TEL AVIV, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Israel has gradually
boosted naval patrols around its east Mediterranean natural gas
fields for fear of guerrilla attacks and as maritime rivalry
with Turkey deepens, an Israeli official said on Monday.

Missile boats have stepped up missions around the Tamar and
Leviathan platforms over the past year, as well as coordination
with private security firms contracted by the U.S.-Israeli
exploration consortium, the official said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned Israel’s top diplomat and spymaster Sunday to end a power-struggle that harmed cooperation between their agencies, a government official said.

The official gave no details of the feud between Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Mossad director Tamir Pardo, which local media said began last week over their respective roles in handling Israel’s contacts abroad.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Defense Minister Ehud Barak tried to reassure Israelis about the government’s resolve on Thursday after he appeared to empathize with Iran’s controversial nuclear quest during an American television interview.

Barak’s suggestion that, were he Iranian, he would “probably” seek the bomb made headlines in Israel, which feels uniquely threatened by the Islamic republic but has looked to world powers to intervene with tough diplomacy.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – The latest report by U.N. inspectors has hardened suspicions that Iran is seeking nuclear arms capability, but Israeli experts have little confidence that international action will deny the Islamic Republic the means to make a bomb.

The pessimism sounded by academics, retired generals and statesmen on the consequences of last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) findings contrasted with how Israel and the United States responded in public — with pledges to use the report to rally support for stiffer sanctions against Iran.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – The latest report by U.N. inspectors has hardened suspicions that Iran is seeking nuclear arms capability, but Israeli experts have little confidence that international action will deny the Islamic Republic the means to make a bomb.

The pessimism sounded by academics, retired generals and statesmen on the consequences of last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) findings contrasted with how Israel and the United States responded in public — with pledges to use the report to rally support for stiffer sanctions against Iran.

TEL AVIV, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Israel has accelerated
the installation of anti-missile defences on its airliners, a
security official said on Friday, seeing an enhanced risk of
attack by militants using looted Libyan arms.

Jets flown by El Al and two other Israeli carriers
are being equipped with a locally made system known as C-Music
that uses a laser to “blind” heat-seeking missiles, the official
said, giving a 2013 target for fitting most of the fleet.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Should the Israelis attack Iran, they would probably focus strikes on select nuclear facilities while trying to avoid killing civilians en masse or crippling the oil sector.

Past operations by Israel, such as the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak atomic reactor and a similar strike against Syria in 2007, suggest a strategy of one-off pinpoint raids, due both to military limitations and a desire to avoid wider war.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Menachem Begin did not pull his punches. In 1981, as work neared completion on an Iraqi nuclear reactor that Israel believed would produce plutonium for warheads, the Israeli prime minister dispatched eight F-16 bombers to destroy the plant. Begin later said that the raid was proof his country would “under no circumstances allow the enemy to develop weapons of mass-destruction against our people”.

The event defined a strategy that became known as the “Begin Doctrine” and is best summed up by the phrase “the best defense is forceful preemption.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Menachem Begin did not pull his punches. In 1981, as work neared completion on an Iraqi nuclear reactor that Israel believed would produce plutonium for warheads, the Israeli prime minister dispatched eight F-16 bombers to destroy the plant. Begin later said that the raid was proof his country would “under no circumstances allow the enemy to develop weapons of mass-destruction against our people”.

The event defined a strategy that became known as the “Begin Doctrine” and is best summed up by the phrase “the best defense is forceful preemption.”

JERUSALEM, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Menachem Begin did not pull his
punches. In 1981, as work neared completion on an Iraqi nuclear
reactor that Israel believed would produce plutonium for
warheads, the Israeli prime minister dispatched eight F-16
bombers to destroy the plant. Begin later said that the raid was
proof his country would “under no circumstances allow the enemy
to develop weapons of mass-destruction against our people”.

The event defined a strategy that became known as the “Begin
Doctrine” and is best summed up by the phrase “the best defence
is forceful preemption.”