Latest news with #Yadlin
Middle East Eye
07-08-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Ex-Israeli intel chief warns Gaza occupation would doom cap
A former head of Israeli military intelligence has spoken out against a full occupation of Gaza, warning it would be catastrophic for both Israel and the captives still held in the enclave. 'We're talking about two million people and military rule; desperate people with destroyed homes, no hospitals or schools,' Amos Yadlin told Israel's Maariv newspaper. Yadlin, who led military intelligence between 2011 and 2012, said taking control of Gaza would saddle Israel with enormous responsibility and endanger the lives of the remaining captives. 'If I were in the cabinet today, I would lay out the implications of occupying Gaza,' he said. 'In my view, it would doom the hostages. After 22 months, the [Israeli military] knows how to conquer above-ground Gaza, but it doesn't know how to conquer underground Gaza or rescue the hostages.'
Egypt Independent
22-06-2025
- Business
- Egypt Independent
Analysis: Iran faces hard choices as it calibrates next move against US and Israel
US President Donald Trump's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities puts the Middle East in a volatile position, analysts say, with all eyes now on Tehran's next move. In a region already on edge, Trump's airstrikes puts several options on the table for Iran, analysts say. All carry inherent risks for Iran and the future survival of the country's leaders. Diplomacy: The first is that Iran could return to the negotiating table. 'It's (a) huge incentive to end the war and save the regime,' Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli Military Intelligence, told CNN. Iran could 'declare that they are coming to negotiate and asking to end the war. Negotiating on the base of zero (uranium) enrichment,' Yadlin said. Yadlin said Iran might also leave the United Nations' Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under which it has pledged not to develop a bomb. However, Iran's 'capabilities to (build a bomb) do not exist in the coming year or two,' he added. But would Iran's conservative hardliners tolerate a purely diplomatic response to an attack by US forces on Iranian soil? Counterstrike: Another option is for Iran to retaliate, potentially dragging the US and the wider Middle East into a complicated and drawn-out conflict. Iran has said 'several times' that if the US 'joins this war and attacks their nuclear facilities, they will retaliate against US forces in the region, against US interests, and there are a lot of those,' CNN political and global affairs analyst Barak Ravid said. Iran could also choose to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping oil route, giving it the power to influence the 'entire commercial shipping in the Gulf,' Ravid said. 'This will get energy prices up. This will influence the entire world's economy,' he added. A prominent adviser to Iran's supreme leader has already called for missile strikes and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. 'Following America's attack on the Fordow nuclear installation, it is now our turn,' warned Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, a well-known conservative voice who has previously identified himself as Khamenei 'representative.' Geographic leverage over global shipping gives Iran the 'capacity to cause a shock in oil markets, drive up oil prices, drive inflation, collapse Trump's economic agenda,' Middle East scholar Mohammad Ali Shabani told CNN. No easy option: Khamenei 'has got a decision to make' and is likely to respond, said CNN analyst Aaron David Miller, adding it is 'almost impossible' to imagine 'that this 86-year-old leader, whose goal essentially is to preserve the revolution and pass it on to one of his successors, can simply do nothing.' 'He may have to calibrate his response, but I suspect we're not done with this.'
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel weighs options to destroy Fordow if it has to go it alone without help from the US
If President Trump decides not to order a strike on Iran's main underground enrichment site at Fordow, Israel has a number of options to destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment facility buried deep under a mountain south of Tehran. One option includes sending elite Israeli Air Force commandos from Unit 5101, known as Shaldag, which, in Hebrew, means kingfisher, a bird known to be patient and dive deep under water to find its prey. In September, members of this elite unit surprised the world by entering an underground missile factory used by Iran in Syria. "There was a site that similarly looked like Fordow," former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told Fox News in an exclusive interview. "Even though smaller, the Syrian facility produced advanced ballistic missiles, precise ballistic missiles using Iranian technology, as well as Iranian money." America's Iran Dilemma: How To Strike Fordow Without Losing Sight Of China Threat Israel attacked the site from the air a few times but was not able to destroy the site. Read On The Fox News App Unit 5101 (Shaldag) used the cover of darkness and diversionary airstrikes to enter the secret site, plant explosives and destroy the complex. Like Iran's Fordow mountain complex south of Tehran, it was 300 feet underground. How Bunker Buster Bombs Work And How They Could Destroy Iran's Fordow Nuclear Site "The Air Force took care of all the guards around the perimeter, and Shaldag got in, and the place is gone, destroyed," Yadlin said with a slight smile. It's not the first time Israel has had to plan to take out a secret nuclear complex against the odds and alone. In 1981, Israel flew a daring mission to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak. Yadlin was one of eight young Israeli F-16 pilots who carried out the secret attack. "We didn't have air refueling at that time. We didn't have GPS. It was dumb bombs, smart pilot, but a very difficult operational mission when Iraq was in a war (with Iran). So, the state of alert was very, very high," Yadlin recalled. He and the other pilots believed it might be a suicide mission, and they might not have enough fuel to return home. More recently, retired Maj. Gen. Yadlin served as the head of Israel's Military Intelligence in 2007, when Israel blew up a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor that the world did not know about. The White House at the time did not want to