Speaking yesterday at the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly (a tough crowd), Likud chairman and former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu used apocalyptic language to emphasise the threat posed by Iran, not only to Israel but to the entire world. "Everything else pales before this," he intoned gravely.
He also employed that ever so original tool of persuasion: a Holocaust analogy, stating,
"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs...Believe [Iranian President Ahmadinejad] and stop him...he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."
This is not the first time in recent days Ahmadinejad has been compared to Hitler. In an interview with the Washington Post, PM Olmert made the same analogy, adding that Ahmadinejad is "ready to commit crimes against humanity" and "has to be stopped".
Now, analogies to the Holocaust should not be made lightly, at least not without clarification. Likewise, comparisons to Hitler, whilst an unfortunately popular defamatory device, are usually misplaced and inaccurate. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a borderline Holocaust denier and he has made threats against the existence of Israel. But firstly, these threats have been abstract - he has made no direct call to arms or threat of war. Secondly, Ahmadinejad has no power under Iranian law over the nuclear programme or over matters of war. Of course all his talk about the "destruction" of Israel and questioning the Holocaust is disgusting, but it's done in order to increase his popularity with the people of Iran, not because he's actually planning a war. He is a show-figure and not in charge of policy in these matters. Thus, while convenient for Israel and the U.S., all this focus on Ahmadinejad is misleading. There is certainly no danger of a second Holocaust coming from Iran.
Israel, on the other hand, has been ratcheting up the rhetoric recently, making several very real military threats, both veiled and explicit, against Iran. In an interview published Saturday, Olmert pushed the international community to make clear to Iran that it will "pay dearly" if it doesn't stop its enrichment activities. "In other words," said Olmert, "Iran must start to fear." In the same interview, he described a nuclear Iran as "absolutely intolerable" and, when asked whether Israel would consider military action, Olmert refused to answer, saying only that, "Israel has many options."
Others have been more specific. On November 10, Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh warned that Israel must prevent Iran's nuclear programme "at all costs" (the "costs", presumably, being Iranian lives). He classified "preemptive military action" as a "last resort", before proclaiming that, "the last resort is sometimes the only resort". Not exactly what you'd call 'subtle'.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - International Zionist Consipiracy
International law is clear... that all attacks against Israel are justified, righteous, and morally unquestionable, and any activity of Israel to defend herself is beyond the pale, soulless, and a stain upon humanity.
International law requires the pre-emptive suicide of ever Jew anywhere in the world.
2 - Martin Lav
I hope you're prepared to answer the inevitables such as:
- their religion commands them to commit suicide so the normal deterence logic of two nuclear states don't apply
- Muslims are crazy and want to be martyrs
- They have stated publicly that Israel should be wiped off the map
Why is it that I never heard of Iran feeling threatened by the US and Israel before?
3 - Les Slater
Thanks for the article.
The U.S. has been ratcheting up threatening noises against Iran for some time now. It has never forgiven the Iranian people for overthrowing Washington's Shaw.
In much of the latter half of the 20th century the U.S. could rely on its junior imperialist partners of South Africa, Israel and Iran to do its dirty work in Africa and the Middle East.
The one left standing is unstable and in constant need to be attacking the peoples in its area.
Iraq was hoped to be a backup to Israel but that's not going so well and Iran is gaining influence.
Iran needs nuclear power to develop its economy. It would be absolutely stupid to depend on international supplies of fuel-grade uranium.
Neither the U.S. or Israel fear a first strike from Iran. What both fear is that someday Iran may be able to retaliate for a first strike against it.
4 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Les: You're most welcome :) As to why the U.S. is so deadset against a nuclear Iran, I think Martin van Crevald expresses it well:
IZC: No, that is not what international law states. You're just factually wrong.
Martin Lav: Well, I dealt with the third one in the article. I wouldn't even bother with the first two - this isn't about religion. Might aswell say deterrence doesn't work with America because Christians think that when they die they go to heaven, so they aren't that bothered.
As to why you haven't heard much about Iran feeling threatened: that's a good question. I guess it's because Israel's security needs are just much more important to the establishments of Western countries. The media therefore reports from that perspective.
5 - Les Slater
"...Washington's ability to threaten them or coerce them declined."
A corollary is that if they, especially the Soviet Union, did not develop the bomb, the one country that had already used them, would have been emboldened to use them further.
6 - RedTard
I am leftist. US evil. Anyone hate US must be good.
7 - RedTard
"Neither Stalin, Mao nor any of the rest set out to conquer the world"
Your little leftist folk heroes did manage to slaughter tens of millions of their own people though. A minor detail to you I'm sure, clearly outweighed by their greatness in standing up to the evil imperialist US.
