An attack on Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons was not imminent, or even a foregone conclusion, but could nonetheless take place, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday, dpa reported.
"It's not a matter of days, or weeks, but it's also not a matter of years," he told Channel 2 Television.
Netanyahu's remarks come amid mounting speculation that Israel will launch a military strike against Iran to thwart its alleged nuclear weapons programme.
Israel regards Tehran's nuclear ambitions as an existential threat, especially against the backdrop of repeated remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.
Netanyahu stressed that Iran must not be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons.
"And I intend not to allow it," he said.
But at the same time, he did not dismiss attempts to use sanctions or diplomatic pressure to refrain Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, an approach advocated by President Barack Obama.
"I hope there won't be a war," Netanyahu said. "I hope that all the pressures on Iran will succeed, and Iran will decide, through peaceful means, to dismantle its nuclear programme."
"But against that," he added, "we know we cannot allow Iran to go nuclear, with nuclear weapons, because it's a destructive threat to Israel and, in my opinion, to the world."
Netanyahu said that if the threat was realised, there may not be a future Israeli generation to ask why Iran was not prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"Taking the decision (to stop Iran) is not the problem," he said.
"The main problem is to take the correct decision. If you don't take the decision, and didn't succeed in preventing it, to whom would you explain it? To historians? To the generations which came before us? To the generations which do not come after us?"
Netanyahu returned Wednesday from a visit to the US, where he met with Obama, and also addressed the America-Israel Public affairs Committee (APIAC) conference.
Halting Iran's nuclear ambitions was a central topic of his meeting with Obama, and the main focus of his speech to the APIAC delegates - leading observers to wonder whether he had already taken the decision to attack, despite US opposition to such a move.
An opinion poll published Thursday, however, found that most Israelis oppose a military strike against Iran if it were to involve their country operating without American backing.
Asked if Israel should attack Iran's nuclear sites alone, without US backing, 58 per cent said "no."
The poll, conducted by the Dialog Institute and commissioned by Haaretz, questioned 497 Israelis at the start of the week and had a margin of error of 4.4 per cent.
Another poll - the Tel Aviv University and Israel Democracy Institute Peace Index survey - found that fewer than 35 per cent of Israelis believe that the chances of an imminent Israeli military strike on Iran, without US help, are either "very high" or "moderately high."
By contrast, 56 per cent of those polled believe the chances of such an attack are either "moderate" or "very low."