Israel Update for November 2009

The Times of London newspaper later reported that retiring Atomic Agency chief Mohamed El Baradei has been conducting backchannel talks with Iranian leaders to persuade them to open up their entire nuclear programme to full international inspection. According to the report, all three rounds of economic sanctions previously imposed upon Tehran by the United Nations would be lifted, and five UN resolutions censuring Iran's uranium enrichment programme cancelled, in exchange for permission to inspect all Iranian nuclear facilities. Most disturbing to Israeli officials, the reported deal-leaked to the Times by an unnamed European diplomat with access to UN documents-would allow Iran to carry on enriching uranium.

The Egyptian-born El Baradei had earlier upset Israeli officials when he averred that an underground nuclear facility Iran has been secretly constructing for the past few years deep inside a mountain southwest of Tehran was merely "some sort of security bunker" and therefore "nothing to worry about." The existence of the hidden facility was first revealed in September by President Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. All three said the fact that Iranian leaders had been hiding the facility from international eyes was itself very worrisome, noting that the action adds significant weight to existing evidence that Iran is planning to produce nuclear bombs.

European diplomats with access to UN documents detailing Iran's nuclear programme revealed that the underground facility was too small to house the uranium enrichment centrifuges needed if the site was indeed part of Iran's supposed nuclear energy programme. However they said the previously hidden bunker was just the right size to house highly sophisticated equipment designed to produce enough enriched uranium to construct one nuclear warhead per year.

Bury Your Nukes

Several days after El Baradei made his controversial comments about the clandestine site near the Shiite holy city of Qom, his own UN agency published a report revealing that Iranian technicians and workers had begun moving expensive "cutting edge" equipment into the illicit bunker. The reports said the intricate machines are designed to produce up to one ton of highly enriched uranium per year, which experts say is more than enough to construct a nuclear weapon.

The report also expressed Atomic Energy Agency concerns that Iran may well have hidden other nuclear facilities from international inspection, as Israeli leaders have long maintained. "The agency has indicated that Iran's declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction, and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities not declared to the agency," it stated.

Responding to the latest news regarding Iran's ominous nuclear programme, Prime Minister Netanyahu warned once again that the Shiite regime presents a severe danger to many more nations than just Israel: "The threat that Iran poses is very grave for the state of Israel, for peace in the Middle East, and in the whole world." Netanyahu added that "without any doubt, we are Iran's first target, but we are not the last one."

Significantly, the statement was made while the Premier was inspecting one of Israel's four German-built submarines that are widely thought to carry Israeli-made missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. One week after the visit, Iranian clerical leaders announced that their military forces are currently engaged in the biggest war games ever staged in the country, purportedly designed to protect the Shiite regime's nuclear facilities from possible foreign attack.

Shipping Death And Destruction

In the largest such operation ever carried out, Israeli naval commandoes from the elite Shayetet 13 unit staged a daring raid on the storm-buffeted Mediterranean Sea before dawn on November 4, boarding a German-owned cargo ship flying the flag of Antigua. Media reports said they were ordered to seize the vessel after American officials passed on intelligence information about the deadly cargo to their Israeli counterparts. The ship, bound for the Syrian port of Latakia, turned out to be carrying nearly 500 tones of Iranian-supplied weaponry, apparently heading to Hizbullah militia forces operating in Lebanon.

According to the German newspaper Der Spiegel , the existence of the massive arms cache, hidden in some 40 Iranian commercial containers, was first detected by American naval forces operating near the Suez Canal. For some unknown reason, the ship-called the Francop-was not halted and searched at that point. When Israeli officials became aware of the situation, they made enquiries to their American counterparts, who then passed on precise details about the vessel.

After being stopped and searched off of the coast of Cyprus, the Francop was towed to Ashdod port, south of Tel Aviv, where the weapons were carefully unloaded and documented. Officials said the huge haul was enough to supply Hizbullah fighters with up to one month's worth of wartime rockets and ammunition. Port workers unloaded around 3,000 missiles and hundreds of 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets, along with many mortar shells, hand grenades and hundreds of thousands of machine gun bullets. After it was established that the Polish and German crew on board the ship did not realize they were carrying Iranian-supplied weapons hidden in cargo containers, they were allowed to leave Ashdod port.

Syrian and Lebanese officials termed the seizure "an illegal act of piracy" while denying that the ship was carrying any weapons-a contention rendered absurd when the huge cache was subsequently displayed at Ashdod port. Israeli PM Netanyahu noted that the UN resolution which ended the 2006 Lebanon War forbids any country from rearming Hizbullah militia forces. "Iran is sending these weapons to terror organizations to harm Israeli cities and kill its citizens," he said, adding that "the time has come for the international community to exert real pressure on Iran to stop this criminal activity and to support Israel when it defends itself against these terrorists and their patrons."

Palestinian Elections Postponed