25 Jan 2022; MEMO: The influential Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel has said that the occupation state cannot handle the challenges posed by Iran on its own. The INSS reached this conclusion in a report issued yesterday.
"Tehran represents the most serious external threat to Israel, first and foremost due to Iran's quest to achieve military nuclear capability," claimed the INSS. "The progress of its nuclear programme has given Iran the shortest time ever to break out to nuclear weapons, if the regime in Tehran decides to do so. For Iran, this progress reinforces the temptation not to return to the nuclear agreement without considerable rewards, and the US administration might have neither the ability nor the desire to grant them."
World powers signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, an agreement which Israel has always opposed. However, Israel cannot face such challenges on its own, insisted the institute.
"The opposition to an arrangement between the powers and Iran… will leave Israel isolated with only the military option for preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon." Moreover, "Iran's confidence and readiness to attack its enemies through its proxies has increased… Iran continues with its programme of regional subversion, including its efforts to surround Israel with the threat of attack, especially through its precision missile project for Hezbollah in Lebanon and its proxies in Syria."
Iran, alleged the INSS, is equipping its proxies with thousands of unmanned aerial attack vehicles (UAVs), with a range that enables them to penetrate deep into Israel's skies from all fronts.
Receiving a delegation from the INSS, Israel's President Isaac Herzog commented: "In the face of the Iranian threat and its dangerous proxies in the region, we must cooperate with our friends. Not just for the sake of Israel's citizens, but for all the inhabitants of the Middle East."
