Would Israel go to all the trouble it has pumping up a death match with Iran, all in order to distract the world from its oppression of Palestinians? Avigdor Lieberman made precisely such a statement to Haaretz after his visit to the UN:
Lieberman said he met with Arab foreign ministers while at the United Nations last week and said they expressed their alarm over Iran’s nuclear program to him.
“Nobody is worried about the Palestinian problem, everybody in the Muslim and Arab world, and first and foremost in the Gulf states, are worried about the Iranian problem,” he said.
Would Israel risk bringing the Middle East to the brink of all-out war (in the event of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities) to ease pressure on it to negotiate with the Palestinians? It seems far-fetched. But Yvette said it, I didn’t. And it makes perfect sense if Bibi’s ultimate goal is the prevent a Palestinian state at all costs and delay the start of any negotiation process.
The effect of yesterday’s announcement that Iran has a second nuclear processing facility that may be designed to produce weapons grade uranium is yet another gift dropped into Bibi’s lap. The first was Obama’s announcement that he’d essentially thrown in the towel over the whole concept of a settlement freeze. If Bibi’s second goal after torpedoing final status negotiations with the Palestinians is also causing immense misery for Iran, this is his lucky week.
He’s calling for “punishing sanctions” against Iran. Do we remember what such draconian policy wrought on Iraq before Saddam’s demise? Did it cause his regime to crumble? No. What did it do? Killed hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children and elderly. And that’s what we can expect in Iran. So a people who saw its own children perish in the Holocaust will now eagerly bring similar privation on Iran’s young.
This is also an Iranian regime which Israel’s defense minister conceded last week does not pose an existential threat to Israel. In fact, Ehud Barak said that Israel, if it had to, could live with an Iran that possessed nuclear weapons. And why shouldn’t it? Have the Arab states lived with Israel as a nuclear state for decades? If they can do so why shouldn’t Israel be able to do the same? Pro-Israel advocates here argue that there is a qualitative difference between the two states. The mullahs are mad, willing to incinerate their nation in nuclear ash for the sake of annihilating Israel. Iran supposedly is a nation of religious fanatics. While Israel is a reasonable state wishing nothing more than peace with its neighbors and getting nothing less than incessant hatred in return.
Well, you’ll have to pardon us for taking issue with these characterizations. Iran is not the ogre the Israel lobby and Bibi make it out to be. Nor is Israel the bastion of enlightenment and reasoned discourse its advocates make it out to be. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Which is why Israel will likely have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran.
The only alternative would be a nuclear free Middle East with world powers guaranteeing the security of all the major states in the region, but especially Israel. I don’t see Israel giving up its nuclear weapons on any account. But if it wishes to retain them, then it can hardly expect the world to care when it screams bloody murder at Muslim states getting the bomb.
Iran “will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East.”
“everybody in the Muslim and Arab world, and first and foremost in the Gulf states, are worried about the Iranian problem,’ he said.”
I don’t believe that for a single moment. The guy is lying.
Yes, I found it interesting that he boasted about all the Arab foreign ministers he met. Which ones might actually be willing to meet with him?? I doubt any. Someone should’ve asked him to enumerate the specific ones he met with.
Me neither. What polling and the like that is usually done in the Arab World shows that they almost always view Israel as the prime threat.
‘So a people who saw its own children perish in the Holocaust will now eagerly bring similar privation on Iran’s young’
Richard, really, this is a bit much. Firstly, because Netanyahu doesn’t, and in fact can’t, speak for the Jewish people (and he definitely doesn’t represent me!).
Secondly because it’s not like there’s a slippery slope, or a gray line between
a) the deliberate, industrial scale, ideologically-charged attempt at the annihilation of a people
b) sanctions imposed by the international community.
the two are conceptually and factually distinct.
Your arguments are set in an idealised world where
i)Israel could be stripped of its nuclear capabilities, or
ii)the US doesn’t prefer having a democratic client state in a region vital to its strategic interests. [I don’t entirely buy the ‘we share values’ argument to explain the US-Israel relationship, and the “Israel lobby rules the world’ argument doesn’t quite cut it for me either].
Your post still leaves questions to be answered. Firstly,if sanctions were ineffective in the case of Iraq, then why is it inevitable that identical mistakes will be made now? Because omniscient Roger Cohen says so?
Secondly, is there any possibility that sanctions are not part of some conspiracy to bomb Iran (which is definitely not in the US interest), or is this simply an objective fact that Obama is unaware of?
Finally, if sanctions are intrinsically ineffective, what do you suggest should be done? Should Iran be allowed, or passively encouraged, to flout its obligations under the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty? And what kind of standard does that set for the future?
We can argue about whether in truth Bibi speaks for or represents the Jewish people. You & I both say no. But he says otherwise. In fact, in his Charlie Rose interview he made precisely this claim. The problem is that too many Jews and non-Jews accept this claim w/o examining the implications of it.
Read Cohen’s article if you haven’t. He suggests a broad negotiation bringing in all the major issues that divide & unite the parties thus giving Iran some reason to believe it will gain something by participating.
As for Iran’s relationship to NPT, can we both agree that it’s extremely ironic that Israel should be so concerned about Iran flouting NPT when it isn’t even a signatory. I’d feel a whole lot better about getting tough on Iran if there was some consistency in the process. If Israel joined NPT & abided by its inspection protocols, I’d be much happier demanding full compliance by Iran. All that being said, I’m very concerned about Iran developing nuclear weapons & want Obama to do all he can to resolve this issue short of that happening. But am I prepared in the final analysis for a major military confrontation that might delay Iran’s getting the bomb by a yr or 3? No.
[ed. Please don’t try to publish this sort of crap in the comment threads]