8 - Les Slater
It's interesting to see most of the left and right leave their brains at the door when they discuss this subject.
The right seems to take pride in their jingoism. The left tries to sound a little more sophisticated.
The left takes aim at Bush and company and accuses them of 'wasting' effort in Iraq when the 'real' dangers are from Iran and North Korea. Where do you think they get these ideas?
It isn't that the left and right are biologically different, they just listen to a different set of leaders, but in neither case do they think.
9 - Clavos
Um, Jamie,
IZC: No, that is not what international law states. You're just factually wrong.
Ever heard of sarcasm?
10 - Dave Nalle
Yeah, yeah. Nations have no right of self defense, at least so long as they're full of Jews. Anyone else getting tired of this marginally racist crap?
Dave
11 - JoeC
The US overthrew a popular democratic Iranian government in 1953 and installed a dictator in its place.
Seeing how well that played out, shouldn't we start waiting until we're actually attacked before we bomb in the name of self defense?
Muslims may be crazy and want to be martyrs and commit suicide, but there's a bunch of evangelical Christians pouring money into Washington who want to see a middle east world war because they think that's got to happen in order for Christ's second coming to happen in their lifetime.
I honestly can't say which group is more frickin' nuts, but I'm pretty sure both Jesus and Mohammed would agree everybody misinterpreted the message.
12 - K
"Ever heard of sarcasm?"
What Martin Lav said was just plain stupid. There is a fine line between sarcasm and stupidity.
13 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Les,
I won't even answer the
idiotpaper waving moralist who wrote this - it's too laughable. I live here under the threat of Iranian attack. I know it is a real threat because all summer, we had to endure rocket attacks from Iran's local lapdogs, HizbAllah. Ande HizbAllah didn't check with the Geneva Convention before lobbing their reockets ovdr the fence. They went for the blood.So did we. We should have done a more vicious job. Thousands of Lebanese and tens of thousands of Syrians should have died. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians should have died. That would have given the bastards a clue as to whether they really wanted to live of not. The bastards don't deserve to live - there isn't room on this planet for both HizbAllah and us. They have to go. The same is true for Syria and Iran. The day will come when they both go.
Sound bloodthirsty? Fuckin' A Straight.
I am looking at this from a point of view of MY survival. In other words, I don't give a rat's ass if YOUR country survives or not - that's your problem.
From the point of view of MY survival, this country should have attacked Iran five years ago when the bastards were first masturbating over nuclear weapons. International law? I care about international law? I leave such worries to the high flying
ididotsmoralists like the author of this article. When I worry, I worry about G-d's law. Not your problem? That's cool.NOW THAT IRAN IS ACTUALLY POSING A THREAT, THE IDIOTS WHO LEAD MY COUNTRY ARE WORRYING. That is what worries me. The lackies who ru(i)n Israel rely on YOUR country for its survival. And YOUR country's leaders have been out to lunch for the last decade and a half.
This really hurts to say, but I miss Ronald Reagan. At least he had a moral compass. The schmucks who run your country now have no moral compass, and no morals - anbd no brains. And the schmucks who run my country rely on yours for their moral compass, their morals and their brains.
AND YOUR COUNTRY'S EMPEROR WANTS TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN. WHEN HE DOES, THE IRANIANS WILL LOB MISSILES AT US. ALL THIS IS BOTTOM LINE. All I can say is thank G-d I live in Samaria.
Feh!!
14 - Clavos
K #15,
Learn to read.
What Jamie (and then I) highlighted wasn't written by Martin. It was written in comment #1 by someone using the handle of International Zionist Conspiracy, who definitely was being sarcastic.
Next time, pay a little more attention before you grace us with your immortal prose.
Sheesh.
15 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
RedTard: "Your little leftist folk heroes did manage to slaughter tens of millions of their own people though."
They didn't do that using nuclear weapons though, did they?
Dave: "Yeah, yeah. Nations have no right of self defense, at least so long as they're full of Jews. Anyone else getting tired of this marginally racist crap?"
Is this sarcastic? See, Clavos, I can't tell any more.
JoeC: "I honestly can't say which group is more frickin' nuts, but I'm pretty sure both Jesus and Mohammed would agree everybody misinterpreted the message."
I agree, but I don't think we should look at it through a religious framework, though. If Irna is trying to get a nuclear weapon, it isn't doing so out of religious motives. Likewise, if Israel and the U.S. are planning to invade Iran, they aren't doing because of religion.
