You're reading: No rush to war in Israel over Bulgaria bombing

JERUSALEM - Israel signalled on Thursday it would not hasten into any open conflict with Iran or its Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah despite blaming them for a deadly attack on its citizens in Bulgaria.

A suicide bomber killed eight people on a bus carrying
Israeli tourists in Burgas airport, drawing a pledge by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “react powerfully” to what he
called “Iranian terror”.

Sofia officials have not publicly assigned blame for the
bombing, nor has there been comment from Iran or Hezbollah.

Netanyahu’s assertion, based on Israel’s long-running
suspicions that Iranian and Hezbollah agents are waging a covert
campaign against its interests abroad, prompted speculation in
local media that the Netanyahu government might strike now.

Israel has long threatened to resort to military force to
curb Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, but Defence Minister
Ehud Barak sounded more nuanced on Thursday about a response to
the Bulgaria attack.

Speaking on Israel Radio he said the country would “do
everything possible in order to find those responsible, and
those who dispatched them, and punish them” – language that
appeared to suggest covert action against individuals.

Israel may be reluctant to cross Western partners by rushing
into a long-range war which would stretch its military
capabilities and possibly draw Iranian reprisals against U.S.
interests and disruptions of the global oil supply.

A clash with Hezbollah, which the Israeli military says has
stockpiled as many as 80,000 rockets in neighbouring Lebanon,
carries the risk of igniting Israel’s northern border while it
watches with concern the turmoil in neighbouring Syria.

“RISK MANAGEMENT”

Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli army general who served as
national security adviser from 2003 to 2006, played down the
possibility that the Bulgaria bombing would push Netanyahu into
another war.

“I think that any response, whatever it may be, will not be
an immediate response,” Eiland told Israel Radio separately.

“Any response, whatever it may be, will not be in the form
of an air force operation, or strike – certainly not in Iran
over this matter, nor in Lebanon.”

Barak, who focussed on Hezbollah’s alleged role in the
Bulgaria bombing, described it as the bloodiest of a series of
recent plots against Israelis, including diplomats, abroad.

Iran denied involvement in previous attacks but some
analysts believe it is trying to avenge the assassination of
scientists from its nuclear programme, which it blamed on Israel
and Western allies. Iran says its atomic ambitions are peaceful,
denying foreign allegations of secret military
designs.

Hezbollah has its own scores to settle with Israel. Two
years after their 2006 border war, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia
lost its commander, Imad Moughniyeh, to a Damascus car bomb it
said was the work of Israeli spies, and vowed revenge.

Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2009 to 2011, Uzi
Arad, confirmed in a separate interview that Israel killed
Moughniyeh – though the country has never formally claimed
responsibility.

Arad described the Bulgaria bombing as part of a “dynamic of
escalation” but counselled Israel to invest in better
intelligence and security.

He said “risk management” was required and that Wednesday’s
bloodshed may be an “unavoidable price” of internal and
international pressure building on Iran and its allies.