Israel National News

The so-called “Iranian Unit” of Hamas has been destroyed, according to Gaza sources cited Thursday by the Haaretz daily. The sources said most of the unit’s 100 members were killed in fighting in the Zeytun neighborhood of Gaza City.

The terrorists had been trained in infantry tactics, the use of anti-tank missiles and the detonation of explosives, among other skills, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at Hizbullah camps in Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley, as well as sites in Iran.

The IDF Southern Command has reportedly stepped up ground operations in Gaza, in anticipation of a ceasefire declaration in the near future. Senior officers said Thursday that there are probably no more than a few days until the end of the fighting.

Hamas: We Didn’t Expect It.

Two captured terrorists interviewed by Maariv/NRG say that Hamas was not expecting Israel’s response to the escalation in missile attacks on Israeli targets that preceded Operation Cast Lead.

One of them, a 52-year-old victim of a premature detonation who had already done time in an Israeli jail, said:

“Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air - something superficial. They’ll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in ‘48. What got into you all of a sudden?”

The second terrorist, a 21-year-old, said Hamas brought order to Gaza, but also brought fear. He noted that it was dangerous in Gaza for non-Hamas members, citing an instance of his being beaten and another in which he saw a friend killed when he went to get gas. “Now they’re all gone,” he said. “There have been no Hamasniks in the streets since the start of the campaign.”

Wow!

The Israeli Defense Forces are going for the jugular.

They are going to destroy Hamas.

Keep kicking ass, IDF.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

UPDATE 1: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air adds:

This comes as a severe blow to the prestige of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as Hezbollah. If their best can’t stand up for a week against the IDF, then their own enemies will look at their military as much less of a deterrent against action. Since their nuclear program appears close to fruition, this is the wrong time to send that kind of message about Iranian capabilities.

Ha’aretz also reports that Hamas badly miscalculated the effect of their renewed missile attacks on Israel. After watching the Olmert government in action in 2006 against Hezbollah and the political reaction to it, they assumed Israel would just return fire by air and cause “superficial” damage to their organization. Surprise!

Really, what got into Israel was the narrowing options for dealing with Hamas. They’ve tried just about everything, including cease-fires and the aforementioned air strikes, with no success. Invasion and absolute confrontation was about all they had left short of complete surrender. If Hamas leadership had paid attention, they might have realized this.

The Israelis are widely expected to bring the offensive to a halt in the next few days, but I’m not certain they will. They’re starting to do tremendous damage to Hamas both in Gaza and worldwide. They have restored the reputation for their military efforts that got damaged in 2006. The IDF and Israeli government should consider completing the rout of Hamas rather than worry about timetables at this point.

Sweet. Exactly what I said, but with better sentence structure.

Again, the IDF should just go for the jugular against Hamas and set an example if Hezbollah thinks about attacking Israel again.

New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.

This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration’s efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran.

More…

Attack Planning

Early in 2008, the Israeli government signaled that it might be preparing to take matters into its own hands. In a series of meetings, Israeli officials asked Washington for a new generation of powerful bunker-busters, far more capable of blowing up a deep underground plant than anything in Israel’s arsenal of conventional weapons. They asked for refueling equipment that would allow their aircraft to reach Iran and return to Israel. And they asked for the right to fly over Iraq.

Mr. Bush deflected the first two requests, pushing the issue off, but “we said ‘hell no’ to the overflights,” one of his top aides said. At the White House and the Pentagon, there was widespread concern that a political uproar in Iraq about the use of its American-controlled airspace could result in the expulsion of American forces from the country.

The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, declined several requests over the past four weeks to be interviewed about Israel’s efforts to obtain the weapons from Washington, saying through aides that he was too busy.

Last June, the Israelis conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea that appeared to be a dry run for an attack on the enrichment plant at Natanz. When the exercise was analyzed at the Pentagon, officials concluded that the distances flown almost exactly equaled the distance between Israel and the Iranian nuclear site.

“This really spooked a lot of people,” one White House official said. White House officials discussed the possibility that the Israelis would fly over Iraq without American permission. In that case, would the American military be ordered to shoot them down? If the United States did not interfere to stop an Israeli attack, would the Bush administration be accused of being complicit in it?

