Molok Shamshiri, an Iranian-Israeli restaurant cook, left Iran in 1964. (Ben Lynfield)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Avi Nobel lived in Tehran and is sure the Iranian people want peace.

“There are a lot of poor people there and what they want is food and to work, not a nuclear bomb,” says Nobel, a spice seller here whose goods include some imported from Iran through third countries.

Still, he believes that Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped — by an Israeli airstrike, if necessary.

“It will have to be done because if [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has a bomb, there is no doubt he will use it,” Nobel says.

Nobel and others interviewed in this mini-enclave of Persian restaurants and spice shops in south Tel Aviv have a more nuanced — and cautious — view of a possible war with Iran than do many other Israelis.

Not only do they have tangible, often positive, memories of Iran and Iranians, but they also count relatives among the 25,000 Jews still living in Iran who, some fear, could face reprisals if there is an Israeli strike.

Molok Shamshiri, an Iranian-Israeli restaurant cook, says “It is hard for me to understand how things went so wrong. But I am sure the Iranian people are still the same people. Neither do the Iranian people want war. I know them.”

Shamshiri, whose sister still lives in Iran, left the country in 1964 but frequently made visits back home, sending her children to learn about their ancestral land. The visits ended with the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

She recalls the relations she had with Muslims in Iran as being “so good, it is hard to describe.”

“My Muslim neighbor would come make tea for me every Sabbath because she knew I could not light the fire” on the Sabbath, says Shamshiri, an Orthodox woman who covers her hair for modesty. “The Muslims would help us with parties, celebrations, weddings. They would help with everything and not for money. They would always ask if we needed anything.”

Her face lights up when she is asked where she lived.

“Isfahan, a city that has everything good in this world,” says Shamshiri, who takes pride in her ghormeh sabzi, a traditional herbal soup. “The four seasons there are like clockwork. In the spring you have the sunshine, the chirping of the birds and the flowers. It’s a calm city, a paradise.”

Yosef Melamed, who sells spices, apricots and dried mangos, describes Farsi as “a language rooted in poetry, poetry that speaks to the soul.”

Although it’s been 47 years since he left Tehran for Israel, he remains avidly interested in his native land and watches  three Iranian satellite television channels.

The decision as to whether to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities is beyond him, Melamed says, but he holds out hope it may be possible to reach an accommodation with the Iranian government.

“You have to take a religious approach in talking to them, not a political one,” he says. “The contacts need not be conducted by rabbis, but they should be done by believing Jews.”

Albert Moradian’s eyes tear up as he describes his feelings for Iran. “To sum up in one word, I feel longing,” says Moradian, who owns a clothing store.

“I am Iranian in my behavior, my accent and the demands I make of my children to respect everyone,” Moradian says as he turns up a CD of Iranian classical music singer Mohammed Shajarian.

Moradian, who had been a lieutenant in the Iranian army, left after the ’79 revolution, fearing reprisals against officers who served under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

“Of course I have good memories. I think the Iranian people are a special people, not of wars, but of music, poetry and soul,” says Moradian, who says he visits Iran “through the Internet” and dreams of the day when he can take his children there.

“Unfortunately, the media here conveys a picture as if Iran is only Ahmadinejad. The media is mobilized and I don’t believe any report from it,” he says.

Moradian opposes an Israeli strike on nuclear installations and believes that the Iranian people eventually will overthrow the regime.

Some among the 250,000 Iranian Israelis fear an Israeli strike will cause the Iranian regime to retaliate against the Jewish community, one of the world’s oldest.

“This is an unstable and unpredictable regime that can behave differently from day to day,” says Kamal Penhasi, the editor of Israel’s Farsi language newspaper, Shahyad. “I can envision them using criminals to attack Jews while denying the regime is involved.”

But Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born specialist on Iran at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, doubts there would be a backlash against Iranian Jews.

“The Iranian regime always tries to portray itself as anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish,” he says. “Hurting its own Jewish population would undermine that and be very counterproductive.”

Javedanfar also says that despite the regime’s demonization of Israel since 1979, the Iranian people’s views of Israelis are “far more positive than any other country in the Middle East.” An Israeli strike could affect those views, he says.

Prominent Israelis of Iranian descent include Shaul Mofaz, who last month took the reins of Kadima, the country’s largest opposition party. Mofaz recently has taken a more dovish stance than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging that Israel allow Washington to take the lead in handling Iranian nuclear ambitions.

At the restaurant, Shamshiri says she does not believe there will be a war.

“I hope we find a peaceful solution. The Muslims and we have all grown up on the same food,” she says. “At the end of the day, we know each other well.”

Ducks, though, have a tendency to wander off. Iran might not stay at the table, or it might offer delaying tactics that peel off support for sanctions by U.S. allies. Israeli leaders are skittish about alleged Obama administration leaks that they believe are aimed at heading off an Israeli military response. Republicans in Congress, while pleasantly surprised at the administration’s diligence at keeping to the sanctions timeline, are worried that the administration could offer too much at the talks.

Iran is not likely to deliver the concessions that the United States is likely to seek, said Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corp., a think tank that often consults with government.

“The issue between Iran and the United States is not the nuclear program,” he said. “There is a perception among Iran’s leaders that Iran is engaged in a conflict with the United States and the nuclear program is part of the conflict. They believe that if Iran makes compromises under pressure, it makes Iran looks weak.”

Iran is ready for talks in Istanbul on April 13 with the world’s major powers, including the United States, on its nuclear program. It is not clear what the U.S. bottom line is, but Obama administration officials repeatedly have said that they will not ease the sanctions until Iran meets criteria set by the U.N. Security Council to make its nuclear program transparent.

