Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right: Iran is the greatest threat to Israel. Today this threat seems distant, but it would only take a few errant Israeli bombs hitting an Iranian target in Syria, or a massive terror attack by Hezbollah, to undermine the calm and create a dynamic that could lead to war. And that war, with the main task reserved for Hezbollah’s missile arsenal, would differ from all past wars. Less than two years ago, Military Intelligence chief Herzl Halevi warned in an interview of “hundreds of tons of explosives reaching the center of the country.”

Try to imagine central Tel Aviv, for example the Yoo Towers, hit by dozens of tons of explosives. Or several dozen precise missiles carrying half-ton warheads hitting the Hadera power station, putting it out of commission and denying Israel a significant percentage of its electricity production.

And these are only a few examples. Even if the military landed a harsh blow on Hezbollah in a spectacular ground maneuver, the home front, which the military is supposed to protect, would pay a high price. Israel would be very different after such a war.

And the fact that the prime minister correctly diagnoses the threat doesn’t necessarily mean he’s addressing it optimally. At this point, he and the defense establishment deserve credit for the cautious effort that has been made to reduce the Hezbollah threat without breaking all the rules of the game. The investment in missile defense systems will prove itself if a war breaks out.

But the MI chief is well aware of all these things, and still he speaks of hundreds of tons of explosives that would hit the home front, so we have to ask whether we should also be investing more in reducing the chances of war. In other words, is it possible to talk to Iran, and on what basis?

On the face of it, the answer is no. For almost 40 years, Iran has been our greatest enemy, one that considers Israel the Little Satan (the Great Satan is the United States). We’re used to threats of extermination by Iran’s leaders, just as until 1967 we were used to threats by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to destroy Israel. The arming and training of Hezbollah, terror attacks against Israeli targets abroad, Iran’s belligerent policy and its nuclear potential are different expressions of the fact that these aren’t empty threats. And still, Iranian hostility toward Israel isn’t absolute, and here may lie the key to change and hope.

Since the Arab Peace Initiative (which began as the Saudi Peace Initiative) was proposed in 2002, Iran hasn’t expressed opposition to it. Moreover, the initiative was adopted by the foreign ministers at a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in 2003, in Tehran of all places.

At the heart of the initiative, we should recall, is recognition of Israel by all the Arab and Muslim countries, a normalization of relations in exchange for establishing a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, and an agreed-on solution (including by Israel) of the refugee problem. In 2008, the Iranian approach was confirmed by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said he would honor whatever was acceptable to the Palestinian people.

To this day, the Arab Peace Initiative hasn’t received the public discussion it deserves. This is the most important development in the conflict since the Six-Day War, which gave Israel the territories whose return today would enable an end to the conflict. Most of Israel’s former defense chiefs, who are members of Commanders for Israel’s Security and the Council for Peace and Security, consider it a suitable basis for starting negotiations, and many politicians, including former right-wingers, believe we should respond to the proposal.

Thus far the emphasis has been that responding to the initiative would move Israel’s relations with the Sunni countries in a positive direction and reduce the chances of a new conflict with the Palestinians. But just when Iran’s power is rising, we should also consider a response to the initiative an effective way to deal with the threat from Iran and its creation, Hezbollah.

That doesn’t mean doing so would make the regime in Tehran pro-Zionist, but it would to a great extent take the wind out of Iran’s ideological sails regarding its all-out war against Israel. It would lower the hostility between the two countries and reduce the chances of war, with all its risks. Such a response could also create a basis for talks between the two countries, first in secret channels and then perhaps overtly. And if Iran opposed the peace initiative, its isolation in the Arab and Muslim world would grow.

If Netanyahu wants to be remembered as Mr. Security, he should also invest in reducing the chances of war, not just lowering the price. Otherwise he might be remembered in an entirely different way.

Uri Bar-Joseph is a professor at the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa’s Division of International Relations.

Source: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.816411

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“Iran is busy turning Syria into a base of military entrenchment,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference with Mr. Guterres on Monday, “and it wants to use Syria and Lebanon as war fronts against its declared goal to eradicate Israel.”

Mr. Netanyahu asserted that Iran “is building sites to produce precision-guided missiles toward that end in both Syria and in Lebanon.”

He added: “This is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the U.N. should not accept.”

Israel’s defense minister, Avidgor Lieberman, also spoke in his meeting with Mr. Guterres about Israel’s concerns about factories for precision weapons and what he called Iran’s repeated attempts to smuggle arms into Lebanon.

The assertions are not new, but Israel now appears to want to put them on the international agenda.

Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, told an audience at a policy conference in Herzliya, Israel, in June that Iran had been working over the past year to set up independent production facilities in Lebanon to manufacture precise weapons, which use advanced technology to guide them to specific targets.

The beneficiary, he said, would be Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization, with which Israel fought an inconclusive, monthlong war in 2006. Adding that Iran was setting up similar facilities in Yemen, General Halevi warned, “We cannot remain indifferent to this and we don’t.”

Israeli leaders also pressed Mr. Guterres to prod the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, into fulfilling its mandate to prevent Hezbollah’s weapons buildup.

“I will do everything in my capacity to make sure that UNIFIL fully meets its mandate,” said Mr. Guterres, visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time since taking up the top United Nations post in January. He added that “the idea or the intention or the will to destroy the state of Israel is something totally unacceptable from my perspective.”

Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria in recent years against convoys or stores of advanced weapons said to be destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Acting under the cover of the Syrian civil war, the Israeli strikes have prompted little retaliation from Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, an Iranian ally.

Through Hezbollah and other proxies, Iran has been extending its influence and its reach in the region and, according to Israeli officials, is working to provide Hezbollah with more precise weapons to hit valuable targets in its next war against Israel.

But while Israel has acted with relative impunity in the chaotic environment of Syria, any pre-emptive strike on Lebanese soil could spiral into a broader conflict over Israel’s northern border.

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported this week that in the face of the Israeli warnings, Prime Minister Saad Hariri of Lebanon has been working to stop Iran’s construction of the missile factory in his country.

More generally, Israel has been voicing concern that arrangements for cease-fires and de-escalation zones in southern Syria will help Iran and its loyalists consolidate their presence across Israel’s frontiers.

Last week Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Sochi, Russia, on the Black Sea to confer with President Vladimir Putin. “The victory over ISIS is welcome,” Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Putin, referring to the Islamic State, which has been battling Mr. Assad’s forces. “Iran’s entry is unwelcome, endangering us, and in my opinion, endangering the region and the world,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to his office.

Israeli officials have also raised these concerns with American officials.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/world/middleeast/iran-missiles-lebanon-israel-.html

The post Iran Building Weapons Factories in Lebanon and Syria, Israel Says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.