More…

A New Covert Push

Throughout 2008, the Bush administration insisted that it had a plan to deal with the Iranians: applying overwhelming financial pressure that would persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, as foreign enterprises like the French company Total pulled out of Iranian oil projects, European banks cut financing, and trade credits were squeezed.

But the Iranians were making uranium faster than the sanctions were making progress. As Mr. Bush realized that the sanctions he had pressed for were inadequate and his military options untenable, he turned to the C.I.A. His hope, several people involved in the program said, was to create some leverage against the Iranians, by setting back their nuclear program while sanctions continued and, more recently, oil prices dropped precipitously.

There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.

A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.

What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”

Then, he cautioned, “none of these are game-changers,” meaning that the efforts would not necessarily cripple the Iranian program. Others in the administration strongly disagree.

In the end, success or failure may come down to how much pressure can be brought to bear on Mr. Fakrizadeh, whom the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate identifies, in its classified sections, as the manager of Project 110 and Project 111. According to a presentation by the chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, those were the names for two Iranian efforts that appeared to be dedicated to designing a warhead and making it work with an Iranian missile. Iranian officials say the projects are a fiction, made up by the United States.

Basically, Israel asked for permission to attack Iran. Israel wanted to fly over Iraqi airspace. President Bush said no citing the safety of American troops in Iraq. Also, Israel asked for bunker-buster bombs, which were also denied by President Bush.

President Bush, however, has decided to use the Central Intelligence Agency to disrupt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The CIA most likely was able to turn the suppliers of centrifuges to Iran, thus the faulty equipment blew up once it was installed in Iranian nuclear plants. Also, President Bush used falling oil prices and created a European bank credit crunch against Iran, and was successful in persuading European banks to cut off financing to Iran.

Finally, the U.S. needs to take decisive action against Mr. Mohsen Fakrizadeh, who is a professor that is deeply involved in designing a nuclear warhead for Iran.

Back on September 25, 2008, Scoop This reported that Israel asked for the green light to attack Iran, and President Bush said no.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

HAARETZ.com

Russia reassured Israel on Sunday that it stands by its commitment not to supply Iran with advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles despite an Iranian lawmaker’s statement that the system “is being delivered to Iran.”

“You will be the first to know about any progress or change in the matter of the missiles,” Pyotr Stegny, the Russian ambassador to Israel, told top Israeli officials.

Stegny said Russia was not planning to advance the missile deal and had not yet begun to deliver the missiles. “We are adhering to the agreements we reached during Prime Minister Olmert’s visit to Moscow.” Russia made its initial commitment regarding this matter to Israel during Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s October visit.

But Russia’s RIA news agency last week quoted “confidential sources” as saying that Russia was fulfilling terms of an S-300 contract with Iran, and the official news agency of Iran, IRNA, reported on Sunday that Russia was supplying it with the missiles.

If this is the case, and the missiles are used to defend Iran’s nuclear facilities, attacking them would be made more difficult.

“After a few years of talks with Russia … the S-300 system is now being delivered to Iran,” IRNA quoted Email Kosari, deputy head of parliament’s Foreign Affairs and National Security Committee, as saying. “The delivery of this system is a display of good relations between Iran and Russia, which cannot be harmed by Israel,” Kosari apparently said, adding the S-300 system would be used to defend Iran’s borders.

The S-300 missile system is considered one of the most sophisticated anti-aircraft systems in the world. It includes a mobile missile launcher that fires at a rate of one missile every three to five seconds. The missiles can hit aircraft at a maximum height of about 30 kilometers, and at a distance of 150 kilometers.

I do not trust Russia. The Russian government is cash strapped and they need the money.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

Inside an auditorium at Iran’s Shiraz University.

Ed Morrissey writes:

The Left fell in love with a reporter who threw shoes at a man who couldn’t (and wouldn’t) take retribution against his protest. What about supporting a protester who actually put his neck on the line to “tell truth to power”? Two weeks ago, an Iranian student ripped Ali Larijani to his face at a speech and denounced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

No shoes were harmed in the filming of this incident, but the speaker may have been lucky to get out alive. As soon as he denounced Larijani as illegitimate, a cheer went up in the auditorium, but it quickly got drowned out as soon as the student directed his ire to Ahmadinejad. While the protester described the Iranian president as “nauseating”, some in the auditorium jumped to their feet and started chanting support slogans for Ahmadinejad — including “Death to hypocrites!”

Note the reaction of the rest of the students in this video, taken at Shiraz University on December 5th. They don’t seem happy to find themselves in the middle of this near-riot, although Larijani himself seems unmoved by either the criticism or the response. The student gets shouted off the stage, and no one seems interested in defending him.

Which took more guts — tossing shoes at President Bush in Iraq, or standing up to the mullahcracy in Iran?

The student hates Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez. He’s alright with me.

There are tens of thousands of college students in Iran who have the same sentiments towards the Iranian government, as well as despise Ahmadinejad. These college students are not as easily brainwashed as the 13-year-old children from this morning’s Scoop This blog.

Hopefully, these young college students will be able to take control of their country before all options are exhausted and a coalition force, or Israel or America alone, attack Iran. (And we know they have nuclear weapon capabilities.)

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Iranian children participate in a city race on the 13th of Aban (November 3). The race is held on this day to honor the memory of Hossain Fahmideh who strapped a grenade pack on his back and blew himself up under a tank. Hossain was a 13 year-old boy when he blew himself up.

Death to Israel. Death to America. All at the tender age of 13. When I was 13, I was learning about algebra, geometry, history, science, and music theory - not death.

I know there are other videos with younger aged children calling Jews “pigs” and American “infidels”, but these videos still amaze me. How can parents teach their children to hate, when these children were supposedly conceived in love?

It is disgusting, and with renewed anti-American sentiment, these lessons of death and suicide will continue.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit

Unfortunately, it takes only one…

The New York Times

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.

“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many Western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.

…..

American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015. A national intelligence estimate made public late last year concluded that around the end of 2003, after long effort, Iran had halted work on an actual weapon. But enriching uranium, and obtaining enough material to build a weapon, is considered the most difficult part of the process.

…..

That uranium has been enriched to the low levels needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. To further purify it to the highly enriched state needed to fuel a nuclear warhead, Iran would have to reconfigure its centrifuges and do a couple months of additional processing, nuclear experts said.

“They have a weapon’s worth,” Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, said in an interview.

He said the amount was suitable for a relatively advanced implosion-type weapon like the one dropped on Nagasaki. Its core, he added, would be about the size of a grapefruit. He said a cruder design would require about twice as much weapon-grade fuel.

“It’s a virtual milestone,” Dr. Cochran said of Iran’s stockpile. It is not an imminent threat, he added, because the further technical work to make fuel for a bomb would tip off inspectors, the United States and other powers about “where they’re going.”

Attack and take out Iran, President Bush.

Please.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

UPDATE 1: It looks like Drudge Report has copied my headline.

The Jerusalem Post wonders if it is too late to stop Iran.

Schnitt Show

(Reuters) - Iran has test-fired a new type of missile during war games near the Iraqi border, state television said Tuesday, after warning the United States it would respond to any violation of Iranian airspace.

The English-language Press TV said the Iranian-made missile, named as the Samen, was successfully tested Monday by the elite Revolutionary Guards in the western border city of Marivan.

They also tested artillery and rocket launchers, Press TV said on its website.

Iran’s armed forces have staged frequent maneuvers in recent months, coinciding with speculation of possible U.S. or Israeli strikes against the Islamic Republic over its disputed nuclear ambitions.

In a move that further heightened tension, Iran in July test-fired nine highly advanced missiles, including one which reportedly could reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Iran’s army last Wednesday said U.S. helicopters had been seen flying close to Iran’s border and that it would respond to any violation, a message analysts said seemed directed at U.S. President-elect Barack Obama more than American troops in Iraq.

The November 5 statement followed a cross-border raid last month by U.S. forces into Syria, an action that was condemned by Damascus and Tehran.

The United States and its Western allies suspect Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs, a charge Tehran denies.

Obama, like outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, has not ruled out military action although he has criticized the outgoing administration for not pushing for more diplomacy and engagement with Iran.

Iran has said it would respond to any attack on its territory by targeting U.S. interests and Washington’s ally Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for world oil supplies.