The U.S. demands, according to reports, are that Iran stop enriching uranium to the 20 percent level. That figure is short of the 85 percent enrichment level needed for weapons grade, but it is close enough to raise concern. The United States also will reportedly demand that Iran shut down its underground nuclear facility near Qom.

The United States would allow Iran to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent for medical purposes, according to the reports, and would agree to put a stop on planned new sanctions in the congressional pipeline that would further isolate Iranian financial institutions.

That approach would not be enough to keep the Iranians at the table, according to Trita Parsi, the director of the National Iranian American Council, and it could push away major powers that until now have followed the Obama administration’s lead.

“This package is a non-starter to most observers, including to other P5+1 diplomats,” Parsi wrote on The Huffington Post, referring to the grouping of nations that negotiates with Iran on nuclear issues and comprises permanent U.N. Security Council members United States, Russia, China, France and Britain as well as Germany. “The problem is not necessarily the demands but the imbalance between what is demanded and what is offered.”

Dennis Ross, Obama’s former top Iran adviser who still consults with the White House, suggested last week that the United States might soften one critical additional piece of the sanctions should Iran comply with the demands on the Qom site and enrichment.

“If Iran were to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent, ship out the material it has already enriched to that level and deactivate the Fordow facility near Qom, that would probably be sufficient,” he said in an analysis distributed by the influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, where he now works. “Here again, the question is what Iran would seek in return. Lifting the Central Bank sanctions would probably be the minimum it would require.”

That prospect alarms Republicans in the U.S. Senate who until now have been impressed with Obama’s implementation of the sanctions regime.

“So far the Obama administration is completely faithfully implementing” the sanctions, said a Republican Senate aide involved in the sanctions legislation talks. “They’re executing everything as they’re supposed to.”

The Senate aide referred particularly to the president’s March 30 determination that oil markets could withstand U.S. sanctions that would effectively force much of the world to choose between cutting off Iran’s Central Bank and its energy sector or not dealing with the United States.

That effectively set the sanctions in motion and earned Obama some leeway in Congress for concessions he could make to the Iranians — but they would have to come after the Iranians had verifiably shut down their suspected nuclear weapons program, the Senate aide said.

“The idea that you have minimized a nuclear weapon by keeping them at 20 percent and not touching Natanz,” the aide said, referring to another enrichment facility, “that in no way stops the danger and would not change the calculus in Jerusalem.”

Republicans — and likely some Democrats, as well — would be “looking for a full suspension of all enrichment capabilities,” the aide said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met last month with Obama, told the White House and congressional leaders that he had not yet come to a decision on whether to strike, and would hold off while he assesses how Obama’s diplomacy and sanctions regime are working.

The pledge appears to be holding, although Israeli government officials have leaked to Israeli media their displeasure with what they see as Obama administration leaks about Israel’s capacity to strike Iran. Among the revelations that have alarmed Israeli officials was a story in Foreign Policy last month that reported on alleged Israeli dealings with Azerbaijan, as well as American intelligence speculation that Israel planned to use the Caucasus nation as a refueling ground for a strike.

The aims of the leaks campaign “are fully operational,” Ron Ben Yishai, a senior military analyst with deep Israeli government sources, wrote in Yediot Achronot, “to make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, to erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties.”

A White House insider denied that the leaks were part of a campaign, noting that rogue leaks from the intelligence community have been commonplace under multiple administrations.

In 2008, a four month-old baby from Gaza, Mohammed Abu Mustafa, came to the paediatric unit Dr. Somech heads in a large Tel Aviv hospital. The baby was suffering from a genetic disease and needed a bone marrow transplant. This is how a saga that is at once political and profoundly human began.

In the film “Precious Life,” we meet Raida, Mohammed’s mother, who at the beginning of this journey had hoped that her son would become a martyr. It also follows Shlomi Eldar, the Israeli television journalist who led the campaign to raise the money needed for the transplant and directed the film, even as he expressed doubts about whether it was right to have gotten himself involved. More than anything, the film illustrates the personal contradictions that their occupations impose on the lives of all these individuals. A few weeks after the transplant, Dr. Somech was mobilized as a reserve officer to serve in Operation Cast Lead (the military operation in Gaza in 2008). During his military service, he hoped that no harm would come to Mohammed’s family.

As the film ends, and Mohammed’s life is saved, a deeply human relationship emerges between the protagonists of the story, showing the possibility of overcoming political differences to concentrate on the most important issue: how do we want to live together?

I met with Raz Somech in Geneva last November at an event organized by the Swiss Association of the Friends of Doctor Korzcak, an NGO dedicated to children’s rights and created in memory of Janusz Korzcak, a teacher and doctor who headed an orphanage in Poland and who died in the Holocaust. This event gave me the opportunity to hear more about his experiences and about “Precious Life.”

“How did you experience this story with Mohammed?”

Raz Somech: We can read it simply as a story: a team in a hospital attempts to save a boy’s life and manages to do so. And in doing so, they succeed in changing a Palestinian family’s view of Jews, even if just a little. We can also see a reflection of the conflict in the transplant. In medical terms, the body receiving the transplant is engaged in a real battle with the transplanted organ. It’s a bloody battle that could result in the transplant being rejected. The medical team is committed to making sure that the recipient tolerates and accepts the transplanted organ, which will allow him to survive. The same holds true for Palestinians and Israelis. We can only survive together.

“Are you still in touch with Mohammed and his family?”

Somech: Yes. He comes to the hospital every three or four months for a check-up. I’ve seen his mother, Raida, evolve. She was ready for her son to sacrifice himself as a martyr one day. Now she wants him to live. She has seen that there is another face to Israel besides that of soldiers.

