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Is Iran an Existential Threat to Israel?
(Fathom-BICOM) Toby Greene interviews Dore Gold - Iran "The Iranian...Shahab-3 ballistic missile...has a 1,300 kilometer range and puts Israel in striking distance from Iranian territory. That missile became operational in 2003. In 2012, reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggested, on the basis of information they had, that Iran was seeking to remove the conventional warheads from its Shahab-3 missiles and replace them with what the IAEA described as a spherical nuclear device." "How are we to understand Iran's intent?...For that, one has to look at Iranian military parades over the last decade, and what one sees are the Shahab-3 missiles being paraded on missile carriers. Draped on the side of those very same missile carriers are mottos in Farsi which say, 'Israel must be wiped off the map,' an expression used by Iranian leaders quite frequently. So you have Iranian capabilities pointing towards missiles which can strike at Israel, eventually with nuclear warheads, and you have Iran juxtaposing with those capabilities its own intent to destroy the Jewish state. Only a blind person would ignore the gravity of the threat which is emerging." "Israel is not helpless, it has its own deterrent strength. It has worked with the United States on the only operational missile defense program in the world...and the Israeli government will defend its population. It must also sound the alarm of the dangers emerging from Iran, not belittle them....Both the U.S. and Israel have the ability to fend off the Iranian challenge, but unless you know there is a challenge out there you can make terrible mistakes." The Peace Process "There had been a very carefully negotiated framework agreement worked out between the U.S., Israel and the Palestinians to set the stage for resuming negotiations. The framework agreement was very carefully drafted to allow each party to accept the framework with reservations. Under those terms, Israel accepted Secretary Kerry's framework proposal." "In March of 2014 when the same framework proposal was presented by President Obama in the Oval Office to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian answer was, 'I'll get back to you.' In other words, Israel said 'yes' to peace and unfortunately the Palestinian leader said 'no.'...The fact of the matter is that Israel has been on board in trying to make the peace process yield positive results. Unfortunately, we do not have cooperation from the Palestinian side." Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.