The strategic timetable for the next nine months is becoming increasingly clear. Israel's apparent plans to strike Iran this year are limited by one crucial date: November 6 - the day of the US presidential elections.

Although he wishes with all his heart for a Republican victory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is predicting the re-election of Barack Obama.

Shimon Peres has called for Iran and Israel not to live as enemies even as a website linked to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime called for "the final annihilation of Israel".

The Israeli president and Nobel laureate, at a speech marking the creation of the Knesset 63 years ago, said that the two countries "were not born enemies".

The round of sanctions against Iran decided upon by the United States and the European Union over the past couple of weeks is unprecedented, but Israeli leaders are still not convinced that they will be enough to force the Iranian regime to forsake its nuclear ambitions.

A day after EU leaders voted to approve a package of sanctions forbidding the purchase of Iranian oil and petrochemical produ

President Obama has reaffirmed his commitment to Israel and sent a warning signal to Iran in the final State of the Union address of his first term in office.

The president told America that the country's "ironclad commitment to Israel's security has meant the closest military co-operation" in history and vowed that he would consider every option to reign in Iran.

Israel and Britain have hailed the European Union for moving in the right direction after a new sanction on Iran was agreed.

The EU agreed on Monday morning to impose an oil embargo on Iran – one part of its wider challenge to Iran's nuclear programme.

The Tehran-backed channel, Press TV has had its UK licence revoked with immediate effect.

Broadcasting standards watchdog Ofcom said that in the course of correspondence and meetings in recent months with Press TV, it had not been satisfied that “the licensee had general control over which programmes and other services” were shown on the channel.

Israel is far away from making a decision about military action against Iran, the country's defence minister has declared.

Ehud Barak, in an interview with Army Radio, refused to make forecasts about when a plan to tackle Iran's nuclear programme might emerge.

"We don't have a decision to go forward with these things," he said. "The whole thing is very far away."

Abdol Hossein Sardari was not a household name for the Iranian Jewish community. Not until recently, that is. A newly published book, In the Lion's Shadow, reveals how he had helped thousands of Iranian Jews escape Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War.

At that time, Iran's ruler, Reza Shah, had economic and diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.

The Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, has attacked the behaviour of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said that he shares Western - and Israeli - concerns with the Iranians' nuclear project.

Speaking in his Ramallah headquarters, Prime Minister Fayyad said that the Palestinians were "greatly harmed" by the Iranian leader's conduct.

Iran is planning to begin uranium enrichment soon at a new subterranean facility, bringing forward the moment when Israel and the United States will have to decide whether to launch a military strike.

Meanwhile, the clandestine campaign against the nuclear programme continues. This week another Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran.

Britain and America reacted with fury at Israel's bombing of the Osirak nuclear site in 1981, questioning the threat it presented.

America's defence chiefs have adopted a belligerent new tone over the possibility of carrying out a military strike against Iran.

In an interview with CBS on Monday, Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta said that the Iranians are at a point in the their nuclear programme where they can develop a bomb in a year or less.