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Israel refuses to give US early notice of strike on Iran Uzi Mahnaimi,

Israel has warned America’s top general that it will give Washington just 12 hours’ notice if it decides to launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.The refusal to give more advance warning, which would prevent the US blocking the raid, is the latest sign of a breakdown of trust between the two allies over Israel’s response to Iranian ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

The impasse was highlighted after a meeting in Tel Aviv between General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, and Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, last week.

This followed a stormy transatlantic conversation between President Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in which Netanyahu turned down Obama’s request for early warning of an attack on Iran.

Netanyahu suspects that Obama, fearful of soaring energy prices, will go to any lengths to stop an attack going ahead before the presidential election in November.

America and the European Union have opted for tighter sanctions to deter Iran from building a bomb. EU foreign ministers meeting tomorrow are expected to ban Iranian oil imports. But the Israeli prime minister is concerned that military action may ultimately be necessary. The Israeli army has already undertaken intensive training and its elite 35th Paratroopers Brigade is preparing for long-range operations.

Publicly the Americans and Israelis are playing down their differences. But Ron Ben-Ishai, a leading defence commentator, wrote last week on the Ynet website that “Israel and the US are on a head-on collision course unheard of in recent history”. A large joint anti- missile exercise planned for April has already been cancelled, officially for “technical and logistical reasons”.

“All lies,” said an Israeli defence official, who claimed that Washington had pulled out as an expression of its displeasure. “We were shocked,” he said. “It’s been planned for the last two years.”