Independent report.

The Israeli government last night managed to overshadow a high-profile visit by the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, with an announcement of controversial and politically highly sensitive plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish residents in Arab East Jerusalem.

The announcement from the Interior Ministry -- which drew a sharp and swift rebuke from Mr Biden himself -- came only hours after the Vice-President had personally congratulated the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for "taking risks for peace".

Guardian report.

"There is no space between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," Biden said, after meeting the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem. Their talks appeared to focus on Iran and its nuclear ambitions, rather than on the new round of low-key, indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that was agreed yesterday.

Ray McGovern in Consortium News.

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran.

This is especially worrying, because Mullen has had considerable experience in putting the brakes on such Israeli plans in the past. This time, he appears convinced that the Israeli leaders did not take his earlier warnings seriously -- notwithstanding the unusually strong language he put into play.

Jon Snow on his Channel 4 blog.

Put simply, he's in Israel to try to dissuade the Israelis from bombing Iran.

There remains a strong thread of opinion inside the Israeli cabinet that argues that Iran is building a nuclear bomb and needs to be stopped in its tracks. Reportedly, Israel does not have a supply of the American developed deep bunker busting bomb required to penetrate the storage chambers in Natanz where, beneath some 55ft of reinforced concrete, Iran keeps her enriched uranium.

But the US Vice President, Joe Biden is not alone in his mission.

Ynetnews article

Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, MK Ayoob Kara (Likud), said Israel had received messages from radical Muslim states with which it does not have diplomatic relations saying they would back any Israeli or US move against Iran.

"These are positive, secretive messages which say that they will support any move," Kara said at a cultural event in Beersheba Saturday. "They have conveyed clear messages that they are concerned about the Iranian problem."

He refused to name the states involved, but said there was a "wall to wall coalition" of Muslim nations against the Islamic Republic.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

The events in Washington prove a few things. The Armenian American community have a more powerful and wealthier lobby than ever before. More seriously -- for the Turks -- is that this year Turkey did not have the Israeli lobby behind it. In the past, Israel, which disgracefully claims that the Armenian Holocaust was not a genocide, has supported its close ally Turkey. But this year, Israel and Turkey have fallen out and the Israelis are still miffed at Turkey's condemnation of the bloodbath in Gaza.

BBC report. The Telegraph article is here.

The UK is planning to stop attempts to secure "politically-motivated" private arrest warrants for visiting foreign officials, the prime minister has said.

Laura Rozen on Politico.

[...] one reason UAE authorities are so ticked off about the assassination is because they were quietly cooperating with Israel on Iran intelligence. Indeed, an Israeli minister was in the UAE the day the assassination took place.

Friday Lunch Club quoting an Israeli news site.

Until the second Lebanon war, Israeli companies and organizations prefered to build up information sites within Israel due to a relatively easy access and operation, resulting from geographical proximity....

However, threats missiles, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as fear of earthquakes, brought a radical change in the perception of security and storage of information. Israeli companies began to realize that one should preferably have backup sites and data locations abroad....."

Report on Ynetnews.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton sent a message to Beirut that Washington cannot prevent an Israeli strike in Lebanon as long as arms smuggling to Hezbollah continues.

London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported on Monday that the message was conveyed via US Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Reuters report.

Washington's clout over its Middle East ally is under scrutiny after Israel's veiled threats to attack Iran preemptively if international diplomacy fails to rein in Tehran's uranium enrichment, a process with bomb-making potential.

Guardian report.

The web of intrigue surrounding the death of a senior Hamas official became more tangled today after Dubai police identified a further 15 members of an alleged Mossad squad who carried out the assassination, including another six who used apparently fake British passports.

The announcement brings to 26 the total number of people, six of them women, suspected of involvement in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's assassination, which is widely believed to have been the work of Israel's secret service, the Mossad. Israel has flatly refused to comment.

Ynetnews report, quoting AFP.

The top US military officer said Monday that any military strike against Iran would not be "decisive" in countering its nuclear program.

"No strike, however effective, will be in and of itself decisive,"Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference, adding that he supported using diplomatic and economic pressure against Iran.

McClatchy report.

With diplomacy failing and precious intelligence just received about two new secret Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike against Tehran's nuclear complex. The strike is successful, wiping out six of Iran's key sites and setting back its suspected quest for a bomb by years.

But what happens next isn't pretty.

Julian Borger on his Guardian Global Security Blog.

Why would a regime that is normally so paranoid about its LEU leave itself so vulnerable? One possible explanation, being mused on by British government analysts, is that the regime is deliberately inviting an Israeli air strike with the aim of creating a crisis, and using that crisis to crush dissent even more brutally than it is doing currently.

It is a terrifying idea, but not the only possible explanation. It may be, as David Albright at ISIS suggests, that the Natanz technicians were in a hurry to fulfil President Ahmadinejad's orders to enrich to 20%, and it was quicker to drive the whole cask of enriched uranium hexafluoride up the ramp to the pilot plant, than try to decant it into small containers.

A third possibility is that Iran is playing poker, bringing out its trump in an attempt to get the international community to fold, and agree to supply Iran with fuel rods to the TRR without Iran having to export its LEU in advance as it initially agreed to do in Geneva last October. Tehran may believe that the danger of an Israeli air strike is minimal because the repercussions in the Gulf would be so devastating.

New York Times report.

Israel's Air Force on Sunday introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting Iran within their range.

The new aircraft, called the Heron TP, has a wingspan of 86 feet, making it the size of a Boeing 737 jetliner and the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel's military.