It is difficult to kill when you know the “other”. We can’t change the political reality, but each one of us can have an impact on the world around us and that’s already good.

“How do you manage to work with Gazans?”

Somech: It’s complicated, and not just because of the checkpoints. Hamas doesn’t recognise Israel and, for Israeli authorities, Hamas is a terrorist organisation. So the Palestinian Authority must be the conduit for all the administrative aspects relating to the transfer of patients.

That said, I have direct contact with Palestinian doctors in Gaza, which sometimes helps move things forward in certain situations.

“Is Mohammed a rare case?”

Somech: No, there are other Mohammeds who come from Gaza and the West Bank and are treated in Israeli hospitals. Today, fifteen per cent of my beds are occupied by Palestinian children. I would like there to be more of them. Palestinian families would see another Israel. But it’s complicated. When a family comes from Gaza, the Palestinian Minister of Health in Ramallah approves the transfer and releases the funds to cover the costs of care. When we can, and if we have the necessary money, we contribute toward the payment. That’s also the reason I came to Geneva and Europe [to raise funds for these programmes] – so that we can save other Mohammeds.

(Emmanuelle Hazan is a journalist in Geneva and French editor of the Common Ground News Service).

Protesters in the aftermath of deadly riots march in Cairo on Feb. 3, 2012. The increasing chaos in Egypt, including the recent arrest of U.S. democracy activists, has raised questions about it factors into U.S. and Israel security considerations in the region. (Gigi Ibrahim via CC)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The future of a key pillar of Israeli security could rest with the fate of a few dozen pro-democracy activists in Egypt.

After Egyptian authorities filed charges on Feb. 6 against 43 American and other foreign pro-democracy activists who worked in the country, leading members of Congress issued stern warnings about a possible cutoff in U.S. aid to Egypt. If that aid disappears, it could have significant implications for Israel-Egypt relations and U.S. influence in the region — the aid has been a crucial moderating lever keeping the peace between Israel and Egypt for more than three decades.

While the congressional threats to cut assistance to Egypt are just threats for now, the increasingly stern warnings from Washington underscore a deterioration in the U.S.-Egypt relationship amid the chaos of post-Mubarak Egypt.

The most potent threat to Egyptian assistance came from Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the chairwoman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

“The harassment of Americans who are in Egypt trying to help build their democracy is unacceptable,” Granger said last week after the charges were filed in Egypt against 16 U.S. citizens, including Sam LaHood, the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. At least six of the Americans remain in Egypt and are barred from the leaving the country, The New York Times reported.

“Not one more dollar should flow to the government of Egypt until the secretary of state can assure the American people that this issue is resolved,” Granger said.

U.S. officials have been scrambling to figure out who to deal with as Egypt has descended into disarray, with a soccer riot Feb. 1 devolving into a free-for-all that left at least 74 people dead. Administration officials have reached out to the Egyptian military government, to secular parties and to the Islamists who won the recent parliamentary elections. But a year after Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt’s future is still very much uncertain.

The stakes are high, with implications not just for the peace treaty that has kept Israel’s southern border mostly quiet for decades, but broader American capabilities in the region, including how the United States addresses tensions with Iran.

The immediate dangers are to U.S. influence in helping shape the outcome of pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the region that are likely to take their cues from Egypt, the most populous and historically most important Arab country. There also are tactical dangers to the access that U.S. forces have in a region where they might soon deploy to contain any Iranian threat to cut off oil supplies.

“The aid was not only supposed to undergird the peace treaty but security arrangements, U.S. overflights, Suez Canal access,” said David Schenker, a former Pentagon Middle East desk officer who is now an Egypt expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In the short term, a cutoff in assistance to the Egyptian government would not precipitate a war with Israel, experts say; no party in Egypt, however hostile it is to Israel ideologically, wants to invite the uncertainty of conflict with a powerful neighbor.

“The Egyptians have their own reasons to keep the peace treaty and abide by its terms,” said Ed Abington, a former diplomat in the region who subsequently joined a Washington firm that lobbied for Arab governments.

But, he added, “if we cut off assistance, we jeopardize the relationship we’ve had since Anwar Sadat. That would be bad for Egypt and the United States. We don’t want to push Egyptians away.”

Should matters deteriorate, congressional action may be inevitable. Adding their voices to Granger’s call were Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on international development and foreign assistance. Cardin said the United States should “re-evaluate the status of our bilateral relationship” with Egypt.

“One of the benefits of assistance was that we were going to have insight and influence,” Schenker said. “If they’re going to be overtly hostile, Congress has its own prerogative. It is a lot of money for the American taxpayer to give to a country that is not a friend.”

Whether the prosecution of LaHood and others could trigger actual cuts in the approximately $1.5 billion in U.S. assistance to Egypt is unclear. Newly stringent language about U.S. aid to Egypt in the 2012 congressional appropriations specifies that Egypt must meet “its obligations under the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty” and support “the transition to civilian government including holding free and fair elections; implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.”

Nor is it clear yet whether due process has been violated for the 19 Americans who face charges. Egypt watchers say the activists likely were targeted by Fayza Abul Naga, Egypt’s minister for international cooperation, a holdover from the regime of deposed President Hosni Mubarak who is known for her anti-Western animus. The activists may have created an opportunity for Naga by not obtaining the proper licenses and by violating a recent travel ban on U.S. aid workers.

That has led to a paradox, according to Schenker.

“If you look at this from the SCAF’s position,” he said, using the acronym for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the interim military government in Egypt, “the White House has been beating them up for eight months for not democratizing enough, and now we’re asking them to intervene in the judiciary, which is supposed to be independent.”

If anything, the arrests pointed to a broader problem vexing U.S. attempts to engage with Egypt, Schenker said: The country’s transition is increasingly chaotic.

“We knew Egypt was going to be populist post-Mubarak, and this was to be anticipated,” he said. “The challenge for us is to try and maintain a relationship with this country.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, shown attending Independence Day celebrations at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, in July 2011, has authored a resolution that would make an Iranian nuclear capability a "red line." (Courtesy U.S. Embassy, Kabul)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Is America’s red line on Iran moving?

A new bipartisan resolution introduced Thursday on Capitol Hill is part of a growing effort to shift the longstanding U.S. red line from Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon to having the capability to build one. Such a shift would bring U.S. policy in line with Israel’s approach.

The resolution — a nonbinding Senate statement backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – calls on the United States to prevent Iran from acquiring even the capability to build nuclear weapons.

It was introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Robert Casey (D-Pa.) and has 32 co-sponsors, roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. In order to garner Democratic support, the resolution’s authors had toned down its original language.

“I’m trying to build a bipartisan consensus around something we all believe in,” Graham said when asked by a reporter why he had removed language that seemed to threaten Iran with military force.

But the bill is already provoked jitters among Democrats anxious over the specter of war.

As it now stands, the resolution “affirms that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”

The language that was removed would have affirmed “that it is within the power and capabilities of the United States Government to prevent the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.”

Noting the “power and capabilities” of the United States seemed too close to saber rattling for some Democrats, insiders said. A number of senators asked Graham to include an explicit denial that the resolution authorized military action; he flatly refused.

Capitol Hill insiders say that if Graham had not changed the language at all he likely would have failed to garner more than nominal Democratic support.

“They couldn’t find any Democratic co-sponsors until they addressed those concerns,” said Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the National Security Network, a think tank allied with foreign policy realists and liberals, and one of a number of groups that made representations to Democratic senators in recent weeks to tone down the resolution.

The threat of military action is key to the resolution’s potency, Lieberman said, but he emphasized that the resolution did not seek to authorize such action.

“We 32 original sponsors of this U.S. Senate resolution want to say clearly and resolutely to Iran: You have only two choices — peacefully negotiate to end your nuclear weapons program or expect a military strike to end that program,” Lieberman said at a news conference Thursday.

Were it not for the back and forth over the language, the resolution would have been introduced a week ago. The delay and the sensitive negotiations over language may presage tensions with Democrats as AIPAC leads the drive among pro-Israel groups to ratchet up pressure on Iran this year.

Jewish Democratic insiders note that the Democratic party remains spooked over the political fallout of its acquiescence a decade ago in the buildup to the Iraq War.

“There are clearly plenty of people, especially in the Democratic Party, who are reluctant to drive to war with great rapidity,” a Jewish Democratic activist said.

AIPAC is expected to make the resolution an “ask” in three weeks when up to 10,000 activists culminate its annual conference with a day of Capitol Hill lobbying.

As it is, the resolution has failed so far to attract the support of some key Democrats on the committees critical to its passage, Foreign Affairs and Armed Services. Among those missing are pro-Israel stalwarts like Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Fifteen of the resolution’s 32 backers are in the Democratic caucus, a figure that includes Lieberman, who caucuses with the party.

An official with a pro-Israel group said that more senators are expected to sign on in coming weeks.

The resolution’s sponsors seemed eager to suggest that the resolution reinforces Obama administration policy. Graham began the news conference by sounding a note that others among the eight senators present would repeat: “President Obama has stated that it’s unacceptable for Iran to obtain a nuclear capability.”

In fact, Obama has never used the “nuclear capability” phrasing, speaking instead of Iran “getting,” “obtaining” or “acquiring” a nuclear weapon as a red line.

“America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal,” Obama said last month in his State of the Union address.

There have been instances where nations like Brazil and South Africa have earned plaudits for renouncing weapons even though they likely retained capability to develop them quickly.

Senators sponsoring the bill said capability is the more sensible red line when it comes to a belligerent regime like Iran’s. Casey said that an Iran with a nuclear capability would drive nuclear proliferation and could hand off know-how to terrorist proxies.

“The fact that they could give it to a terrorist and that it would lead to proliferation in that region is reason alone to support this resolution,” he said Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government reportedly has pressed the Obama administration to adopt Israel’s “capability” standard. According to media reports, Netanyahu refuses to give the United States advance warning of an Israeli strike unless the Obama administration agrees to make capability its red line — to strike before Iran enters an “immunity zone,” in the words of Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Graham suggested the utility of adopting Israel’s red line would be to keep Israel from going it alone. He noted that he soon would be visiting Israel and meeting with Netanyahu.

“I will convey to the Israeli prime minister: We expect you never to lose control of your own destiny, but you need to understand there has been a sea change in Washington. Please understand that we share your view that Iran should not have a nuclear weapons capability,” Graham said.

In recent weeks, there have been signs that the Obama administration has moved toward Israel’s posture; Defense Secretary Leon Panetta now speaks of the “development” of a nuclear weapon as a red line.

Still, there are signs of gaps remaining between the Obama administration and Congress members. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier Thursday, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, made clear that the administration continues to perceive a substantive strategic difference between capabilities and acquisition.

“We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so,” he said in written testimony. “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

Graham, in an exchange, pressed him on the point.

“You have doubt about the Iranians’ intention when it comes to making a nuclear weapon?” Graham asked.

“I do,” Clapper answered.

“So you’re not so sure they’re trying to make a bomb?” Graham asked.

“I think they’re keeping themselves in a position to make that decision, but there are certain things they have not yet done and have not done for some time,” Clapper said.

“I guess my point is that I take a different view,” Graham concluded. “I’m very convinced they’re going down the road of developing a nuclear weapon.”

