JERUSALEM, 16 September 2004 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Iran and its nuclear ambitions represent “a very great danger” to the Jewish state but played down the prospect of a pre-emptive strike on its atomic facilities.
“Iran constitutes a very great danger, due to its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and means of launching them,” Sharon said in an interview with the Yediot Aharonot daily published yesterday.
“This is a country where the moderates speak in terms of destroying Israel and the Jewish people, and in fact engage in terror.”
Tehran insists its nuclear program, currently being scrutinized by the UN nuclear watchdog, is strictly limited to meeting energy needs. But the head of Israel’s military intelligence, Gen. Aharon Zeevi, claimed earlier this week that Tehran could be in a position next year to develop nuclear weapons without outside help.
Asked if that meant Israel needed to carry out a pre-emptive strike against Iran, similar to the one launched against Iraq’s French-built Osirak reactor in 1981, Sharon said that times had changed and instead called for the threat posed by Iran to be addressed by the United Nations.
“Menahem Begin (the Israeli prime minister at the time of the Osirak bombing) made a very brave decision,” Sharon said. “I had great influence on that decision.
“In the meantime, things have changed. Israel is not leading the campaign against Iran’s nuclear armament.
“What Israel needs are protective means and deterrent ability. The world must put heavy pressure on Iran, economic and diplomatic pressure. We have not yet reached the point of no return. We must bring this matter to the UN Security Council.”
Israeli deputy chief of staff General Dan Halutz also called for more international pressure to be exerted on Iran but said a time could come when Israel had to take matters into its own hands.
“We will rely on other parties for the moment but only up to a point when we will have to rely only on ourselves,” Halutz told the paper.
Israel itself refuses to confirm it has a nuclear arsenal but is estimated to possess some 200 warheads. Unlike Iran, it is not subject to inspections by the IAEA as it has not signed the nuclear NPT.
Meanwhile, a comfortable majority of Israelis are in favor of the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip but would like to see the measure put to a national referendum, a poll published yesterday showed.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rebuffed calls for his disengagement plan to be put to a nationwide poll, saying there is not time, but the survey for the Maariv daily showed that 69 percent of people want a referendum while only 26 percent believe that a vote in Parliament would be sufficient.
Asked how they would vote if there was a referendum, 58 percent said that they would vote in favor while 29 percent said they would oppose it. The survey was published a day after Sharon’s inner Cabinet approved a package of compensation for the 8,000 settlers in Gaza and residents of four small Jewish enclaves in the northern West Bank who are due to be evacuated next year.
The disengagement plan, which also envisages the strengthening of control over larger West Bank settlements, has angered many of Sharon’s former allies on the Israeli right and even prompted death threats from extremists. A total of 34 percent of those surveyed said that it would be legitimate for the settlers in the Gaza Strip to resist the evacuation by force while 58 percent said the opposite. A total of 500 adults were questioned for the poll which was conducted by TNS Teleseker and has a 4.4 percent margin of error.
