Israel tries to cut off Tehran from world markets

Israel is launching a campaign to isolate Iran economically and to soften up world opinion for the option of a military strike aimed at crippling or delaying Tehran's uranium enrichment program. Pressure will be applied to major US pension funds to stop investment in about 70 companies that trade directly with Iran, and to international banks that trade with its oil sector, cutting off the country's access to hard currency. The aim is to isolate Tehran from the world markets in a campaign similar to that against South Africa at the height of apartheid. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be pursued in international courts for calling the Holocaust a myth and saying Israel should be wiped off the map. The case will be launched under the 1948 UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, which outlaws "direct and public incitement to genocide." Before flying to London to spearhead the mission to sell the sanctions, the Likud party leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: "A campaign to divest commercial investment from Iran, beginning with the large pension funds in the west... either stops Iran's nuclear program or it will pave the way for tougher actions. So it's no-lose for us." In December, the UN ordered a ban on the supply of materials that could contribute to Iran's nuclear and missile program, and an asset freeze on Iranian companies and individuals. But it stopped short of a full travel ban.