“[Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad recruits forces against us, but there are also forces against him,” Israeli President Shimon Peres warned Sunday, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.
“What happened in Egypt created a fierce opposition and we must unify all his opponents -- the Sunnis and the Europeans, as well as those afraid of nuclear weapons and terror,” the Israeli leader said.
Peres tempered his saber-rattling remarks by adding that he hoped President Barack Obama’s call for dialogue with Ahmadinejad would be heeded.
More ominously, however, he advised that if such talks don’t soften the Iranian president’s approach, “we’ll strike him.”
Peres hastened however to caution that Israel couldn’t carry out any strike against the Islamic republic without the U.S.
“We certainly cannot go it alone, without the U.S., and we definitely can’t go against the U.S. This would be unnecessary,” qualified Peres.
On Monday, according to another report by the Post, Peres made reference to the developing hostility between Egypt and Hizbullah, saying, “Sooner or later the world will realize that Iran has aspirations to control the Middle East, and that it’s Teheran which has colonialist ambitions.”
Peres told Army Radio, “They fight even without us being involved, and that's good.”
Peres’s remarks were the first official Israeli response after Cairo announced that a Hizbullah-linked cell was plotting to attack Egyptian institutions and Israeli tourists on the Sinai Peninsula.
The Israeli leader referred to Hizbullah as “an Iranian agent,” -- characterizing its chief, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, as “a man who wraps himself in sheikh's robes, yet is willing to kill.”
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