Iran’s Nuclear Program, A Menace to Israel

Israel considers Iran an “existential threat”, but the two countries were once firm allies. They are now more sharply at odds than ever over Iran’s nuclear program and engaged in a shadow war across the Middle East.

The long-running and undeclared shadow war between two of the Middle East’s most implacable foes, Iran and Israel, appears to be heating up.

Iran has blamed Israel for a mysterious explosion at the weekend that knocked out power at its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Israel has not publicly said it was behind what Iran calls “an act of sabotage” but US and Israeli media reports are quoting officials as saying it was carried out by Israel’s overseas intelligence agency, Mossad. Iran has vowed to take revenge “at a time of its choosing”.

Israel’s prime minister has called on the US and its allies to “wake up” to the threat of Iran as talks continue to revive a landmark deal to limit the country’s nuclear programme.

Naftali Bennett said Iran’s “regime of brutal hangmen” wants nuclear weapons, something Iran has repeatedly denied.

Diplomats said progress was made to renew the deal, which the US withdrew from under President Donald Trump, but there were still gaps to be bridged.

Israel opposes the agreement.

Iran elected hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s top judge who holds ultra-conservative views, as new president on Friday, in a race widely seen as being designed to favour him.

The president-elect – who will be inaugurated in August – is under US sanctions and has been linked to past executions of political prisoners.

Israel does not believe Iran’s repeated assertions that its nuclear programme is a purely peaceful civil one. Israel is convinced that Iran is secretly working towards developing a nuclear warhead and the means to deliver it with a ballistic missile.

Speaking on Monday during a visit from US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said: “In the Middle East there is no threat that is more serious, more dangerous, more pressing than that posed by the fanatical regime in Iran.”