I heard Lebanese-Palestinian journalist Rami Khouri speak two weeks back in Cape Cod. Here he is with an eminently sensible column about Iran's nuclear threat, in which he acknowledges Israel's justifiable concern re nukes (Scott Ritter, after all, said that one nuke near Tel Aviv and the country is finished) but says that a diplomatic solution is possible:
allow Iran to generate nuclear energy without a bomb, especially if
coupled with improvements in bilateral US-Iranian ties. This should be
a doable diplomatic deal.
The wild card — and real concern for
Washington — is whether Israel would panic and unilaterally attack
Iran in coming months, plunging the region, and perhaps global energy
flows, into a catastrophe. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said in Washington last week that Iran could one day use nuclear weapons
against the United States and Europe, and not only against Israel. Such
Israeli hysteria and scaremongering are common in Washington, and
usually effective. But this is a rare case where US and Israeli threat
perceptions are not exactly the same. It will be important in coming
months to see if the Israeli or American view wins out in defining
American policy. [emphasis mine]
My takeaway from Khouri's column is that we need to hear Arab and Muslim views. Sending the third-highest State Department official to Geneva last month, Khouri says, gave the "the Iranians one of the things they covet dearly — sitting at the table with the United States as equals." Is this so awful? Khouri himself is an Arab journalist gaining entree in Washington, at the Wilson Center. We will only get out of the cycle of violence when more and more Arab and Muslim voices are heard. The world's just too small.
(Thanks to Rupa Shah for the tip.)
Preventing Arab and Muslim voices from being heard or from being taken seriously is the goal of a tremendous number of Israel advocacy and of Jewish communal organizations.
Followup: Subjugating American Muslims to Israel discusses possible involvement of the Israeli government in the effort.
There's nothing at all "justifiable" about the faked and trumped-up Israeli "concerns" about Iran's non-existent "nukes".
This is more of the usual efforts by Israel to monopolize the victim status, and portray itself as being threatened in order to justify its aggression.
It is IRAN that has a justifiable fear of WMDs. It was IRAN that was attacked with WMDS during the Iran-IRaq war, when the whole world sat silent as the US/EU provided chemical weapons to Saddam. It is IRAN that has been explicitly threatened with attacks – even nuclear first strikes. Israeli propagandists and lobbyists are pressuring the US to attack Iran even now.
So, who is the real threat to whom? Who refuses to declare their borders, espouses the creation of "Greater Israel" and has engaged in massive ethnic cleansing?
Stop empowering Israel by buying into the frame of Israel as the poor little underdog.
Israel would be extremely vulnerable to a nuclear weapon. Basically one fusion device centered on Tel Aviv (which has about 80% of the Jewish Israeli population) would probably kill and injure about 1/3 of them.
I do not blame Iran for this unpleasant position that Israel is in. Basically she made the decisions to
1) Make nuclear weapons part of the armaments in ME war.
2) Concentrated 80% of their population in a single blast zone.
If we didn't know better, one might think they have a suicidal wish.
Wow. Here we have an "Arab" carrying water for Israel's line about one Iranian nuke being an existential threat to Israel.
Are we supposed to be impressed by the horrible possibility of 1/3 of Israel being wiped out? Why that possibility exists as many nations, (including Russia,whom Israel seems willing to stick in the eye,) possess nukes. Here's a solution: Create a binational state where Muslims and Jews are equal and live so close together,that Iran would never attack. Ah, but for zionists, thats the same thing as suicide…
Now I ask you. Why should we continue to indulge these fanatics? Including Kouri-like games of Good cop- Bad cop..