assist in the strike. Yadlin has seen history change after Israel has acted alone carrying out daring missions like the exploding pagers that killed most of the top commanders of Iran's proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Why Us Must Destroy Iran's Fordow Nuclear Facility Now In 2008, when it was determined that Israeli F-16s could not reach Iran's nuclear sites, Yadlin ordered Mossad to come up with another way to take out Iran's uranium enrichment at Natanz. Two years later, Israeli and American cyber warriors introduced Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm that caused thousands of Natanz centrifuges to spin out of control, setting back Iran's nuclear enrichment. The decision to strike Fordow, the crown jewel and heart of Iran's nuclear program, is different, and Israel prefers the U.S. to use its B-2 stealth bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs. "Anybody who wants the war to be over soon, to be finished quickly, have to find a way to deal with Fordow," Yadlin said. "Those who think that attacking Fordow will escalate the war, in my judgment, it can de-escalate and terminate the war." And it could serve as a deterrent to China and Russia, who will see the power and capability of the U.S. military's unique capability. Another option would be to cut power to Fordow. Without power, the centrifuges enriching the uranium could become permanently disabled. When asked if Israel could take out Fordow without American B-2 bombers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox's Bret Baier in an exclusive interview last Sunday, "We have quite a few startups too and quite a few rabbits up our sleeve. And I don't think that I should get into that."Original article source: Israel weighs options to destroy Fordow if it has to go it alone without help from the US
The Age
18-06-2025
- Politics
- The Age
An extraordinary shift in Israeli aggression, and the total redrawing of power in the Middle East
For Israel's critics, the attack was the inevitable consequence of the country's blockade of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and failure to resolve the Palestinian conflict through diplomatic concessions. Many Israelis have drawn the opposite conclusion: They believe that the October attack – the deadliest in Israeli history – stemmed from Israel's failure to pre-emptively and decisively defeat its enemies. Loading 'In the 20 years before October 7, we allowed threats to develop beyond our borders, trusting that our intelligence would give us prior warnings of any attack,' said Major General Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence. 'The trauma of October 7 completely changed that mindset and made us willing to take risks that we didn't take in the past,' Yadlin said. 'We will no longer wait to be attacked, and we will not wait to be surprised.' The approach echoes Israel's strategic outlook in the early decades of its existence, when it often acted more swiftly and decisively to remove threats on its borders, Yadlin said. The clearest example was in June 1967, when Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt after the Egyptian military moved troops toward the Israeli border. 'As Egypt massed troops on our southern border, we did not wait to be surprised,' Yadlin said. 'Now, we are reviving that doctrine.' Israel's new approach is the culmination of months of reevaluation, during which the military's confidence - crushed by the failures of October 7 – was gradually restored. While Israel's approach to Hamas was immediately wrathful, the country was initially wary of taking on Hezbollah and Iran. Netanyahu called off a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah in the first week of the war in 2023, amid fears that Israel would struggle to maintain a multifront war against the Iran-led alliance. For nearly a year, Israel fought only a low-level border conflict with Hezbollah. Despite increasing clashes with Iran in 2024, Israel limited its strikes on Iran to avoid an all-out conflict. Israel's approach began to change in September, when a sequence of unexpected moves allowed Israel to decimate much of Hezbollah's senior leadership. That increased Israel's confidence and prompted its leaders to order a more decisive assault on the group. Troops invaded southern Lebanon and the air force killed Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel then severely weakened Iran's air defence systems and successfully repelled massive barrages of Iranian missiles, giving Israel greater confidence in its offensive and defensive abilities. More than a year after October 7, Israeli leaders finally concluded that they had a rare window of opportunity to mount a decisive blow against Iran's nuclear program. Though Israel's new approach has undercut Iran's regional influence, it has done little to resolve Israel's oldest and most intractable problem: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Gaza, Israel's retaliation has led to widespread destruction and bloodshed, reinstating a fearsome sense of Israeli might and reducing Hamas' threat for a generation. Loading But the conflict has provided no clear long-term trajectory for either Gaza or the wider Palestinian question. Netanyahu has consistently ignored opportunities to end the war, balking at the idea of either leaving Hamas' remnants in charge or allowing other Palestinian groups to take over. 'Instead, we are left with only bad options,' said Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister. 'Either occupation or chaos, rather than a diplomatic process involving moderate regional and Palestinian stakeholders that could change the reality on the ground for both Palestinians and Israelis.' A similarly aimless dynamic could yet emerge in Iran, analysts said, if the Israeli leadership fails to clearly define its goals there and set an exit strategy. For now, Israeli officials hope the United States will join the attack and help Israel destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. If the US stays away, and if Iran refuses to stop the enrichment by choice, it is unclear whether Israel's forceful new doctrine will achieve the kind of game-changing outcomes that many Israelis desire. 'One wonders whether effective military performance is matched by a sober political vision,' said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli official and a fellow at Israel Policy Forum, a research group in New York. 'Or, like in Gaza, we are left without an endgame. Time will tell.'