Israeli leaders blamed Iran for two assassination attempts late Sunday and early Monday — in Tbilisi, Georgia, and in New Delhi, India. The bomb in Tbilisi was disabled before it could be activated, and the attack in India wounded the wife of an Israeli diplomat and her driver.

The attacks follow a number of reported attempts on Israeli and Jewish targets, most recently in Azerbaijan and Thailand. They also follow a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and military figures associated with Iran — most recently on Jan. 11. Iran has blamed Israel for being behind those attacks. In keeping with Israeli policy on such issues, Israeli officials have declined to comment.

Experts warn that the attacks could get worse.

“It’s clear we’re already in a situation of escalation, but what’s still not clear is how far that’s going to go,” said Michael Adler, an expert on Iran at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

If Iran manages to kill Israelis, it could invite an escalated response from Israel.

“We don’t need a war of words to descend into a war of assassinations to descend into something much bigger,” said Joel Rubin, director of government affairs at the Ploughshares Fund, which supports projects aimed at advancing peace.

After the bombing in India on Monday and the foiled attack in Georgia, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fingered Iran.

“Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” he said. “The government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism. We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”

On Tuesday, an Iranian national was injured by bombs that exploded in a Bangkok house he shared with two other non-Thais. Unnamed Israeli officials said the bombs were being prepared for a large-scale attack against an Israeli target.

“The attempted attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies are continuing to perpetrate terrorism,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement from Singapore. ”The recent attacks are yet another example of this.”

Iran’s ambassador to New Delhi, Mehdi Nabizadeh, rejected Netanyahu’s accusations about the Indian and Georgian attempts, calling them “untrue and sheer lies, like previous times,” Reuters reported. Nabizadeh also condemned the attack.

But on Feb. 3, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country is prepared to assist those who would “confront” Israel and the United States.

“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help,” he said in a rare Friday sermon. “We have no fear expressing this.”

The attacks in Georgia and New Delhi took place the day after the fourth anniversary of the car bombing in Syria that killed Imad Mughniyeh, the operations chief for Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanon proxy. At the time, Hezbollah leaders said they would avenge the killing at a time and place of their choosing. That was widely seen at the time as a signal that Hezbollah was ending its unofficial moratorium on attacking Israelis and Jews outside the Middle East that had been in place since the mid-1990s.

In 1994, an Iranian-sponsored bombing thought to have been carried out by Hezbollah operatives leveled the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring more than 300. A bombing attack on that city’s Israeli Embassy two years earlier had left 29 dead.

For its part, Israel has not acknowledged responsibility for the attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists. But a number of unnamed American officials have told media outlets that they believe Israel is behind the killings.

Patrick Clawson, an Iran analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Israel’s posture in the region stems from the existential threat that Israeli leaders believe is posed by Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Recent reports suggest that Israeli leaders think that time is running out to halt the program before Iran has passed a point of no return on the way to a nuclear weapon.

“Israel’s attitude would be diplomats are expendable because of national survival,” Clawson said.

In the New Delhi attack, Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of a diplomat stationed with the Israeli Defense Ministry mission in India, was the injured woman, Ynet reported.

On Tuesday, she was in stable condition following surgery to remove shrapnel and reportedly woke for the first time. The bomb reportedly was attached to the car by someone on a motorcycle and detonated remotely while she was riding.

Some reports say that Koren realized what happened and began exiting the car before the explosion. She was taken to the hospital by rickshaw, Ynet reported. She could soon return to Israel, according to reports.

The Associated Press reported that the shrapnel was removed from her spine and that she has partial paralysis in her legs.

After the attack, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz called a meeting to assess the situation of Israel’s foreign missions. India’s foreign minister reportedly called his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, and said his country would work to capture the attackers. He also said his country will provide additional security for the embassy.

In a call with Indian reporters following Monday’s attack, Paul Hirschson, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, commended the Indian and Georgian governments for working with Israel to follow up on such attempts and prevent them in the future. He also suggested that Israel’s responses to such attacks would not be confined to prevention.

“I don’t think we’re going to say we’re going to twiddle our thumbs happily at attempts on Israelis anywhere,” he said Monday in a conference call organized by The Israel Project.

(JTA Israel correspondent Marcy Oster contributed to this report.)

Jerusalem – Just days after long-time Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiators Yitzhak Molcho and Saeb Erekat clashed yet again at a meeting in Jordan, thousands of young people from across the Middle East gathered together online for an event which set a new standard for mutual understanding and partnership.

Conferences bringing together Jews and Arabs might be nothing new. But what set this particular event apart is that it happened in the virtual world of Shaker, a Facebook application that allows for instantaneous interaction between users utilising cartoon-like personas that have conversations or attend events.

The brainchild of YaLa Young Leaders – an online movement formed by Israelis and Palestinians last May and already “liked” by more than 50,000 people on Facebook – the conference garnered vast media attention and even attracted some high-profile dignitaries, including Jordan’s Prince Hassan bin Talal, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, blind opera superstar Andrea Bocelli and Barcelona football coach Josep “Pep” Guardiola, among others.

More than 12,000 people “attended” the two-day online event, indicating that there is a solid base of people still committed to finding a way to resolve the on-going conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

YaLa is a play on the Arabic word for “get a move on!” and is a phrase also incorporated into everyday Hebrew. The YaLa movement includes volunteers from numerous countries around the Middle East and is now in the process of determining what steps to take next in order to keep this momentum going.

“The idea is to give young people, who are as capable as some of the main leaders, the chance to participate”, says Nimrod BenZev of the Peres Center for Peace, the Israeli organisation that helped establish YaLa together with Ramallah-based Yala Palestine.

