"Israel has the technological capability to strike Iran"
Previously, many questions had arisen regarding whether or not Israel could get this job done alone (i.e., without any U.S. assistance) and now Israel is signaling that they do indeed possess this capability:
Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon said on Monday that Israel has the technological capabilty to launch a military strike against Iran.
Addressing a conference on air power, Ya'alon said Israel's experience in carrying out air strikes against militants along its borders could easily be extended to distant sorties in Iran.
"There is no doubt that the technological capabilities, which improved in recent years, have improved range and aerial refueling capabilities, and have brought about a massive improvement in the accuracy or ordnance and intelligence," he said.
"This capability can be used for a war on terror in Gaza, for a war in the face of rockets from Lebanon, for war on the conventional Syrian army, and also for war on a peripheral state like Iran," said Ya'alon, a former chief of Israel's armed forces.
Below is a refreshing piece of news. Predictably, at least with the Netanyahu administration, Israel will not cave to pressure to disarm:
"Barak: No threat to Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity"
No reason Israel should bow to global pressure to reveal extent of alleged nuclear arsenal, defense minister says.
Despite recent international pressure pressure on the Netanyahu government to answer claims it holds atomic weapons, there is no real threat to Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday.
"I do not think there is a real or significant danger to Israel's traditional stance of nuclear ambiguity," Barak told the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee.
More skirmishes in the Gaza region:
"IAF strikes Gaza tunnels in response to Qassam attack"
Israeli aircraft attacked two targets in south Gaza late Sunday night in response to the firing of a Qassam rocket Saturday evening towards the western Negev region.
"The IDF holds Hamas solely responsible for what goes on in Gaza," the Israeli army said in a statement.
And last but not least, The American Thinker has another commentary on destructiveness of Obama's Middle East "policy":
"Obama's Misguided Approach to Peacemaking"
The president's current approach to the peace process and his embrace of the linkage theory is problematic on many levels. On several occasions, Team Obama has put the onus squarely on Israel not only to prove that it is committed to peace and negotiations with the Palestinians, but also to demonstrate that it is committed to its relationship with the United States. Yet it is the Palestinian Authority that refuses to negotiate. Palestinian politics are divided between the Hamas rulers pledged to Israel's destruction in Gaza and the PA dominated by the Fatah party in the West Bank. Such political paralysis is hardly conducive to peacemaking.
Peace will come only when the Palestinian leadership accepts Israel's right to exist.
But there are precious few signs of a rethinking of the PA's basic narrative and red lines. The main issue today remains not whether the Palestinian leadership will recognize Israel as a Jewish state, but whether it will recognize Israel's right to exist in any form whatsoever. The onus should be on the Palestinians to prove that they are committed to the peace process.
Even more dangerous to American interests in the Middle East is Barack Obama's theory that success in the peace process is linked to efforts to affect Iran's behavior.
The nuclear option presents Iran's rulers with the assurance that the West will not act against them, no matter how rogue their behavior. And they seek to overturn the regional balance of power and undermine the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
A Palestinian-Israeli peace will not alter this fundamental equation in Tehran.
The key to progress in the Middle East lies in Iran. Changing the regime's behavior and bringing an end to its pursuit of nuclear weapons could weaken political extremists region-wide, curtail the power of terrorists groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and, perhaps most importantly, prevent a nuclear arms race in an unstable region.
The new and dangerous path charted by the Obama administration betrays a shaky grasp of nuance in the Middle East. This misguided approach to Arab-Israeli peacemaking is bound to fail and exacerbate tensions in the region.
All the while, it is emboldening Tehran and its terrorist allies as they watch the ease with which this administration has thrown its ally, Israel, under the proverbial bus.
All in all, "business as usual" in these last days.
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