Barak says nuke-armed Iran couldn't destroy Israel

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A nuclear-armed Iran would not be capable of destroying Israel, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday in remarks that departed from long-running Israeli arguments about the threat posed by its foe.

"Right now, Iran does not have a bomb. Even if it did, this would not make it a threat to Israel's existence. Israel can lay waste to Iran," Barak said in a transcript of a newspaper interview obtained by Reuters before publication Friday.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly sounded alarms over Iran's atomic ambitions, pointing at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map" and support for Islamist guerrilla groups arrayed along Israel's borders.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-winger who brought the centre-left Barak into his coalition government, said he saw "eye to eye" with the Defence minister -- signalling a possible change in Israel's official rhetoric as world powers prepare to revive diplomatic engagement with Iran next month.

Tehran says its nuclear plans are peaceful and has resisted U.S.-led diplomatic pressure to curb its uranium enrichment, a process with bomb-making potential. Israel is assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, developed in secret as a safeguard against a repeat of the World War Two Nazi genocide.

"I don't think we are on the brink of a new Holocaust," Barak said in his interview with Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

SANCTIONS SOUGHT

"Say Saudi Arabia buys, at some stage, two bombs. This would not mean it's all over for the country. Furthermore, I think Iran is a challenge for Israel and for the whole world. Now is the time for a diplomatic effort and toughened-up sanctions."