BenZev refrains from saying that the online event was conducted in order to create “peace”; rather, he says it was to “improve regional cooperation and to find a way to end the conflict and the violence”.

“We are trying to create empathy and a sense of a joint future”, he says, adding, “peace is just not a fashionable word anymore and people in this region are sick of hearing it”.

Indeed, the focus of the virtual conference was to find fresh voices and allow them to create resolutions in a more “democratic” way.

Those who logged onto Shaker for the virtual conference found themselves in a green and colourful world, where their cartoon-like personas could engage in discussion or attend one of the events taking place.

Attendees could visit the music room, contribute to a “book project”, or view the games portal and help develop an online gaming initiative. But perhaps most importantly, those who joined the conference could have their say about the movement’s “Declaration of Principles” and help set its agenda for the future.

Among the conclusions reached by the thousands of young people who interacted online was the need for a virtual academy that will promote new ideas and provide webinars – or web-based seminars – to help train a new set of young leaders.

“We want to create a strong lobby in the Middle East to affect policy, build a better future for everyone and use our influence to stop future wars,” states Hamze Awawde, one of YaLa’s young Palestinian leaders.

“We see this movement as the basis of change and we need strong young people who are well educated and intellectual. Then we will be able to change our future”, he says.

Despite some of the social pressures in the region that discourage relations between Israelis and Arabs, Awawde points out that YaLa, thanks especially to the virtual conference, has been successful in attracting newcomers who share the vision.

Khaled Al-Jacer, a YaLa leader from Kuwait, says that the movement has finally given him a chance to interact – albeit virtually – with Israelis.

“I had never communicated with or met any Israelis in my life before I joined YaLa,” says Al-Jacer, explaining that until now he was not able to build a mental image of Israelis as human beings.

“I [have] now found that I have a lot in common with Israelis,” she says, adding that from what he has learnt about Israel’s progress in technology, the Jewish state might even be a “catalyst for regional development and success”.

“As for peace,” continues Al-Jacer, “I think it is the only option – it is a must! There will never be a military solution to this century old conflict. Each side must compromise and the sooner they realise this fact, the sooner we will have peace.”

(Ruth Eglash is a senior reporter at The Jerusalem Post. Last year she became the first recipient of the United Nations X-Cultural Reporting award for a story she wrote with a Jordanian journalist. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service.)

Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinians' prime minister in the Gaza Strip, meeting with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in the Bahraini capital of Manama, Feb. 4. (Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Is Hamas trying to change its stripes?

Terrorist attacks against Israelis appear to be on pause, and rocket fire from Gaza is down significantly. The Hamas leader in Damascus, Khaled Meshaal, is trying to distance himself from the Assad regime and align Hamas with the forces of the Arab Spring. Hamas’ parent organization in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, has entered mainstream politics in Cairo, and U.S. officials have met with Brotherhood leaders.

And this week in Doha, Qatar, Meshaal and the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced plans for a new unity government that will include both Hamas and Fatah, Abbas’ faction.

Hamas is clearly undergoing a “reorientation” as a result of geopolitical changes in the region, said Shlomo Brom, director of the program on Israeli-Palestinian relations at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

“Hamas is moving away from Syria and Iran, and to a certain degree from Hezbollah, and is repositioning itself in line with the popular movements behind the Arab Spring and the democratization process, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia,” Brom said. “A renewed push for reconciliation with Fatah should be seen as part of this reorientation.”

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s isn’t biting. In a statement released in response to the announcement in Doha, Netanyahu suggested that the planned Palestinian unity government is more about Abbas joining the extremists than Hamas joining the moderates in the Palestinian Authority.

“If Abbas moves to implement what was signed today in Doha, he will abandon the path of peace and join forces with the enemies of peace,” Netanyahu said in the statement. “President Abbas, you can’t have it both ways. It’s either a pact with Hamas or peace with Israel. It’s one or the other.”

An Israeli official who insisted on anonymity said the international community must make clear to Abbas that joining forces with Hamas — which the United States, Israel and many European countries consider a terrorist organization — is a step away from Israeli-Palestinian peace.

“Our recommendation to the international community is that if they want peace, they won’t achieve it by normalizing relations with Hamas,” the official said. “That just pushes peace farther away.”

Hamas has offered no sign that it will accept the three minimal requirements for recognition demanded by the Quartet grouping of the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, foreswearing terrorism and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

But some Israeli officials worry that in the wake of the Arab Spring, pressure might build in the West to deal with Hamas. Last month, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, met with Muslim Brotherhood Chairman Mohamed Badie and other senior leaders in the Islamic movement.

“The region is definitely changing, and for some in the international community this means being more amenable to relations with Hamas,” said an Israeli Foreign Ministry official who insisted on anonymity. “However, our position — and the official position of the international community as articulated by the Quartet — is that as long as Hamas continues to advocate terrorism and sticks with its anti-Semitic, genocidal agenda for the destruction of the Jewish people, there must be no political relations with it.”

It’s too early to say whether Hamas is undergoing a real change in its positions. At the end of December, during a meeting in Cairo with Fatah and Islamic Jihad, which is also considered a terrorist group, Meshaal declared his willingness to adopt a strategy of popular resistance used in the Arab Spring, as opposed to terrorism. Meshaal also expressed openness to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along the pre-Six-Day War lines with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

In other interviews, however, Meshaal has spoken in favor of the Palestinians’ right to fight Israel through armed struggle because “armed resistance is the strategic choice for liberating Palestinian land from the sea to the river” — that is, all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

“Hamas’ reorientation and the implementation of its reconciliation agreement with Fatah may be interpreted by some as a de facto fulfillment of the Quartet’s conditions for engagement,” Brom said.