Sydney Morning Herald
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
How Israel completely transformed the balance of power in the Middle East
For Israel's critics, the attack was the inevitable consequence of the country's blockade of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and failure to resolve the Palestinian conflict through diplomatic concessions. Many Israelis have drawn the opposite conclusion: They believe that the October attack – the deadliest in Israeli history – stemmed from Israel's failure to pre-emptively and decisively defeat its enemies. Loading 'In the 20 years before October 7, we allowed threats to develop beyond our borders, trusting that our intelligence would give us prior warnings of any attack,' said Major General Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence. 'The trauma of October 7 completely changed that mindset and made us willing to take risks that we didn't take in the past,' Yadlin said. 'We will no longer wait to be attacked, and we will not wait to be surprised.' The approach echoes Israel's strategic outlook in the early decades of its existence, when it often acted more swiftly and decisively to remove threats on its borders, Yadlin said. The clearest example was in June 1967, when Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt after the Egyptian military moved troops toward the Israeli border. 'As Egypt massed troops on our southern border, we did not wait to be surprised,' Yadlin said. 'Now, we are reviving that doctrine.' Israel's new approach is the culmination of months of reevaluation, during which the military's confidence - crushed by the failures of October 7 – was gradually restored. While Israel's approach to Hamas was immediately wrathful, the country was initially wary of taking on Hezbollah and Iran. Netanyahu called off a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah in the first week of the war in 2023, amid fears that Israel would struggle to maintain a multifront war against the Iran-led alliance. For nearly a year, Israel fought only a low-level border conflict with Hezbollah. Despite increasing clashes with Iran in 2024, Israel limited its strikes on Iran to avoid an all-out conflict. Israel's approach began to change in September, when a sequence of unexpected moves allowed Israel to decimate much of Hezbollah's senior leadership. That increased Israel's confidence and prompted its leaders to order a more decisive assault on the group. Troops invaded southern Lebanon and the air force killed Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel then severely weakened Iran's air defence systems and successfully repelled massive barrages of Iranian missiles, giving Israel greater confidence in its offensive and defensive abilities. More than a year after October 7, Israeli leaders finally concluded that they had a rare window of opportunity to mount a decisive blow against Iran's nuclear program. Though Israel's new approach has undercut Iran's regional influence, it has done little to resolve Israel's oldest and most intractable problem: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Gaza, Israel's retaliation has led to widespread destruction and bloodshed, reinstating a fearsome sense of Israeli might and reducing Hamas' threat for a generation. Loading But the conflict has provided no clear long-term trajectory for either Gaza or the wider Palestinian question. Netanyahu has consistently ignored opportunities to end the war, balking at the idea of either leaving Hamas' remnants in charge or allowing other Palestinian groups to take over. 'Instead, we are left with only bad options,' said Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister. 'Either occupation or chaos, rather than a diplomatic process involving moderate regional and Palestinian stakeholders that could change the reality on the ground for both Palestinians and Israelis.' A similarly aimless dynamic could yet emerge in Iran, analysts said, if the Israeli leadership fails to clearly define its goals there and set an exit strategy. For now, Israeli officials hope the United States will join the attack and help Israel destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. If the US stays away, and if Iran refuses to stop the enrichment by choice, it is unclear whether Israel's forceful new doctrine will achieve the kind of game-changing outcomes that many Israelis desire. 'One wonders whether effective military performance is matched by a sober political vision,' said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli official and a fellow at Israel Policy Forum, a research group in New York. 'Or, like in Gaza, we are left without an endgame. Time will tell.'
