Iran’s interior minister on Wednesday accused U.S. spy agency the CIA of helping to fund “rioters,” stepping up accusations of Western involvement in street unrest following the country’s disputed election.

Only one in five Israeli Jews believes a nuclear-armed Iran would try to destroy Israel and most see life continuing as normal should their arch-foe get the bomb, an opinion poll published on Sunday found. The survey, commissioned by a Tel Aviv University think tank, appeared to challenge the argument of successive Israeli governments that Iran must be denied the means to make atomic weapons lest it threaten the existence of the Jewish state.

US propaganda against Iran is being disguised as ordinary news, says political activist Dr. William Wedin. He claims the US mainstream media intentionally depicts Iran as a war-like nation composed of mad mullahs.

President Obama won’t put an “artificial deadline” on Iran’s abandoning its nuclear weapons program but said Monday that the Islamic Republic’s obtaining a nuclear weapon would be not only a threat to Israel and the U.S. but would be “profoundly destabilizing” to the rest of the world.

A French weekly reported that Israel may be preparing its air force for possible attacks against Iran.

Israel has been steadily ratcheting up pressure on the United States concerning the grave threat allegedly posed by Iran, which seems poised to master the nuclear fuel cycle, and thus the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The new Israeli prime minister, Likud Party hawk Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned President Barack Obama that if Washington does not quickly find a way to shut down Iran’s nuclear program, Israel will. Some analysts argue that this is manufactured hysteria, not so much a reflection of genuine Israeli fears as a purposeful diversion from other looming difficulties. The Netanyahu government is filled with hardliners adamantly opposed to withdrawal from, or even a temporary freeze on, settlements in the occupied territories, not to mention to any acceptance of Palestinian statehood. On his first day as foreign minister, extremist demagogue Avigdor Lieberman, with characteristic bluster, announced that Israel was no longer bound by the 2007 Annapolis agreements brokered by Washington, which called for accelerated negotiations toward a two-state settlement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned against allowing Iran to become a nuclear power in some of his harshest rhetoric yet. In a report published Tuesday, The Atlantic says Netanyahu’s message was clear: If President Obama doesn’t act to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon, the Israelis may be forced to attack Iran and do it themselves.

The outspoken U.N. General Assembly president on Tuesday accused the United States of demonizing Iran’s president and criticized the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant for Sudan’s leader on war crimes charges in Darfur.