Khaled Abu Toameh, a Palestinian commentator and journalist for The Jerusalem Post, said Hamas is increasingly seen as a legitimate player.

“For the first time, we are seeing Hamas representatives meeting publicly with the top leaders of Arab nations,” Abu Toameh said.

Last week, Meshaal met with Jordanian King Abdullah in Amman, and this week Hamas’ prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Bahrain’s king, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Haniyeh also has met with high-level officials in Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt as part of a tour of the region meant to cement ties between the Hamas administration in Gaza and popular Islamic movements, especially the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

It was Haniyeh’s first international tour since June 2007, when Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah in a violent coup.

“When the world sees the U.S. ambassador to Egypt meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood, people will rightly begin to ask what’s the difference between the Brotherhood and Hamas?” Abu Toameh said.

Brom said Israel should at least try to engage with Hamas now that it appears to be reconciling with Fatah.

“We have an opportunity right now,” he told JTA. “If it fails, we can at least say we tried. People say it is dangerous to recognize Hamas. But there is danger in this government’s position as well.”

But intelligence and law enforcement experts say the Jan. 31 warning by the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, was likely based on more than the evidence he cited.

“I would be surprised to learn a statement like that was not backed up by intelligence,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The question of whether Iran will respond to escalating international pressure over its nuclear program with terrorist attacks on overseas targets is of particular concern to Jewish communities around the world.

While there has been intense speculation over how Iran would respond to a possible Israeli or American strike against its nuclear facilities, experts already are citing with concern a series of recent foiled plots, allegedly connected to Iran or its proxies, against Jewish and non-Jewish targets.

In his written unclassified testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper cited only the alleged plot revealed in October to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir at the Cafe Milano, a popular Georgetown hangout for the powerful and influential. The attack allegedly had the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,” Clapper wrote.

Matthew Levitt, a former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury under George W. Bush, said Clapper’s inclusion of Khamenei in his warning, even with the “probably” qualification, was no accident.

“People are careful to say what they mean, and nothing more,” he said of the intelligence community. “As soon as I read that, I said, ‘Uh-oh, that’s not just a statement to say the threat to the ambassador was real, [Khamenei] was in there to say it went to the top.”

Sources close to law enforcement say there is no specific threat of an attack, although the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in recent weeks have intensified their monitoring of possible threats.

ABC News cited an Israeli internal security document in reporting Feb. 3 that Jewish and Israeli institutions in the Unites States are on high alert over concerns that they will be targed by Iran or its proxy. In a letter, the head of security for the Israeli consul general for the Mid-Atlantic states, according to ABC, wrote that the security threat has increased on “guarded sites” such as Israeli embassies and consulates, and “soft sites” such as synagogues, as well as Jewish schools, restaurants and Jewish community centers.

ABC reported that local and regional law enforcement and intelligence officials in U.S. and Canadian cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Toronto have increased security at Israeli and Jewish institutions, and that federal officials also have increased vigilance in looking for imminent attacks.

“In the past few weeks, there has been an escalation in threats against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,” ABC quoted a U.S. regional intelligence document as saying. “Open source has reported many demonstrations against Israel are expected to be concentrated on Israeli embassies and consulates. Such demonstrations have occurred internationally as well as domestically. These demonstrations could potentially turn violent at local synagogues, restaurants, the Israeli Embassy and other Israeli sites.”

The document said that “Law enforcement should be vigilant when making periodic checks at all Jewish facilities.”

An Israeli intelligence report warned that forged Israeli passports might be used by potential terrorists to leave the Middle East and enter the United States and Canada.

As the tensions over Iran’s nuclear program mounted, Jewish security professionals noted the possible threat to Jewish institutions around the world.

A number of disrupted plots overseas in recent weeks have raised concerns, said Paul Goldenberg, national director of the Secure Community Network, an effort funded by the Jewish Federations of North America that works on strengthening security for Jewish institutions.

“The people that want to come after Israel overseas will look at Jewish targets in the host nations as well,” he said. “They will look not just at embassies, but at synagogues and JCCs as secondary targets.”

An example cited by Goldenberg of the conflation of Jewish and Israeli targets was the late January arrests in Azerbaijan of at least two citizens of that country in connection with an alleged plot to kill two rabbis and the Israeli ambassador in the capital city, Baku.

Three men reportedly were charged with weapons smuggling as part of a plot to kill two rabbis who worked for a Chabad Jewish school in Baku, as well as the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. Two of those charged are reported to be in custody; one is still at large.

Azerbaijan’s national security ministry accused Iranian intelligence agents of arming and equipping the three men, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. Haaretz suggested the plot was intended as retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau has issued a travel warning for Azerbaijan.

In addition to the Baku attacks, Bulgaria reportedly uncovered a plot against Israeli tourists. Prompted by an alert from Israeli intelligence authorities in Thailand on Jan. 13, a Lebanese man alleged to have plotted a bombing attack against Israelis and Jews was arrested.

Levitt, who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said there was a period in which Iran was reluctant to strike out against targets overseas.

Iran was implicated in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds. An Argentine prosecutor eventually accused five Iranians and the operational chief of Lebanese Shiite milita Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyah, of involvement in the attack. Interpol issued warrants for their arrests in 2007.

Iran, which has always denied involvement in the AMIA attack, was stung by the diplomatic backlash in its wake, and it is widely believed to have ordered its proxies to confine operations to the Middle East.

The trigger that renewed the threat of attacks overseas was the assassination of Mughniyah by a car bomb in Syria in 2008. Hezbollah blames Israel’s Mossad for the assassination, Levitt said.

