And in Germany:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that time and patience were running out on Iran’s nuclear program and that February would see new sanctions discussed following France’s rise to the presidency of the United Nations’ Security Council,” reports the Jerusalem Post.

Hanegbi, who is a member of the opposition Kadima Party, said the United States will not succeed in eliciting allied support for significant sanctions against Iran.

“The year 2010, therefore, will be the most critical year for Israel since its establishment,” said Hanegbi, ”because any resulting decision on the nuclear issue will shape the future of Israel for many years to come.”

Israel and Iran: The Gathering Storm. The Economist. Jan. 7, 2010.  Israel’s  Government Spokesman, Mark Regev, is asked about the piece in the Jan. 8th broadcast of “Frost Over the World.”

Speaking at a Likud faction meeting, Netanyahu said he would raise the issue next week at a special joint session of the German and Israeli governments in Berlin. 

“The international community must adopt tough sanctions against Iran, now,” said the Prime Minister. “During the last year, the mask has fallen off the Iranian regime, and this momentum must be seized.”

“There is still time for diplomacy to work,” Barak told a forum yesterday at Tel Aviv University. But he said Israel expects the West to establish a “final deadline” for exhausting those efforts. 

“No option should be taken off the table,” he said.

Israel’s various emergency services will coordinate a “response” to a biological attack involving more than 1,000 victims.

See report in today’s Haaretz about the planned simulation.

Geraghty writes: “On Nov. 4, 2009, Israeli commandos intercepted a ship 100 miles off the Israeli coast carrying hundreds of tons of weapons from Iran bound for Hizbullah in Lebanon. Since the 2006 war, Iran has rearmed Hizbullah with 40,000 rockets that will likely rain on Israeli cities – and even European cities and U.S. military bases in the Middle East – if Iran is attacked.

“Our 200,000 troops in 33 bases are vulnerable. Iran is capable of disrupting Persian Gulf shipping lanes, which could cause the price of oil to surge, and could also create mayhem in oil markets by attacking Saudi oil refineries. Moreover, Iran possesses Soviet-made SS-N-22 “Sunburn” supersonic anti-ship missiles that it could use to contest a naval blockade,” according to Geraghty, who was the U.S. Marine commander in Beirut in 1983.

“The world is uniting against Iran,” Ayalon said at a Saturday event in Tel Aviv. “In a month we will see sanctions against her. I am not sure the regime in Iran will be the same a year from now. There is an agreement between Washington, Beijing and Moscow that a nuclear Iran would destroy the current world order.”

The Times also reports that according to Obama administration officials, Iran’s bomb-development effort was “seriously derailed” by the exposure three months ago of the country’s secret enrichment plant under construction near the holy city of Qum.

 JAN. 1 – Sobering headlines about Iran, this  New Year’s Day.

The Jerusalem Post’s Hilary Leila Kreiger and Haviv Rettig Gur, in their dispatch from Washington, report the  US has “toughened its rhetoric” and is “looking increasingly to sanctions rather than diplomacy,” now that its deadline to Iran has passed.  The article  includes an interview with Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, who calls for “crippling sanctions.” 

But this article, echoing other Israeli reports, notes a more “calibrated approach” emerging from the Obama administration, possibly taking the form of a new push for a U.N. Security Council resolution. The article suggests the U.S. does not wish to undermine the popular uprising against the Iranian government. Nor does it want to disrupt Iran’s energy markets.  

The Washington Post, in an article by Howard Schneider, also addresses the issue of the Obama administration “falling short” of “crippling sanctions.” It reports that Israel will nonetheless support “narrower”  U.S. sanctions as a “next step.”

Today’s required reading: In the Times (UK), “The world must neutralise Tehran’s toxic threat,” by Liam  Fox, UK Shadow Defence Secretary; and a stinging indictment of Europe in the Wall Street Journal (Europe): “Europe’s trade with Iran’s butchers,” by Goli Ameri, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs.