Israeli Ambassador: 'No Grand Political Scheme in Gaza'

As the conflict in Gaza stretched into its 11th day, Israel's ambassador in Washington called for international support for his country's effort against Hamas militants, describing the conflict as a purely military move on Israel's part, aimed at eliminating the group's capacity to shoot rockets into the southern part of the Jewish state.

Ambassador Sallai Meridor said the attack on Gaza was not part of a larger regional effort aimed at Iran—the largest state backer of Hamas—or other countries in the area hostile to Israel. "We have no grand political scheme in Gaza," he told an audience today at George Washington University.

Meridor said that Iran has regional power ambitions through proxies, like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. He recently told journalists that the country will have sufficient material for a nuclear weapon in 2009. Israel, meanwhile, has said it is willing to take military action alone, if necessary, to stop such an acquisition.

"We did not try to send a message, but given the fact that Hamas is so heavily connected to Iran . . . obviously an outcome for Hamas will have an impact on Iran," he said.

The conflict and the high Palestinian civilian death toll have sparked outrage around the world from Europe and Afghanistan to Iran, where hard-line student groups last week claimed to have registered thousands of volunteers for suicide attacks against Israel. The Iranian government has not responded to a message from the volunteers.

Meridor, meanwhile, brushed away questions about anger in the Muslim world, saying that nations should support the invasion and that Hamas was using the incitement of world opinion against Israeli actions as a tactic.

• Read more about why the conflict in Gaza broke out now.