Ruvy: "I live here under the threat of Iranian attack."
Like Iranians have been living with the threat of an Israeli attack for decades. Does that grant the right of prevention? No. Presumably you wouldn't support an Iranian preventative strike on Jerusalem, killing "hundreds of thousands" of Israeli "bastards" who "don't deserve to live". Iran and Syria "have to go"? Wow, you're sounding a bit like old Ahmadinejad there...
"I don't give a rat's ass if YOUR country survives or not - that's your problem."
No, because we can either strive for a world where everyone abides by basic rules and values (laws) or one where, as you say, no-one gives a "rat's ass" about each others' survival. The former would lead to far more peace, security and justice for everybody.
"From the point of view of MY survival, this country should have attacked Iran five years ago when the bastards were first masturbating over nuclear weapons."
OK well look - if all you care about is your own short-term selfish needs, then I can't have a debate with you. Just like I couldn't have a debate with Stalin if he just stated outright that he doesn't care about anyone except himself - presumably he would dismiss my objections to mass murder as those of a "high-minded moralist".
"At least he had a moral compass."
Moral compass? Would that include his complicity in mass slaughter and torture in south America?
Oh no of course - you don't care about anyone except yourself and your interests. To give a "rat's ass" about some poor people in Nicaragua or Iran is being a "moralist".
16 - Les Slater
RedTard #7
"Your little leftist folk heroes..."
Whom are you refering to when you talk about Stalin and Mao being their 'folk heroes'?
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Boy Jamie,
You really show your ignorance. You may not know what a shofar is, but you are no different than the over-intellectualizing yids who twist facts into pretzels in order not to see the truth if it is too ugly for them. Your head is just as filled with gefilte fish as theirs is. If you don't know what gefilte fish is, go ask your elders. What I'll tell you is that even though it is made from scut (worthless) fish, it tastes good, especially if made fresh. But it is just an appetizer, not a meal.
Let's start with a few facts. Israel lives under the threat of Iranian attack - a real threat because the local cat's paw of the Iranians, HizbAllah, has already carried a rocket assault on this country that crippled the northern third of it.
UNTIL THE SHAH'S OVERTHROW, Israel and Iran were allies of sorts. And until Israel was actually threatened with extermination by Iran, the Israelis were most content to ignore the blusterings of the Islamic Republic. Israel had no bone to pick with Iran. Were it not for the intense desire of the Iranian regime to erase us from the map, we still wouldn't.
So the Iranians have not been living under the shadow of attack from Israel for two decades, no matter what the hyperventilating Shia mullahs may say, and no matter what you may believe in your own mind.
The Israeli government takes its marching orders from Washington. That is why it lost the last war in Lebanon. But I don't want to confuse you with things like strategy or grand strategy, not when your head is already too muddled with chapter and verse of the Geneva Convention.
You know, you really lost a lot by growing up in Britain and not here. You would have learned basic concepts that any schoolchild here understands, like "line of expectation," something one does not learn studying "international law."
But I digress.
The bottom line is that in lookig at all this I follow a basic injuction from the Talmud - another work you have no familiarity with.
Let's quote the operative phrase, so you comprehend it. 'Tisn't complicated at all. Even you should be able to understand it. It's a lot clearer than the Geneva Convention, I'll tell you that much.
"If a man approaches you and raises his hand to bless (or greet) you, bless (or greet) him first. If he raises his hand to kill you, kill him first."
Ahmadinejad, and all of his followers, Hamas and all of its followers, Al FataH and all of its followers, Al Qaeda and all of its followers, all have raised their hands with the clear intent of killing us. Solution? KILL THEM FIRST. Jewish leaders who understood the Talmud would do just this. They wouldn't need any explanations, or over-intellectualizing or Geneva Conventions. If the enemy flees, like over a bridge or something, don't shoot him in the back. Let him run. But don't let him back in either.
But when you have a government of unjews who take their marching orders from goyim overseas, what can you expect? Because of their treason against Israel, the local Arabs have no respect for us at all, and have lost all their fear of us. Because they have acted like bent backed yids, the Arabs, like sharks, smell blood. And they have drawn it, too. They have conducted what amounts to a continuous insurrection since 1988, and this government has refused to quell it with workable strategies.
In addition, our neighbors view us with contempt, laughing behind their sleeves. And since 2000, the contempt has turned open and bloody. The government continues to take its marching orders from Washington, and to a lesser degree from the EU. So Arab contempt grows as they see the government of Israel for what it is - a bunch of thieving yids barely better than the thieving assholes that oppress them, and less and less able to defend its own people, even though on paper, the IDF is the fourth strongest military in the world.
