When anti-Israel Richard Silverstein first posted his “Israeli attack on Iran memo scoop,” he posted an English translation of the Hebrew document “with the help of Dena Shunra” (a devoted reader of his).
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/08/15/bibis-secret-war-plan/
The Israeli attack will open with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders. The internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations—including underground missile bases at Khorramabad and Isfahan—will be taken out of action. The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal. This would be a Sisyphean task in light of cluster munitions which would be dropped, some time-delayed and some remote-activated through the use of a satellite signal.
A barrage of tens of ballistic missiles would be launched from Israel toward Iran. 300km ballistic missiles would be launched from Israeli submarines in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. The missiles would not be armed with unconventional warheads [WMD], but rather with high-explosive ordnance equipped with reinforced tips designed specially to penetrate hardened targets.
The missiles will strike their targets—some exploding above ground like those striking the nuclear reactor at Arak–which is intended to produce plutonium and tritium—and the nearby heavy water production facility; the nuclear fuel production facilities at Isfahan and facilities for enriching uranium-hexaflouride. Others would explode under-ground, as at the Fordo facility.
A barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles will pound command and control systems, research and development facilities, and the residences of senior personnel in the nuclear and missile development apparatus. Intelligence gathered over years will be utilized to completely decapitate Iran’s professional and command ranks in these fields.
After the first wave of attacks, which will be timed to the second, the “Blue and White” radar satellite, whose systems enable us to perform an evaluation of the level of damage done to the various targets, will pass over Iran. Only after rapidly decrypting the satellite’s data, will the information be transferred directly to war planes making their way covertly toward Iran. These IAF planes will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, not even revealed to our U.S. ally. This equipment will render Israeli aircraft invisible. Those Israeli war planes which participate in the attack will damage a short-list of targets which require further assault.
Among the targets approved for attack—Shihab 3 and Sejil ballistic missile silos, storage tanks for chemical components of rocket fuel, industrial facilities for producing missile control systems, centrifuge production plants and more.
While the above translation is written in future tense, the original Hebrew document later posted by Silverstein (which was subsequently shown to be almost identical to a Fresh forum post published days earlier) is written mostly in present tense, and not in future tense.
In other words, it looks like Silverstein’s translator Dena Shunra deliberately changed the tense to support Silverstein’s claim of the document being a future attack plan.
And there’s more.
This section of the Hebrew document
?????? ??? ?? ??? ?????? ???????, ??????? ??????? ????? ????????? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ????, ??? ?? ????? ???? ????? ????? ????”?
should be translated as follows:
“These IAF planes are armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, and not even revealed to Israel’s friends from the U.S.”
Dena Shunra translated this as follows:
These IAF planes will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, not even revealed to our U.S. ally.
In other words, she once again seems to have mistranslated the document to support the notion of it being an Israeli-created plan for a future attack on Iran.
Given what we now know about the origin of the document as a fantasy scenario, as well as Richard Silverstein’s and Dena Shunra‘s objectives, we can form our own conclusions about the reason for these anomalies.
Update: Meanwhile, Silverstein continues to insist the document is authentic – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary – based on the lack of any Israeli official denial.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/08/19/israeli-official-refuses-to-deny-authenticity-of-iran-attack-plan-document/
Amidst the barrage of hostility and derision here (in the comment threads) and elsewhere that greeted my publication of an Israeli government plan for an attack on Iran, I had one response which clinched my case that the document was genuine: no Israeli official had denied its authenticity. It turns out that while I was right in principle, an official had commented on the document. I didn’t discover this until tonight.
In other words, he is placing the burden of proof on the Israeli government to refute his ridiculous claim.
Furthermore, compare his statement above that “no Israeli official had denied its authenticity,” with this tweet of his from a few days ago:
MK Danny Danon interviewed by BBC on Iran war plan. He accepted document as authentic.But hasbarafia knows better!
— Tikun Olam (@richards1052) August 16, 2012
Once again, Silverstein is changing his story. There is a difference between actively accepting something as authentic, and not denying it’s authenticity.
