Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman
Photo: AP
Lieberman drafts nuclear Iran plan
Foreign minister also orders contingency plans for unilateral Palestinian statehood declaration
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has
commissioned a report on how to prepare for a nuclear-armed Iran as
doubt mounts about the efficacy of preventive action, an Israeli source said on Monday.
Foreign Ministry planners are also preparing a report on possible responses should the Palestinians unilaterally declare a state taking in all of the occupied West Bank.
Road to Peace
Roee Nahmias
'If Israel continues with its current policy, the moment may come when we will reexamine past agreements,' Yasser Abed Rabbo tells Al-Hayat newspaper. Adds: Netanyahu forming alliance with American Right to weaken Obama
Lieberman has ordered ministry strategists to draft a paper on "what to do if we wake up and discover the Iranians have a nuclear weapon", said the senior political source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
But many independent experts believe Israeli forces could not take on Iran alone. The Iranians have dug in, dispersed and prepared to defend many of their nuclear facilities.
Netanyahu's office declined comment on the Lieberman initiative. A senior Israeli official said: "The government's position is that all attempts have to be made to prevent Iran from going nuclear."
Publicly, Israel has pledged to deny the Iranians the means to make a bomb but former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government also discreetly drew up "day after" contingency plans should Tehran's uranium enrichment pass the military threshold.
At the time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then Opposition chairman, called for Israel to consider preemptive strikes against its arch-foe's nuclear sites.
- Follow Ynetnews on Facebook
