties to the present Olmert government, reported that top officials of the Israeli Defense Force, including the current Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Gabriel Ashkenazi, strongly oppose both of the military schemes. At a recent security cabinet meeting, the source reported, Gen. Ashkenazi bluntly warned of the dire consequences for Israel of strikes against either Hezbollah or Iran's nuclear facilities, calling such schemes "madness." Nevertheless, hardliners in Israel, including Likud Party chairman and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Olmert's current deputy prime minister, are pressing for Israeli military strikes against Iran. The source reported that when Prime Minister Olmert was recently in Washington to address the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention, he met privately with Bush and Cheney, and came under intense personal pressure from the Vice President to take action against Iran. He claimed that Israeli pilots are now covertly training on state-of-the-art U.S. fighter jets at locations in the Nevada desert, in preparation for an Israeli bombing of Natanz and other Iranian sites.
Today, the New York Times reported that, in early June, Israel conducted large-scale military exercises, involving more than 100 F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, as well as helicopters, over Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The exercise covered a distance of 900 miles, which is also the distance between Israel and the Natanz enrichment facility in Iran. The day after the exercises were completed, Mofaz gave an interview to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, warning that "if Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack... Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable."
In response to the New York Times report of the Israeli Air Force maneuvers, and the threats from Mofaz, Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on June 20, warned against the use of force against Iran, and chastised both the United States and Israel for ``matter-of-factly” claiming that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon, when no evidence exists that their nuclear energy program is aimed at building a bomb.
While some U.S. military analysts have insisted that Israel does not have the capability of destroying the Natanz facility, unless they use nuclear weapons, a recent report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a rightwing Zionist Lobby think tank, claimed that it didn't matter whether a bombing attack succeeded or failed. The effect, either way, of an Israeli or American attack on Natanz and other sites, would be to deter Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Senior retired U.S. military officers, contacted by EIR and asked to comment on the WINEP report, denounced it as "extremely dangerous."
