The new test of who's a good Jew
Two articles from Haaretz on Netanyahu’s wish to convince Americans that Iran is the greatest threat ever.
Supporters of the US protest against the Iran deal line Seventh Avenue during the ‘Stop Iran’ protest on Wednesday, July 22, 2015, near Times Square in New York. Charles Ellis “Chuck” Schumer is the senior United States Senator from New York and a member of the Democratic Party. Photo by Frank Franklin II, AP
Memo to U.S. Jews: Defend Israel, Support the Iran Deal
Dealing with Tehran is not a matter of ideology but rather carefully balanced probabilities. Israel’s current and former security chiefs know this.
By Carlo Strenger, Haaretz
August 26, 2015
Jewish Americans are going through a harrowing dilemma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling the nuclear deal with Iran a mistake of historical proportions. He has made opposing it the shibboleth of whether you are a good Jew and a true friend of Israel, or whether you let Barack Obama throw Israel under the bus. So Netanyahu keeps repeating it: By cranking up sanctions even more, a better deal with Iran can be reached, but Obama and the P5+1 group have been weak and defeatist.
Netanyahu’s tactic has created enormous problems. He has dealt further blows to Israel’s relations with the United States, created deep rifts in the U.S. Jewish community, and worst of all, he has turned the discussion into whether you are for Israel or against it. He has turned it into good versus evil: Care about the Jewish people or be willing to let them perish in the next Holocaust.
The shrillness of the debate has made many forget that dealing with Iran is not a matter of ideology but rather carefully balanced probabilities. Get the best deal under the given circumstances, and the best deal isn’t a matter of rhetoric but careful calculation.
This is my call to U.S. Jewry. Turning the Iran deal into a partisan issue is about as wrongheaded as checking your doctor’s political convictions rather than credentials and experience. This is why it’s best to listen to top Israeli security officials, who have both the professional competence and dedication to care about what serves Israel best.
U.S. Jews might therefore wonder: Why are there no prominent Israeli voices supporting the Iran deal? Well, the noise has drowned out the fact that a phalanx of security chiefs has publicly supported the deal.
Amos Yadlin, one of the phalanx of former heads of intelligence and security who support the Iran deal as the best available option. Photo by Alon Ron.
I’ll mention just a few. There’s former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, who heads a leading Israeli defence think tank — and who was one of the pilots who destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981. There’s Isaac Ben-Israel, a former weapons developments chief and current chairman of Israel’s space programme. And there’s Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel’s naval commandos and the Shin Bet security service, and Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad chief.
These men have spent most of their lives defending Israel; they are more competent than any politician to assess the security implications not only of the Iran deal but of the dire consequences of reneging on it.
Furthermore, as esteemed military analyst Amir Oren has reported in Haaretz, the majority of Israel’s serving military leaders disagree with Netanyahu’s position on the Iran deal. But as befits a democracy, officers in active service don’t take public positions. Senior security officials have expressed the same position to me on condition of anonymity.
The consensus on the Iran deal among security experts is very wide-ranging, and not only in Israel. I have just spent a number of days at the World Federation of Scientists’ annual meeting on planetary emergencies in Erice, Sicily, a group that I have been part of for 11 years. The Iran deal was discussed in depth, but not in the shrill tones of politicians trying to show how tough they are on Tehran. I heard experts who know the details of the deal to the last dot and have the intellectual tools to assess its viability.
Most prominent among them is Prof. Richard Garwin, one of the world’s leading nuclear scientists who with Edward Teller designed the first hydrogen bomb. Garwin, who has been an adviser to eight U.S. presidents on nuclear strategy, gave a presentation on the deal and came to a very clear conclusion: Under the current circumstances, this is as good a deal as we will get.
Let there be no mistake: Garwin has been dealing with situations in which humankind’s survival has been at stake; he by no means trusts the Iranian regime not to try to cheat. He gave very precise assessments on how the monitoring regime and the West’s technological means make it virtually impossible for Iran to surprise the West in the coming decade.
He has given me express permission to quote his speech, and I hope we will soon be able to upload it in its entirety. Let me add that Garwin is by no means a lone voice in this assessment but has been a leader of more than 70 nonproliferation experts who have endorsed the deal.
