Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of an embattled Great Britain on May 10, 1940. At last, his political exile was over. Also that day, Adolf Hitler launched his blitzkrieg against Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg, and his armored panzer divisions ripped through the Ardennes forest.
Churchill had been warning against this outcome for a decade. It was Churchill, after all, who foresaw the possibilities of tank warfare in the darkest days of World War I.
From the day he became Chancellor in 1933 until the day he launched his war against Poland, Hitler wanted nothing so much as revenge. He sought vengeance against the French, to be sure, and, to a lesser extent, against the British. But mostly, Hitler wanted to avenge Germany’s loss against the Jews. He blamed the Jews for what he called “the stab in the back” of Germany’s surrender in World War I.Today, we are in similar peril. Prime Minister Benjamin leads the only democracy in the Mideast. In agreeing with the opposition Kadima party to postpone elections, Netanyahu has created in effect the national government that Churchill was called upon to lead in World War II. United, Israelis stand against the Iranian threat.
In Iran, the clerics declare that the in-gathering of Jews from Russia, Europe, and the Arab lands into “the Zionist entity” has been an act of God. “It saves us the trouble of hunting them down,” say the mullahs. Like Hitler, they openly call for the extermination of the Jews. Like Hitler, they view America with hatred and suspicion.Prime Minister Netanyahu warns us. Soon, the Iranians may have enough of their nuclear weapons program deep within mountains so they cannot be stopped in their headlong quest to dominate. Then, we will see the ultimate weapons in the hands of the ultimate terrorists.
Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel assumed command of the Israel Air Force on Monday, saying at an official ceremony that "there is no room in the Middle East for the weak.""A strong IDF... is an insurance policy for a Jewish and democratic state of Israel," Eshel said. "The IAF is strong, and it is ready to cope with any scenario."IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz also spoke at the ceremony, saying: "Looking to the future at the threats that are forming all around us from near and far, it is incumbent upon the IDF and the IAF to be able to respond with strength to any possible scenario."Eshel recently voiced concern over the possible consequences of Iran’s success in obtaining a nuclear weapon, claiming it would severely impair Israel’s operational freedom. He also warned of the possibility that Syria’s chemical weapons would be obtained by terrorist groups like Hezbollah.
Israel - widely believed to hold the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal - and the United States have not ruled out military action to prevent Iran from obtaining atomic bombs if negotiations fail to achieve this objective peacefully.
Two previous meetings between Iran and the IAEA in Tehran early this year failed to make any notable progress.
One person was killed and seven others were wounded in clashes on Sunday in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, between factions supporting and opposed to the revolt in neighboring Syria.Syrian authorities have repeatedly charged that arms and fighters are being smuggled in from Lebanon to help the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.
On Sunday, an image was revealed by The Associated Press which was said to come from inside an Iranian military site and shows an explosive containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that UN inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted at the site. Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber.After months of being rebuffed, IAEA and Iranian officials meet starting Monday in Vienna, and the IAEA will renew its attempt to gain access to the chamber, allegedly hidden in a building. Any evidence that Iran is hiding such an explosives containment tank, and details on how it functions, is significant for IAEA investigations.The IAEA has been stonewalled by Iran for more than four years in attempts to probe what it says is intelligence from member states strongly suggesting that Iran secretly worked on developing nuclear weapons.
The Associated Press at the weekend published a graphical rendering of what appears to be a pressure chamber used to test nuclear weapons. It reported that the drawing was provided by a high-ranking official from a country tracking Iran's nuclear program, and that the image allegedly depicts facilities located inside the Parchin military base near Tehran.A former deputy director general at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the AP that the drawing closely resembles a photograph he recently saw of a pressure chamber at Parchin.Late last week, Iranian opposition group Mujahadeen Khalq warned in a report published by Germany's Die Welt that while Iran teases the West with hopes of a diplomatic solution, the Islamic Republic is rushing full steam ahead to develop an atomic bomb.
Mujahadeen Khalq is the group that first exposed Iran's secretive nuclear program in 2002.
Meanwhile, Israel's Channel 10 News reported that the Obama Administration is growing increasingly concerned that Israel could launch a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities at any moment.
American officials reportedly told Channel 10 that, in Washington's eyes, last week's formation of a Likud-Kadima unity government in Jerusalem significantly boosted the chances of an Israeli strike in the next six months.
It has long been speculated that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were to order a strike on Iran, he would want to do so prior to the US presidential election in November in order to force President Barack Obama to back Israel's move.
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