JERUSALEM ( CNN ) -- An Israeli Cabinet member said the Jewish state `` will attack '' Iran if it does n't halt its efforts to develop nuclear weaponry , according to a newspaper report Friday . Shaul Mofaz is Israel 's main liaison with the United States on strategic issues . `` If Iran continues its program to develop nuclear weapons , we will attack it , '' Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz told Yediot Ahronot , Israel 's largest mass-circulation daily . `` The window of opportunity has closed . The sanctions are not effective . There will be no alternative but to attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear program . '' Mofaz 's threat is one of the most explicit made against the Islamic Republic of Iran by a member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert 's Cabinet . The threat is not without precedent . In 1981 , Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein 's regime . Israel also is reported to have targeted a Syrian reactor in September . It also has significant political resonance in Israel amid talk that Mofaz has begun jockeying to replace Olmert , who is embroiled in a corruption probe , as the ruling Kadima Party 's leader and prime minister . At least one Cabinet member , Defense Minister Ehud Barak , has called for Olmert to step down . Mofaz , Israel 's transport and road safety minister , is the main Israeli liaison with the United States on strategic issues , and his views on security have great import . He was born in Iran in 1948 and is a former defense minister , former armed forces chief and a member of Israel 's Security Cabinet . Mofaz was reiterating a prevailing view among Kadima officials and other Israeli politicians that international sanctions targeting Iran and its nuclear program are n't working . The West believes Iran 's aim is to build nuclear weapons , while Iran says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes . Asked how he responds to the harsh statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Rome that Israel should be wiped off the map , Mofaz said : `` He will disappear before Israel does . '' Yediot Ahronot on Friday published excerpts of an interview with Mofaz that is to appear in the paper 's Sunday holiday edition . The Jewish holiday of Shavuot is ushered in that evening . Mofaz 's remarks come a couple of days after Olmert said at a pro-Israeli conference in the United States that the `` Iranian threat must be stopped by all possible means . '' `` Israel and the United States have long understood the acute danger embodied in a nuclear Iran , and are working closely in a concerted , coordinated effort to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear . Israel will not tolerate the possibility of a nuclear Iran , and neither should any other country in the free world , '' Olmert said to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee convention . In April , Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said that `` an Iranian attack will lead to a harsh retaliation by Israel , which will lead to the destruction of the Iranian nation . '' CNN 's Kevin Flower contributed to this report .
International sanctions on Iran not effective , minister tells newspaper . Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz is possible candidate for prime minister . Israeli PM said earlier this week that `` Iranian threat must be stopped '' and the world should know it's a bluff.