I have deep empathy for the plight of the U.S. Jewish community, which wants to stand by Israel in these difficult circumstances. Doing so means making up your own mind and not letting Netanyahu define for you what it means to be pro-Israel.
You should not forget that Israel’s security experts have no less an investment in Israel’s safety than Netanyahu, and that their expertise on the matter is superior to his. They have no political axes to grind but simply continue their work of keeping Israel secure. If all of them think the Iran deal is good for Israel, you can safely assume that it is and support it.
‘Don’t attack Iran!’ Protest against threatened Israeli strike on Iran, Tel Aviv, March 24, 2012. Photo by Hadar Cohen
Netanyahu Points Finger at Iranian Aggression and No One Cares – Except Israelis
Israelis seemed to be the sole audience receptive to the message that the recent attacks from Syria into Israel were backed by Iran.
Allison Kaplan Sommer, Haaretz
August 25, 2015
As the raging debate over the nuclear deal with Iran continued to dominate headlines in the United States, the recent exchange of fire on Israel’s northern border with Syria made little impact on the discussions – even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed an accusing finger at Iran for initiating the aggression.
For the thousands of Israelis vacationing in the northern Galilee and the Golan Heights, it was a different story. The familiar sounds of sirens and the thuds of landing rockets last week were an unwelcome reminder of last summer’s Gaza conflict. Nearly all of them, however, returned to their regularly scheduled activities – many in full view of the border with Syria, the source of the rocket fire. According to TV reports, almost none were shaken enough to head back home.
Still, Israelis seemed to be the sole audience receptive to the message that the attacks from Syria into Israel – the first deliberate fire from Syrian territory into Israel proper since 1973 – were the work of Iran.
Netanyahu sent that message in a fierce PR campaign to harness the attacks to its campaign against the Iran deal as pointed as Israel’s military retaliation immediately afterwards.
“Those countries that hasten to embrace Iran must realize that it was an Iranian commander who provided protection and direction for the cell that shot at Israel,” Netanyahu declared in a public statement. He also ordered a protest to be sent to the six countries behind the nuclear agreement with Iran that said the attack represented “another clear and blatant demonstration of Iran’s continued and unabating support and involvement in terrorist attacks against Israel and in the region.”
The fact that it took place before the deal had even been finalized “provided a clear indication of how Iran intends to continue pursue its destabilizing actions and policies as the international sanctions regime is withdrawn in the near future,” he said.
But the prime minister’s aggressive campaign against the attacks – for which Islamic Jihad publicly denied involvement, calling the Israeli charges “silly” – did not resonate beyond Israel’s borders. There were no high-profile condemnations of the attacks other than Israel’s, and certainly none that blamed Iran for them.
The exchanges of fire last Thursday took place took place on the very same day that United Kingdom said that it was reopening the British embassy in Tehran. Despite these events and Netanyahu’s message, the opening of the embassy on Sunday went forward as scheduled, unimpeded.
But Netanyahu’s campaign wasn’t completely in vain. The Israeli prime minister has little to worry about when it comes to domestic support for his distrust and opposition to the Iran deal – an overwhelming number of Israelis across the political spectrum agree with him and are deeply nervous over the anticipated consequences once it is approved. But he has been vulnerable to mounting criticism at home that the gloves-off battle against the Iran nuclear deal is irreparably damaging the U.S.-Israel relationship, transforming the security of Israel into a partisan issue and tearing apart American Jewry.
The exchange of fire on the northern border and Netanyahu’s strong message tying it to Iran helped recast him as the country’s protector and tamp down such criticism.
While it was an unvarnished diplomatic failure that Netanyahu should speak out so sharply about alleged Iranian aggression and the world does little about it, it was politically helpful. Inside Israel, his status consistently rises with the degree of fear that Israelis have about their future and the more they feel the world is lined up against him.
And so, at a time where new revelations have him being described as “weak” and “fearful” by his peers, and taking critical looks at his fourth government’s first 100 days, the heating up of the northern border paradoxically offered Netanyahu a political boost.
See also IDF kills Syrians to ‘prove’ Iran deal is wrong, August 23, 2015