27 November 2006
Kicking the Can Down the Road
In his article in the November 27, 2006, New Yorker, Seymour Hersh quotes an Israeli Knesset member, Ephraim Sneh, on the real threat of a nuclear Iran for Israel. In the Sneh’s view, it is just as harmful to Israel that a menacing Ahmadinejad-led Iran be believed to have the capability to develop a nuclear weapon as to have it demonstrate possession of a deliverable bomb. Even the potential that Iran might eventually wield a nuclear weapon vitiates the Zionist dream. A safe and secure homeland for Jews around the world depends on their confidence in the existence of that refuge, regardless of whether they actually live there.
Destruction of Iran’s potential to obtain a nuclear bomb, however, only kicks the can down the road. Certainly if Iran is prevented from achieving life-shaping power over Israelis, someone else in the region will ultimately be able to fill that role. After all, it must have been the objective of Israel to eliminate once and for all an Islamic nuclear threat when its air force bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in the ‘80s.
The basic cause of Israel’s precarious relations with its neighbors is the illegitimacy of its creation out of Palestine in the eyes of the Islamic world. Until that issue is resolved to the satisfaction of the Islamic Palestinian people, at the immediate expense of the Jewish state (but ultimately realizing a viable Zionist dream), Israel will not escape condemnation to life under the threat of extinction.
Perhaps that is a state of existence that suits Israel, just as a nihilistic view of society may be most consistent with Islam. The two cultures deserve each other – if only they could be confined to their own closed system. Unfortunately, the rest of the world must live with them, and has not left them alone either--on the one hand, persecution and inquisition; on the other, Crusades and hydrocarbon addiction. Moreover, the rest of the world has as much to lose from their unending conflict as they do. It is hard to put a price on resolving such a fundamental problem.
In his article in the November 27, 2006, New Yorker, Seymour Hersh quotes an Israeli Knesset member, Ephraim Sneh, on the real threat of a nuclear Iran for Israel. In the Sneh’s view, it is just as harmful to Israel that a menacing Ahmadinejad-led Iran be believed to have the capability to develop a nuclear weapon as to have it demonstrate possession of a deliverable bomb. Even the potential that Iran might eventually wield a nuclear weapon vitiates the Zionist dream. A safe and secure homeland for Jews around the world depends on their confidence in the existence of that refuge, regardless of whether they actually live there.
Destruction of Iran’s potential to obtain a nuclear bomb, however, only kicks the can down the road. Certainly if Iran is prevented from achieving life-shaping power over Israelis, someone else in the region will ultimately be able to fill that role. After all, it must have been the objective of Israel to eliminate once and for all an Islamic nuclear threat when its air force bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in the ‘80s.
The basic cause of Israel’s precarious relations with its neighbors is the illegitimacy of its creation out of Palestine in the eyes of the Islamic world. Until that issue is resolved to the satisfaction of the Islamic Palestinian people, at the immediate expense of the Jewish state (but ultimately realizing a viable Zionist dream), Israel will not escape condemnation to life under the threat of extinction.
Perhaps that is a state of existence that suits Israel, just as a nihilistic view of society may be most consistent with Islam. The two cultures deserve each other – if only they could be confined to their own closed system. Unfortunately, the rest of the world must live with them, and has not left them alone either--on the one hand, persecution and inquisition; on the other, Crusades and hydrocarbon addiction. Moreover, the rest of the world has as much to lose from their unending conflict as they do. It is hard to put a price on resolving such a fundamental problem.
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