Israeli FM Says a Nuclear Iran Not a Threat

In a bit of a follow-up to the Haaretz story in their upcoming battle with their own country's lobby, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni apparently said recently that if Iran did successfully develop nuclear weapons they posed no "existential" threat to Israel. Ironically, this story just popped up on Haaretz, so maybe they are truly waging war on the Lobby. I wouldn't go that far, but this is refreshing to say the least. Everyone in Israel seems to be beating the war drums except for their foreign minister in this case.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published tomorrow.

Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran.

The article also reveals for the first time a document Livni prepared and sent to Olmert a few months after the Second Lebanon War proposing a new division of labor between the two. "Enclosed is a proposal for work procedures between us, with the aim of providing an answer to Israel's strategic needs and facilitating early planning and the formulation of coordinated Israeli positions ... within the framework of cooperative relations, full transparency and continuous mutual updates," wrote Livni.