Iran is just asking for an ass-whooping.

This follows up nicely with the video about dictators laughing at Barack Obama.

Scoop This has documented extensively Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel. Ahmadinejad verbally threats Israel every week and he has called Israel the “germ of corruption”.

Also, this is not the first time John McCain has attacked Barack Obama on this issue. John McCain contends that Barack Obama does not understand the terrorist threat Iran poses on Israel and the world.

Yet, even when faced with all of these facts, Barack Obama will not admit that he is wrong by stating that he would meet the world’s dictators without preconditions.

It is up to us, the American voters, not to admit Barack Obama into the White House on November 4th.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

FROM DEBKAFILE:

“US intelligence’s amended estimate, that Iran will be ready to build its first bomb just one month after the next US president is sworn in, is disclosed by DEBKAfile’s Washington sources as having been relayed as a guideline to the Middle East teams of both presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.” READ MORE

Could this be one of the “tests” that Biden was talking about? Afterall, McCain and Obama have received breifings from US Intel in order to make the Presidential Transition smoother. Biden, Obama, and McCain should have a pretty good idea of what may be happening in the World within the next “6 months” and from Biden’s recent controversial comments that “Obama would be ‘Tested’”, we have to wonder just how serious some of that intelligence was.

We’ve already talked about the fact that Iran was days away from exploding a dirty bomb off the shore of Israel, what if Obama’s “test” will involve a nuclear armed Iran actually trying to use its weapons to attack the United States or our allies? Will Obama’s ‘unpopular’ response be to not protect us?  Will it be to stay in Iraq even though the Democrats have favored a US defeat if it meant it would get them elected? I’d rather just elect John McCain so we can avoid the ‘international crisis’ alltogether.

Hat Tip: BOMB IRAN

You know that Country we know as “Iran” who’s government a certain Barrack Obama wants to dignify by meeting in direct high level talks without pre-conditions? Well, Iran was recently caught red handed trying to send a dirty bomb to Israel which could’ve killed MANY people. The only setback for Iran it seems, was the unknowing Somali Pirates who hijacked the ship en route to the Suez Canal.

When questioned about the contents of the ship, the Iranian Captain:

"was contacted by cell phone and demanded to disclose the actual nature of the mysterious “powdered cargo” but the captain and his officers were very evasive. Initially they said that the cargo contained “crude oil” but then claimed it contained “minerals.” Following this initial rebuff, the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil."

After boarding the ship, all of the pirates who inspected the cargo began to experience “strange illnesses” from symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning.

While US and Israeli Intelligence officials remain silent on this incident, Russian Intelligence says:

“[The Ship] was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.”

The article also points out that for several months, Israel has been urging a Naval Blockade of Iran. It seems that the Pro-Obama media was too afraid to bring light to the story of Iran’s near attack on Israel which would’ve killed hundreds of thousands of people since it may remind the electorate of Obama’s pre-9/11 thinking in a post 9/11 world. This is coming in light of Biden’s recent gaff where he guaranteed that an Obama win in 2008 will all but guarantee an “international crisis" in order to test the new American President already viewed as weak by countries and terrorist organizations who wish us harm. Maybe it’s just me… but when Biden mentioned the "tests" against Kennedy, I was reminded that Kennedy royally screwed up the bay of pigs and consequently, enabled Russia to threaten us with near annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’d rather elect a president who other nations won’t even try to mess with and not one who comes within a week of getting us all killed.

We also have to wonder if Iran, in carrying out such a major attack on Israel, would attempt a simultaneous attack on the United States since either attack would more than assure the obliteration of Iran. They might as well murder as many "infidels" as possible while they’re at it, right? This is a very dangerous world and we simply cannot take a chance with Barrack Obama especially since all indications suggest that he will pursue the type of foreign policy that failed to prevent the tragic events 9/11/01, a day whose lessons the liberals have chosen to forget. We can hope that the fact that Obama’s lead in the biased polls is lower than John Kerry’s (who still lost by over 1 million votes), still indicates a McCain victory but if Obama does become President, I greatly fear for the secure future of the United States and her allies.

Related Story Hat Tips: Directorblue, Free Republic, Prolife Blogs