Binyamin Netanyahu duels with Tehran
A short statement was read out to the Knesset ..by cabinet member Michael Eitan Wednesday afternoon...
"Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu informed the full Knesset plenum that all options are on the table when it comes to Iran's nuclear program. The prime minister and the authorized bodies are acting to stop the nuclear armament of Iran. The efforts are ongoing and we will do everything possible to enlist states in the international community, "he continued "because the Iranian threat is a danger not only to the State of Israel but to world peace."
The Knesset was due to devote a special session to the question of an attack on Iran.
... this is the first statement of this nature the prime minister has ever delivered to Israel's parliament. It was phrased notably in the present tense. "The authorized bodies" are thought to refer to the Israeli Defense Forces and its intelligence community.
Also worth noting is that Netanyahu sent a minister to read out his message. He himself absent from this key debate and so was the defense minister. For the first time too, there was no reference to sanctions which have figured hitherto in all Israeli official statements on the Iranian nuclear controversy.
The implication is that an operation against a nuclear Iran may be in the works. If so, a response from Tehran is to be expected shortly.
...[Supreme commander of Iran's armed forces Gen. Hassan] Firouz-Abadi said the massive explosion which killed Iran's missile chief Saturday "had nothing to do with Israel or America." It took place during "research on weapons that could strike Israel," adding that the blast had delayed by only two weeks the development of an undisclosed military "product."
The two statements together aroused lively speculation in the tense climate left by the latest nuclear watchdog agency's evidence of Iran's work on a nuclear weapon. Linking them might suggest that the Israeli prime minister had decided to refute the Iranian general's claim. By stating that "efforts are ongoing" to stop Iran's nuclear armament, he may have been implying that the explosion at the Guards base Saturday was indeed a covert Israeli operation in line with those efforts.
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