Conventional and non-conventional threats to Israel

The threat to Israel has not diminished much in the past five decades - the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan have helped set important precedents, but the hatred in the Arab and Muslim worlds remains intense.

Past Arab-Israeli wars were the result of an alliance of Arab states joining, if only temporarily, to launch a strike at Israel. The Arabs have traditionally put aside their differences at times of conflict with Israel.

Even alone, Syria would pose a serious threat to Israel. Damascus received more than $2 billion from the Gulf states during the Gulf crisis. Much of this money was spent on new modern weaponry to advance Hafez Assad's quest for "strategic parity" with Israel. Today, Syria has more tanks than Israel, and nearly as many troops and aircraft. Syria has also acquired long-range missiles from North Korea as well as biological and chemical weapons. Syria has first-strike capabilities against key Israeli installations, including air bases and troop mobilization points. According to the annual report on threats to Israel in 2005, presented by Meir Dagan, Chief of the Israeli Mossad, in January 2005, there are suspicions that Syria has already launched a nuclear project of its own.

Iran poses a major threat to Israel. It calls for Israel’s destruction, is developing nuclear weapons, and it supports Hizbullah in Lebanon as well as Palestinian terrorist organizations. According to the same report given by Meir Dagan, by the end of 2005 Iran will reach a point-of-no-return in its uranium enriching program, and from that point it will have the capability to produce by its own nuclear bomb. Iran already possesses long range ballistic missiles.

Israel has valid reasons to fear an Iranian nuclear capability. Iran continues to declare their rejection of "the Zionist entity" and the peace process. In December 2001, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani called the establishment of the Jewish state the "worst event in history," and declared, "In due time the Islamic world will have a military nuclear device, and then the strategy of the West would reach a dead end, since one bomb is enough to destroy all Israel." Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenai told the Syrian premier during his visit to Tehran in November 2000 that "the destruction of Israel will certainly occur." Khamenai further emphasized in a Friday sermon "that the cancerous tumor called Israel must be uprooted from the region." In January 2001, he noted: "The foundation of the Islamic regime is opposition to Israel and the perpetual subject of Iran is the elimination of Israel from the region."

While Egypt remains formally at peace with Israel, it has amassed a substantial offensive military capability in recent years. Should the present regime in Cairo be overthrown, the prospect for continued stable relations with Israel would diminish substantially. Egypt has purchased Scud missiles from North Korea and is thought to possess chemical weapons. Its army, air force and navy now field a wide range of the most sophisticated Western arms, many identical to Israel's own weapons.