JERUSALEM, Dec 5: Israel should take ‘bold and courageous’ action against Iran’s nuclear programme, similar to its 1981 air strike on the main Iraqi atomic reactor, former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. The frontrunner to head Israel’s right-wing Likud Party ahead of March 28 elections, Mr Netanyahu has been drawing battle lines with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who last week voiced hope that foreign diplomacy would prevent Iran getting the bomb.

“It must be understood that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear threat against Israel,” Mr Netanyahu told Israel Radio.

“I will pursue the legacy of (Prime Minister) Menachem Begin, who through a bold and courageous move did not allow a neighbour of Iran, Iraq, to develop such a threat. I believe that this is what Israel should do,” he said.

Believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, Israel under Begin sent warplanes to bomb the Iraqi reactor in Osiraq in 1981. Saddam Hussein’s quest for nuclear arms was driven underground until UN inspectors uncovered a secret programme a decade later. Independent experts believe Israel, perhaps with U.S. support, could mount a similar strike against Iran, though its facilities are numerous, dispersed and well-defended.

Netanyahu said he was calling for ‘any action necessary to prevent a situation in which Iran threatens us with nuclear weapons’.—Reuters