ja ja :rock:

In reading the news over the past few months/years, I am seeing more threats from Israel attacking Iran than threats from Iran attacking Israel.

Yeah.....
That's good one.
Has Israel ideological reason to do so?
(hmmm....maybe its the god people thing)

I reckon the threat from Iran may be sufficient to make Israel become a pre-emptive reality.

I think this is closest to the truth. After two wars being caught by surprise I think that Israel is going to overreact to any perceived threat mainly to get the other side to stop immediately for fear of a pre-emptive strike. And if that fear doesn't stop them, then they can be almost sure a pre-emptive strike will come.

Being a nation being almost completely bordered by hostile nations would make me have a national defence policy of similar style.

While I am don't believe in the concept of a "warm" conflict - the reality is that a massive scale attack that would in essence destroy the entire program is not feasible. Unless you want to skip air power and just nuke Iran now.... That MIGHT do it.

To totally destroy its nuclear program means to defeat it in total. That isn't something that Israel will pursue - nor would the Arab states allow it.

I'm curious...which Arab state has the power to stop it...presuming they had advance knowledge of it happening? :hmmm:

The surrounding states would not sit idly by while Israel destroyed Iran. Think Pakistan will sit idly by as nukes fly? India?
The nuclear genie is just one you don't pull out of the bottle.

So that leaves a massive, sustained air attack - and while the arab states would sit idly by for a single, short operation due to "blind eyes" - they are not going to sit around while Israel performs a modern day version of the air war in Europe, 1945. They couldn't pretend to be blind to it - so no overflights, contested airspace - leading to ground skirmishes, etc. And if you think the extremist elements wouldn't jump in - they would love it. You would have Israel facing another Yom Kippur war - that they would have started....

I wonder how that is possible - to "overreact" to a nuclear armed Iran. What should such "overreaction" be?

If a nuclear armed Iran does not worry you, than nothing in life ever will, and all failures of appeasement policies in history that hoped for peace and led to war have never really taken place.

People want to see it nicely and minimise Iran'S threat because they shy away from the alternative. They ignore that Iran already wages war against Israel. That Korea, Russia and China already have dleivered knowhow and tehcxnology for nuclear wepaon production into the region. That Iran already arms up Hezbollah, and confronts Saudi arabia in a proxy war. That Israelis already get killed by all that. That the current president of Iran is said to be one of the fighters hwo seitzed the US embassy back then. That there is a deep-rooting hate against Jews playing a role on Iran'S side, and a wide-spread attitude of not caring for threatened Jews on Western and European side.

The best joke ever told in British history, was told by Neville Chamberlain, and that was long before Monthy ython. Millions laughed themselves to death over it. Must we really laugh about the same joke for a second time? Some of you guys have to face it: with emotioinal hysterics teaching hate all day long, religious fanatics and nutheads, you cannot argue reasonably, and some people there are that do not care for long life or bounty or saving the innocent: they just take delight from seeing the world burning, and do not care for turning even their own people into martyrs. You better bring them down before they can light a match.

Certainly an option of retaliation of Irans is increased funding of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Scud launches, however Israel has faced both threats before and come through them intact.
However I do think that the total destruction of Irans nuclear ability in one fell swoop is beyond Israels capabilities at this time without using a combination of air attacks and missile launches...and to be fair, when you see a missile go up, you don't know what kind of warhead it has until it hits the target, that could rattle a lot of cages that shouldn't be rattled...although I doubt Pakistan would launch any kind of nuclear strike on Israel because that would weaken it against India. Israel, in turn, will most certainly not use nuclear weapons against Iran, it would be suicide, however I could see them undertaking a three or four day intensive operations period over Iranian airspace. They have the nod from the Saudis who want to see Irans nuclear program stopped as much as the US does, and Egypt would most likely look the other way too.
In terms of retaliation, well Syria can't really do anything because it's too busy shooting its own populace, and any military forces taken away from the cities will just give the protestors more room to grow. Jordan...well, no-one has really heard from Jordan since the last smackdown they got from Israel, it's possible they might do something...but not entirely likely.
Lebanon is usually mostly on fire, I'd expect to see a few Katayusha rockets come over the border, but as I've already said, that's not exactly something that Israel is unfamiliar with...and Egypt is too busy dealing with internal problems to risk a war with Israel...although a war with Israel might distract the public from the continued military dominance of the leadership of Egypt...but at the same time it might also cause the destruction of said leadership, so I think they'd play it safe and keep quiet.
Russia would use every diplomatic trick it has in the book to try to get sanctions on Israel, as will the PRC...and the EU will probably either abstain or vote for it, but the US will veto so Israel has no problems there.
The only main problem is keeping the transitioning airspace open long enough for Israel to finish the job. Irans program is very widespread, well hidden and great in number, you can set it back a few years...but unless you kill every single Iranian scientist and ban them from reading books and the internet...you're not going to stop the program completely...but I think Israel knows that, and they'll just settle for destroying the current progress of the program.

Pakistan I worry over in a lot of contexts. An open and direct nuclear exchange with Israel in solidarity with Iran is none of my concerns.

I was about to write the same thing you have done.

So the question is, what then-let say Israel bomb Iran and Iran rebuild their facilities, this time more secretly.

Maybe It should be some kind of divide and (forgot the word)

First help the opposition and hope the sitting government is overthrown, then they can bomb Irans nuclear facilities.

Markus

Sky - Pakistan won't care who its over. Think about it.

Nuke launched from Israel - up it goes - every nuclear country in the world is gonna see it - because with nukes comes the need to know one is coming so you get to counterstrike.

Think Israel is going to call pakistan and tell em "don't worry - its headed to Iran, not to you"? Think anyone will care - fallout is dangerous too ya know.

A nuclear shot doesn't just destroy its target. Pakistan - with its government rife with extremists - see a nuke in the air - who the eff knows where its REALLY going? You going to wait till it lands to see? Heck no - you fire your load just to be sure that the other guy dies too - in case it was aimed at you. The extremists in the Paki government would be ALL over it.

A nuke in the air in the middle east means the entire section of the world is going to burn like never before. Count on that.

What I meant in my statement of Israel "overreacting" is that if any threat, imaginary or real is met with an overwhelming reaction, I believe that would dissuade any rational or logical leader who has to think of what Israel will pre-emptively strike them with.

Divide and conquer?

Yes, Thank you.

Markus