JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel is keeping an anxious eye on the turmoil in Iran for any signs on what the crisis may mean for its arch-enemy's nuclear drive, which the Jewish state sees as the top threat to its security.
"What is happening in Iran has a direct influence on every Israeli," said Ely Karmon of the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.
"For many years Iran has supported most of the terrorism against Israel" and threatens "to destroy Israel, to raze it from the map," he said.
Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, believes -- as does the West -- that Iran is seeking to acquire a nuclear arsenal, despite Tehran's repeated denials.
Israel also regularly accuses the Islamic republic of supporting the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip.
The idea that these movements could be given some kind of "psychological nuclear umbrella" is particularly worrying to Israel, said Shlomo Aronson, an Iran expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The Mossad spy agency believes Iran will have a ready-to-launch nuclear bomb within five years -- unless its nuclear programme is interrupted -- while Israeli officials have not ruled out using the use of military force.
"The Israelis want two main targets: first is stopping Iran from having the bomb and second to stop Iranian support for terrorist organisations," said Menashe Amir, head of Israeli radio's Persian-language service.
During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's first four-year term, the combative president put Iran on a collision course with the West, defying UN Security Council calls for a halt to uranium enrichment despite three sets of sanctions.
He also triggered fear in Israel and outrage in the West over his calls for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map and repeatedly calling the Holocaust a myth.
While Ahmadinejad' defeated rival Mir Hossein Mousavi is regarded as more moderate, with calls for Iran to improve its relations with the outside world, he has said he would pursue the nuclear drive.
"There is no big difference between Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi because Mousavi declared very clearly... he would continue the nuclear programme," Amir said.
In any event, strategic decisions including nuclear policy remain in the hands of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has openly supported Ahmadinejad's re-election.
But Amir said that if Mousavi, a post-revolution era premier behind widespread protests at vote-rigging in the June 12 election, eventually emerged as president: "It may give European countries the wrong impression that Iran will stop the nuclear programme."
Israel is seeking to rally international opinion against Tehran and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently on his first official trip to Europe, where he is pressing for a tightening of sanctions against Iran.
"I think the true nature of the Iranian regime has been unmasked," Netanyahu told Germany's Bild newspaper.
"This is a regime that represses its own people, supports terrorism worldwide and openly denies the Holocaust, while calling for the elimination of Israel."
Israel's Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv said: "Even had Mousavi been elected he would have continued to lead Iran's nuclear programme and the hostile attitude towards Israel.
"Therefore, Israel has a certain advantage in Ahmadinejad's re-election. With Ahmadinejad as president, it is easier to explain the significance of the Iranian threat," he said.
A Tel Aviv University opinion poll showed 81 percent of Israelis believe Iran will acquire the bomb, 51 percent favour an immediate attack against Iranian nuclear sites, while 49 percent believe in the use of diplomatic means.
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