Netanyahu warns Iraq: Israel will strike
Israel has no reason to worry about the current Gulf crisis, said Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai while his deputy, Silvan Shalom, said Friday morning on the radio that Israel would retaliate for any Iraqi attack on her. 'Of course, were Israel to be attacked, Israel would not be able to sit with its hands tied, but I do not want to talk theoretically. I think that we are still facing a situation where it is possible that the Americans will solve the crisis, even today," he said and expected that by next week, the situation would be clearer for Israel to evaluate where the present crisis would lead.
But for the time being, Iraq's expulsion of US inspectors has not stirred real panic in Israel. Ron Ben Yishai, a leading military analyst wrote Friday in Yediot Aharonot that Iraqi does not pose any immediate threat to Israel. "Saddam Hussein does not at present have the military capability to cause real harm to Israel, and his behavior seems to have as its aim extracting political capital from the stalled peace process, thereby fracturing the US-led UN coalition against his country."
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu warned the Iraqi president from London, referring to a 'strong arm' to be wielded by his country in response to any Iraqi move against Israel. Political analysts in Israel believe that Netanyahu's tough posturing was not warmly received in Washington, where officials were hoping that Israel would keep a low profile with respect to the current Gulf crisis.
Israel, press reports said, has delivered a tough message to Iraq, warning: 'Should you attack us, we will not hesitate to respond with a strong arm.' This message was delivered by Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon, during his visit to Jordan at the start of the week. Sharon met with Crown Prince Hassan just three hours before Hassan met with Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, who was en route to New York to attend the UN sessions on the Gulf crisis. According to the reports, Sharon asked Prince Hassan to tell Iraq that this time Israel will not hold back if it were attacked and that this time there is neither international coalition nor pressures to be applied on Israel.
One common denominator in this morning's reports is that while Israel may not face military repercussions from the current posturing in the Gulf, the regional military balance is indeed affected by the policies of the Netanyahu government. President Clinton is apparently acting cautiously, waiting for strong international backing to reemerge for tough US policy against Iraq; but such coalition-building is tougher this time around for US to forge, as Arab states are having a difficult time figuring out why Saddam's anti-peace maneuvering in terms of kicking out US inspectors is any worse than the standstill which, they allege, has been caused to the peace process by Benjamin Netanyahu. In the long run, Hemi Shalev muses, the Americans might grow weary of trying to persuade Arab states that there is in fact a difference between Saddam Hussein and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel security sources say that if the UN inspection team in Iraq falls apart, Israel faces a long-term danger that Iraq will equip itself with weapons of mass destruction. The sources said, however, that even if Saddam managed to hide large missile stockpiles from the inspectors, it is unlikely he will fire them on Israel.
The Hebrew papers published segments of reports by the foreign media warning Saddam Hussein that Israel will not wait this time for Iraq to attack it first. 'To the extent that Saddam decides to fire missiles at Israel, Israel will take early preemptive military action,' wrote the English journal Foreign Report. The weekly disclosed that should Iraq use chemical or biological weapons this time, Israel's response would be harsh, and would include dropping a neutron bomb on Iraq.
A neutron bomb is considered to be a compact, 'clean' bomb which has a relatively small 'killing radius.' It was developed in order to kill mainly soldiers on a battlefield, without causing thermal-radiation effects which are characteristic of an 'ordinary' nuclear bomb. It was nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu who revealed to the Sunday Times that Israel's nuclear arsenal contains neutron bombs.