That is reality on the ground. No ideology and no morals to get in the way of trying to steal enough to run away wirh a big fat bank account when the end comes - just like the typical Arab despot.
That is what this country has sunk to. And anybody with eyes to see who is willing to look sees this. It is not a pleasant sight.
When you are willing to pull your nose out of the Geneva Convention and other texts of "international law" and look at reality for the ugly mess it is, let me know. Then we can discuss the rather interesting moral compass of Ronald Reagan. Remember what I wrote, "This really hurts to say, but I miss Ronald Reagan." Until George W. Bush made the guy look good, I thought he was America's worst president.
18 - Dave Nalle
Like Iranians have been living with the threat of an Israeli attack for decades.
Say what? The countries don't even border each other. They're under no more threat of Israeli attack than Venezuela is.
Dave
19 - Dave Nalle
BTW, your friend Crevald should change his name to Cretin if he thinks Stalin didn't set out to conquer the world. He may not have succeeded, but not for lack of trying.
Dave
20 - MAOZ
Ruvy, Dave, don't you guys understand? Of course Iran's been under threat from us for decades -- the sheer fact that we exist is threatening to them.
(Oh, and for anyone who might not have caught on: yes, that remark was intended as a species of sarcasm.)
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
BTW, I looked up the van Creveld link in comment #4. This was taken from an article written in The Forward which used to be a daily written in Yiddish and once had on its masthead "Workers of the World Unite - You have nothing to lose but your chains!"
For all that, Der Forvartz was not a communist paper but a socialist one which has become less and less socialist with time.
Van Creveld can think what he chooses to. Joseph Stalin had every intention of conquering the world - it's just that death got in the way. A purely technical problem, but one that Stalin could not overcome. Nevertheless any Russian Jew living here will tell you this and will point out that while Stalin did intend to conquer the world, his successors didn't.
22 - Les Slater
Dave and Ruvy on Stalin setting out to conquer the world is pure nonsense.
The new Soviet Republic under Lenin set up the 3rd, or Communist, International in 1919. Its aim was to unite the struggles of the world under the banner of Communism.
After Lenin's death in 1924, the failures of the German revolution, the general downturn in revolutionary struggles, the great destruction of the economy by the civil war, including the deaths of most of the consciously advanced workers, the Party began to consolidate and turn conservative. Many were tired.
By the end of the 20s, Stalin had consolidated power. He proclaimed the building of 'socialism in one country'.
After the German's defeat in WWII much of Europe was in chaos. The most prominent leaders left were those of the organizers of the underground resistance. Most were communist.
In some countries the revolutionary upsurge under those leaderships had gone too far and the status of the countries were recognized as overturning capitalism and accepted.
In other countries such as Italy and France, the taking of power by revolutionary forces was very possible. Stalin ordered them to back off.
23 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Ruvy: You are correct that I am unfamiliar with the Talmud. You can read your ancient texts all you like; what matters objectively is international law. Just like if I came and tried to argue with you using as a basis my (hypothetical) religion which says "never attack anyone ever even in self-defence", you wouldn't be very impressed.
Dave: Since the Islamic Revolution, Israel (and the U.S.) have been openly hostile to Iran. This, together with Israel's unregulated nuclear weaponry and history of aggression, poses a far more credible threat to Iran than Iran, because of a few nutjob statements by its President, does to Israel. What do borders have to do with anything?
24 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"This, together with Israel's unregulated nuclear weaponry and history of aggression, poses a far more credible threat to Iran than Iran, because of a few nutjob statements by its President, does to Israel."
Jamie, take that statement around to the north of the country which suffered civilian casualties as a result of HizbAllah, and bruit it about some. Take it to the parents and wives of the soldiers who died fighting. I'd like to see how many teeth you had left in your mouth when you returned to Heathrow with your tail between your legs.
25 - Martin Lav
"What Martin Lav said was just plain stupid. There is a fine line between sarcasm and stupidity."
You are correct it is plain stupid.
Jamie: I was speaking for myself, I was asking if you were prepared to defend these kinds of comments, which of course you knew were coming.
It's funny, when I lived in Tehran in the 1970's my landlord and neighbor was an Iranian Jew. His son, whom I used to play futbol with served in the Iranian army. I don't recall anyone threatening them or any feeling of animosity. Of course I did hear a lot about the Shah's secret police Savak, which most people feared, so maybe these Jews were protected. I dunno, but they certainly didn't seem like the rabid paranoid inhabitants of Israel.