“We will pick the time, the place, the punishment, the means and the method,” Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said at the time.

Jewish communities in the United States and overseas have issued security alerts each year since then on the Feb. 12 anniversary of the killing.

Levitt said the intensification of Iran’s isolation as the result of sanctions targeting its suspected nuclear weapons program and the heightened U.S. military posture have likely contributed to the intelligence community’s sense that more attempts on overseas targets may be imminent.

“We’re at a point where Iran, when pushed into a corner and we’re finally doing things that have an impact on the nuclear program, the likelihood it lashes out increases,” he said.

Another factor that has spurred Iranian threats of retribution is the spate of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help,” Khamenei said Feb. 3 in a Friday sermon translated by the Associated Press. “We have no fear expressing this.”

Dubowitz said such statements merited heightened alert.

“The overall question of what other aggressive actions the Iranians are willing to take in response to our pressure means Jewish institutions in the United States need to take reasonable precautions,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, seen here addressing a regional economic summit in Tehran in May 2011, says he is "optimistic" that nuclear inspectors will not find anything amiss this week during their visit to the country. (Parmida Rahimi via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel, the United States and Iran have all gone deep into mixed-signals territory.

Conversations with Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, left one prominent journalist convinced that Israel will strike Iran by year’s end. Yet two weeks ago, Barak had said that any possible Israeli attack on Iran is “far off.”

Leon Panetta, the U.S. defense secretary, said in December that any military strike would only set Iran’s nuclear program back a couple years — a remark that some Israelis read as conveying a sense of resignation to the idea that if Iran really wants a nuclear weapon, eventually it will be able to get one. But in a television interview broadcast Sunday, he vowed that the U.S. would take “whatever steps are necessary” to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, Iran is responding to international sanctions with a mix of threats to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to placate Western concerns about its nuclear program by allowing in inspectors and calling for new talks.

Two questions remain the focus of considerable speculation: Will Israel strike Iran? And will the sanctions cause Iran to bend?

The first question was the subject of a much-discussed Sunday New York Times Magazine cover story by Ronen Bergman, one of Israel’s best-connected security journalists. It featured rare and extensive on-the-record interviews with top Israeli officials, most prominently Barak.

Recent moves by the Iranians have underscored the significance of the second question.

Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran was ready to sit down for talks to discuss its nuclear program. On Sunday, a team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, arrived in Tehran.

The team, according to the Associated Press, includes two weapons experts and will visit an Iranian nuclear facility near the religious city of Qom. President Obama’s revelation in 2009 of the until-then secret underground facility helped the U.S. make the case to the world community for intensified sanctions, leading to the recent international squeeze on Iran’s economy and energy sector.

The inspectors’ visit is the first since an IAEA report in November concluded that Iran was engaged in activities — particularly in the area of enhanced uranium enrichment capabilities — that could have no other discernible purpose but weaponization.

Iran continues to insist that its nuclear program has strictly civilian purposes. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister, was quoted by various media on Monday as saying that he was “optimistic” about the results of the inspectors’ three-day visit, and that it could be extended “if necessary.”

“One shouldn’t get too carried away, but I assume they have something to offer or they would not agree to schedule this visit,” said Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has written a book on U.S.-Iran relations titled “Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies.”

But Michael Adler, an Iran expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, noted that the Iranians resisted setting a formal agenda for the inspectors’ visit, which suggested a lack of seriousness by the Iranians.

“Iran has a history of offering to talk when it is under pressure, and then stalling so that the talks delay punitive measures against it,” Adler said.

Iran is also sending mixed messages to the United States in the region. In addition to its threat to shut the Strait of Hormuz in response to mounting sanctions, Iran’s army chief warned a U.S. aircraft carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf. But other Iranian officials later seemed to backtrack, calling the entry of another U.S. carrier into the gulf a routine event. Also this month, Iran test-fired cruise missiles that could be used against U.S. ships.

Israel’s plans, meanwhile, also have been the subject of speculation.

Bergman in his New York Times Magazine article concluded that an Israeli strike before year’s end was all but inevitable.

“I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012,” he wrote. “Perhaps in the small and ever-diminishing window that is left, the United States will choose to intervene after all, but here, from the Israeli perspective, there is not much hope for that.”

A number of Iran experts questioned his conclusions, noting that his article included a wealth of Israelis warning against such a strike — and even referred to Barak’s Jan. 18 statement that any decision to strike was “very far off.”

“It was a very odd article considering all the people he quoted who said that a strike was a bad idea,” Slavin said.

In part, Bergman argues, the feeling that Israel will need to strike Iran stems from what he suggests is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that the U.S. will not attack in its stead should Iran be on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials, including Panetta, have tried in recent weeks to emphasize their commitment to stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Panetta told the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” that the United States would take “whatever steps are necessary” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, calling it a “red line” for both Israelis and the United States.

Asked about the possibility of military action, Panetta responded that “there are no options that are off the table.”

Panetta also stressed the urgency of the situation, suggesting that Iran would be able to develop a nuclear weapon in approximately a year.

“The consensus is that if they decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon,” Panetta said.

In articulating the notion that Iran could be able to develop a nuclear weapon in fairly short order, Panetta seems to be on the same page as Israeli officials.

In a statement Monday after returning from the annual economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Barak again sounded a note of concern.

“Over the course of the various meetings” with other leaders at the forum, Barak said, “we repeatedly emphasized our stance that we must urgently intensify and broaden the sanctions against Iran. The determination of world leaders is critical in order to prevent the Iranians from advancing their military nuclear program.

“We must not waste time on this matter; the Iranians continue to advance [toward nuclear weapons], identifying every crack and squeezing through. Time is urgently running out.”