New Israeli eader hiHnts at Iran Attack
Aaron Klein
 Benjamin Netanyahu |
"We will have to roll up our sleeves and start working straightaway, as soon as we step out of this office," Netanyahu said at the ceremony.
In an interview with the Atlantic magazine just before his swearing in ceremony, Netanyahu hinted the Jewish state may need to attack Iran.
"You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs," Netanyahu said, referring to Iran. "When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran."
He then told the Atlantic that in the past, Israeli preemptive strikes were necessary against regimes threatening the Jewish state's existence. He was referring to Israel's 1981 attack against Iraq's nuclear reactor and a 2007 bombing raid against a suspected Syrian nuclear site purportedly being constructed with aid from North Korea.
Speaking from the White House at about the same time Netanyahu's remarks were made, President Obama affirmed Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program.
"While we recognize that under the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program, Iran needs to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature," Obama announced in a joint statement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ahead of their first sit-down.
Back in Jerusalem, Netanyahu praised outgoing leader Ehud Olmert, calling him "one of Israel's most talented prime ministers," while wishing him success on future endeavors.
Olmert announced his resignation last year amid multiple criminal corruption and bribery investigations described by police officials as serious. His legacy is mired by Israel's perceived failure to defeat the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon in 2006, as well as the Jewish state's recent 22-day confrontation with Hamas in Gaza that left the terrorist organization largely in tact and much less isolated internationally.
Netanyahu to evacuate West Bank?
It was unclear what Netanyahu's policies would be toward the Palestinians or Syria.
New Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman today announced Israel is committed to every aspect of the Road Map, but is not obligated by the Annapolis process. The Road Map calls for the Palestinians to defeat terrorism before moving on to negotiations to create a Palestinian state, while the Annapolis process stressed immediate talks to form a state.
According to sources close to Netanyahu speaking to WND, the prime minister is planning to continue negotiations with the Palestinians toward an Israeli withdrawal from the majority of the West Bank.
With regard to Syria, Netanyahu has stated he will talk to Damascus. As a candidate, however, he visited the strategic Golan Heights and vowed never to relinquish the territory, which looks down on Israeli population centers and twice was used by Damascus to mount ground invasions into Israel.
Sources close to Netanyahu said the new leader already sent messages to Syria expressing his willingness to conduct negotiations toward an accommodation on the Golan. The sources did not say if Netanyahu was willing to go as far as any Israeli withdrawal from that territory.
News media accounts routinely billed the Golan as "undisputed Syrian territory" until Israel "captured the region" in 1967. In actuality, the Golan has been out of Damascus' control for far longer than the 19 years it was within its rule, from 1948 to 1967. Even when Syria shortly held the Golan, some of it was stolen from Jews. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland on the Golan were purchased by Jews as far back as the late 19th century. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire kicked out some Jews around the turn of the century.
But some of the Golan was still farmed by Jews until 1947 when Syria first became an independent state. Just before that, the territory was transferred back and forth between France, Britain and even Turkey, before it became a part of the French Mandate of Syria.
When the French Mandate ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria, which quickly seized land that was being worked by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonization Association. A year later, in 1948, Syria, along with other Arab countries, used the Golan to attack Israel in a war to destroy the newly formed Jewish state.
The Golan, steeped in Jewish history, is connected to the Torah and to the periods of the First and Second Jewish Temples. The Golan Heights was referred to in the Torah as "Bashan;" the word "Golan" apparently derived from the biblical city of "Golan in Bashan." The book of Joshua relates how the Golan was assigned to the tribe of Menasheh. Later, during the time of the First Temple, King Solomon appointed three ministers in the region, and the area became contested between the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and the Aramean kingdom based in Damascus.
The book of Kings relates how King Ahab of Israel defeated Ben-Hadad I of Damascus near the present-day site of Kibbutz Afik in the southern Golan, and the prophet Elisha foretold that King Jehoash of Israel would defeat Ben-Hadad III of Damascus, also near Kibbutz Afik. The online Jewish Virtual Library has an account of how in the late 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the Golan was settled by Jewish exiles returning from Babylonia, modern day Iraq. In the mid-2nd century B.C., Judah Maccabee's grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, added the Golan Heights to his kingdom.
The Golan hosted some of the most important houses of Torah study in the years following the Second Temple's destruction and subsequent Jewish exile; some of Judaism's most revered ancient rabbis are buried in the territory. The remains of some 25 synagogues from the period between the Jewish revolt and the Islamic conquest in 636 have been excavated. The Golan is dotted with ancient Jewish villages.