Posted on 08/28/2002 3:39:32 AM PDT by BlackJack
In that event, Israel will strike back and with commensurate force and weapons selection. "If they hit us, we reserve the right of response," says Ben-Eliezer. And according to top military analyst Zeev Schiff, writing in the Haaretz daily, retaliation might well include a nuclear strike.
Such commentary by an analyst with high-level military connections is, of course, in part penned for propaganda purposes and designed to reinforce deterrence. But, though Pentagon analysts assign it a very low probability, an Israeli nuclear counterstrike cannot be ruled out.
Israeli intelligence has formed the opinion that Saddam has been speeding up chemical and biological weapons production since late last year. It also confirms a January German foreign intelligence (BND) report saying that Iraq is within at most three years of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
The BND estimate is based on human intelligence sources (humint) as well as close monitoring of deliveries to Iraq of machine tools and other equipment required in nuclear weapons production.
Under these circumstances, the Israeli government believes that the US should strike Iraq sooner rather than later. "Postponing the action to a later date would only enable Saddam to accelerate his weapons program and then he would pose a more formidable threat," said Ra'anan Gissin, a top aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres also supports an early attack, telling CNN on August 16 that while the operation would be "quite dangerous ... postponing it would be more dangerous".
In my opinion, the largest obstacle for such an arsenal would be the large amount of weapons grade nuclear material needed. Where would Israel get it? There is no way they could produce that much in so short a time, and I find it hard to believe that the U.S. would send over that much of it to them.
The second obstacle is quite simpler - what would the delivery vehicles be for the weapons? The amount of targets reachable by the Israeli airforce is not that high - certainly nowhere NEAR 400. Are they putting 50 warheads on each of their three deisel subs? Doubt it. Unless Israel has somehow developed ICBMs, and also has "world power" aspirations", the 400 number seems ridiculous.
The Samson Option-- what is known about Israel's Nuclear Weapons?
In my wildest dreams, Israel preemptively strikes Iraq and America goes in and takes down Iran and Syria. IMO, Saudi Arabia is about to fall and this might speed that up. If not, a little push will finish them. Egypt goes where the money is, always, so they will see the light.
In my wildest dreams.
Very interesting statement...you are on to something here. Most people aren't looking at that scenario.
There is a lot going on behind the scenes with our country dealing with these things that are about to happen. IMO sooner than expected. I talked to a recently discharged Marine and he mentionted that all of his buddies that were in Afghanistan and Pakistan with him are going to the Mideast post-haste. More later.
They need the Israeli conflict to keep eyes off of them but that veneer is getting verrrry thin now.
Which leads me to believe that Iraq isn't anywhere close to nuclear capability. If they were, Israel would have already acted. You only need to look back to 1981 for an example of Israel's resolve to ensure that nobody in the Middle East poses a nuclear threat to them.
I think this is very interesting from tzemach
This Land is Ours!
By Prof. Paul Eidelberg
pauleid@netvision.net.il
The Jews are the only people in world history that remained a nation even though expelled from their land and deprived of statehood.
For nineteen centuries the Jewish People, scattered throughout the earth, never surrendered their title to Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. And what is absolutely extraordinary, the Land of Israel, despite its remarkable fertility, remained desolate during all those centuries no matter which foreign nation occupied or controlled this Holy Land.
Moreover, and what is surely Providential, none of those foreign nations -- thirteen in number -- ever established a state in this land, or even a provincial capital. Had any done so, the Jews would never have been able to return to Eretz Yisrael and re-establish therein an independent Jewish state.
Let all mankind know, therefore, that the Land of Israel, including its heartland, Judea and Samaria, belongs eternally to the Jewish People, and NOT to the government of Israel.
The government is nothing more than the servitor of the Jewish People. No transient government, no transient Knesset, has any legal right to barter away any part of our sacred land and thus preclude future generations of Jews, wherever they may be in the Diaspora, from exercising their inalienable right to settle in the Land of their Fathers.
Because the Land of Israel belongs to all the Jewish people, to the living as well as the unborn, the Knesset, in 1950, enacted the Law of Return. This Law, as originally formulated, echoes the words of Scripture: "Leave your country, your birthplace, and the house of your father, and go to the land that I shall show you."
The Law of Return (before it was illegitimately amended in 1970 to allow gentiles, whose grandfather is Jewish, to enter Israel) was not an act of sovereign will, but rather the acknowledgment of an antecedent right of every Jew (and of Jews only) to make "aliya to Eretz Yisrael."
The Knesset did not bestow upon Jews a new and unheard of right or privilege which some future parliamentary majority could revoke (or extend to gentiles). On the contrary, the Knesset only affirmed the God-given right of the Jewish People to return to the land of their heritage. This land is ours and ours only.
Viewed in this light, it is a demonstrable fact that the original Law of Return merely affirms the prior Right of Return. The Law only registers the Knesset's recognition of that Right, which the government of Israel is solemnly obligated to honor now and in the future.>b> Therefore, any prime minister of Israel who barters away any part of this land betrays the Jewish People, betrays God, and must be deemed a thief or criminal!
--Snip--
It should be sufficient -- unfortunately it is also necessary -- for Jews to insist that they and they alone have a God-given right to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Of course, Jews are grateful to gentile scholars who have shown that most of the Arabs in these areas were migrants who came there only after the Jews began to settle and rehabilitate the Land of Israel. But only if Jews insist on their divine right to this land will they prevail over their enemies. Jews must understand that under no circumstances may the government of Israel give away any part of this land, or allow any foreign entity to exercise sovereign control over this Jewish patrimony. Nor can the Knesset, by the enactment of any law, yield this land to non-Jews.
Jews must reject the idea that the law of the state is the highest law. That idea is Fascist doctrine. Indeed, it was the defense the Nazis used during the Nuremberg trials: "We were only obeying the law of the German state." Hence no Jewish soldier should obey any law or any order that requires him to evict any Jew from any part of the Land of Israel.
One of the greatest Talmudic authorities and logicians of the 20th century, HaGaon HaRav Dr. Chaim Zimmerman (z"l), stated in unqualified terms that it would be "a systematic violation of Halacha [Jewish law] to give up any part of Judea and Samaria."
The contention of certain rabbis that parts of Eretz Yisrael may be sacrificed on grounds of "Pikuach Nefesh" -- of danger to life -- has no basis in Halacha, indeed, is palpably absurd and even constitutes an incitement to Israel's Arab enemies.
For on those grounds Israel would have to surrender strategic land every time the Arabs threatened Israel with war! Sacrificing any part of Eretz Yisrael on grounds of Pikuach Nefesh is a formula for national suicide and must be rejected as treason.
No one should be misled by the false prophets who cry "peace, peace" when there is no rational prospect of peace with Israel's implacable, undefeated, and well-armed enemies. If the government continues on its present course and yields control of Jewish land to Israel's sworn enemies, the proximity of terrorists to our loved ones will be, even more than it has been during the past two years, a daily nightmare whether we live in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or Haifa.
This is the plain truth: The logic of Pikuach Nefesh actually demands that we never yield an inch of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. This is our land! Stand upright before the God of Israel and dare to be Jews!
___________________________ This is an abbreviated and updated version of an article the author published in the "Jewish Press" on December 6, 1985.
The bolded portions were done by me for emphisis.
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