Dear America,
Bibi Netanyahu is the most dangerous man in the world. He is more of an obstacle to world peace than ISIL or Vladimir Putin. As prime minister of Israel, he has the most deleterious effect on that nation's future of any other politician anywhere. In fact, he is not only an obstacle to peace, he is a catalyst for conflict among nations, and he has established his dubious distinction in the clear sight of the entire world.
His purported fear is that Iran will get a nuclear weapon and do something with it...to Israel in particular. But that fear is questionable as is the moral validity of Israel's position as a nation, and Netanyahu's in particular, relative to the issue of Iran's nuclear plans, and it is so for two reasons. The first is the most obvious: if Iran launched a nuclear attack on probably any other nation, but on Israel for certain, there would be nuclear repercussions for Iran that would turn it into not just a pariah in international relations, but a radioactive one with millions fewer citizens and leaders imprisoned for war crimes. The use by Iran of a nuclear weapon would be so self-destructive that no one in his right mind, not even an Iranian politician, could possibly envision guiding his nation into doing so. The consequences of a nuclear attack by Iran would be so devastating and so immediate that it is rendered a virtually impossible prospect. Bibi and the Israeli people have nothing to worry about in that regard. The concept of "mutually assured destruction" is nothing new, and except for our own use of nuclear weapons before anyone else had any, such weapons have never been used in the context of international hostilities for that reason alone, and it obtains still, even when it comes to Iran where political moderation seems something of an oxymoron. But the second reason is the more compelling.
Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons, which it first tested in 1966, but Israel refuses to admit it. And though Israel has in fact made a unilateral commitment never to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the Middle East--a policy known as "nuclear ambiguity" or "nuclear opacity," the fact that Israel is a member of the "community" of nuclear nations is evidenced by the refusal of Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, if nothing else. And with all that as a predicate, it must be noted that, while Iran has never bombed Israel, in 1981 Israel did bomb Iran's neighbor, Iraq, with the stated purpose of destroying the nuclear facilities of a nascent Iraqi program to develop nuclear power generation, but more likely its own nuclear weapons program, at least according to Israel. And as to its respect for the sovereignty of other nations in the region, Israel has committed espionage against Iranian nuclear infrastructure used for production of the raw materials necessary for nuclear power generation, or bombs Israel assumed. And then, of course, there is the near continuous expansion of Israeli settlements in furtherance of its occupation of the West Bank of the Jordan River, which is inhabited primarily by Palestinians and is the most likely site of the Palestinian portion of the contemplated "two state solution" to the Palestinian problem. The international community of nations, including the United States, subscribes to the notion that the Palestinian people have a right to autonomy, and most national governments also subscribe to the two state solution as the most reasonable means of effecting such an advent. Until recently, that community of nations included Israel, but in the course of campaigning for his reelection last week, Netanyahu disavowed the creation of a Palestinian state, though he now is attempting to repudiate that position by parsing and equivocating about it. And now, though he is claiming that his opposition to the two state solution is only "at this time," no one believes him, and a reputation for something less than candor preceding him, thee is little likelihood that he can unravel the position he has taken and resume his posture of innocence and his claim of unjustified mistrust of Israel. There has been a fifty year long attempt to justify Israeli settlements as necessary for national security because Israel is only a few miles wide in that area, but no one has ever explained how increasing that narrow strip of land between northern and southern Israel would enhance Israel's capacity to defend itself.
But that theory has been tested twice. Israel managed to win the first such test, the 1967 Six Day War, and in what is called the Yom Kippur War of 1973, they managed to defend all they had conquered and to rout the combined forces of Egypt and Syria again, gaining even more territory, which they ultimately abandoned. Thus, Israel has demonstrated that the settlements are not necessary for self-defense, and further, that international law obliges Israel to withdraw from conquered territory as it has done in the past. But all that being said, there must be a safe Israel for the world's Jews to repair to, and the fate that international Jewry has suffered over the course of centuries makes that abundantly clear. That is why Netanyahu, who is really no more than an epigone of one of his rabidly nationalistic predecessors, Manachem Begin, is such a danger to the world. Just as in the case of the impending agreement between Iran and the rest of the world regarding nuclear weapons and technology, if the Israelis do not allow some form of conciliation with the rest of the nations in the Middle East in the form of a Palestinian nation, an Iranian accord, the withdrawal of West Bank settlements and some accommodation to the region regarding its own nuclear armaments, it is not peace that is guaranteed by recalcitrance. It is perpetual siege and menace. Netanyahu is the primary agent of internecine destruction of a region that is uniformly Semitic, albeit so variegated as to be a virtual cauldron of cultural animus. The solution to all of the problems of the region is more likely to be an alliance among wary parties than the erection of physical and political embankments between them, and Netanyahu will never see that. And as long as he leads his nation, the nation never will either. Israel is at the political and geographic center of the region, and if it is ever to eventuate, Israel will have to be at the center of the peace as well.
Your friend,
Mike
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