In his role as propagator of the Israeli narrative for the American establishment, New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner recently wrote about Iranian nuclear plans in alarmist terms–"Memo from Jerusalem: Hoping Sanctions Work, But Readying Gas Masks":
Still, for all the agreement between Jerusalem and Washington, there remains a significant difference. It emerged last month when Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, was asked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy how cooperation was going between Israel and the United States on Iran.
“From America, when you look at a nuclear Iran, you already have, just besides allies like France and the U.K., a nuclear Russia, nuclear China, nuclear India, nuclear Pakistan,” he replied. “North Korea is going toward turning nuclear. So probably from this corner of the world, it doesn’t change the scene dramatically.
“From a closer distance, in Israel, it looks like a tipping point of the whole regional order.”
In other words, as a top Israeli official put it afterward: “For the Americans, Iran is a strategic threat. For us, it’s an existential one.”
But if you read Ehud Barak’s comments at WINEP on Iran, he didn’t say that Israel faces an existential threat; he says pretty flatly that Iran’s not going to use the bomb on a neighbor; "they have quite sophisticated decision-making process and they understand realities," Barak said. He said the chief threat was that Israel will face competition in the region from a rival hegemon. Also that nuclear proliferation means that terrorists will get the bomb in another half generation. (In Ynet today, Barak says the same thing: Iran is not an existential threat.)
The question arises: If this is the real threat, shouldn’t the US be far more worried about Pakistan than Iran? (Not to mention the realist benefits of a balance-of-power with militarist Israel.)
Barak elaborated the remarks the Times quoted in this fashion (emphasis mine):
A nuclear Iran means the end of any nonproliferation regime because Saudi Arabia and probably another two or three members of the Middle Eastern community will feel compelled to reach nuclear capability as well. And it will open the door for any third-grade dictator who has a nuclear ambition to understand that if he is strong enough mentally to defy any kind of threats from the world, he will reach nuclear military capability. I don’t think the Iranians have North Korea as their example – probably some certain example of how easy it could be to defy and deceive the whole world, but basically they probably think of themselves as another Pakistan and probably they started it totally independent from the issue of Israel.
But they gradually adopted us as a major cause for their hegemonic intentions and you have just to listen to what they have said, what Ahmadinejad has just said in public in Damascus; they are looking for a new Middle East, reminding me of Shimon Peres, but their new Middle East – (laughter) – new Middle East, according to Ahmadinejad and his host, is something that should be free of Zionists, free of colonialists. And once again they happen to develop not a Napoleon-style field artillery but nuclear weapons. And we cannot take it too easily and I propose to others not to take it too easily.It’s not just the end of any nonproliferation regime. I believe that it starts the countdown that was first kind of described by Professor Graham Allison of Harvard in his book “Nuclear Terrorism” that would lead, within another half a generation, to a crude nuclear device in the hands of some terrorist group. And those of you who are acquainted with nuclear
deterrence strategy, please start to think how, what shape can a multi-addresses deterrence against a nuclear attack with no address stamp on it, how can such a strategy might look? And you will realize how intensive, concrete and conclusive we should be in regard to this threat before it materializes. And it’s not just about hegemonic, nuclear capabilities. I don’t think that the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, they are going to drop it immediately on some neighbor. They fully understand what might follow. They are radicals but not total meshuganas. (Laughter.)
… [T]hey have quite sophisticated decision-making process and they understand realities. But it’s not just in the nuclear arena. It’s also in the hegemonic intentions: They might intimidate neighbors all around the Gulf. We might feel very quickly the tailwind that the radicals from al-Qaida to Islamic Jihad to all other Jaish, al-Nabi or whatever will feel, once Iran goes nuclear and what kind of impact it will be – it will have on the assertiveness and self-confidence of the radical players, not to mention the indirect capacity to influence the prices of oil at will.
Thanks to Jim Lobe for spotting this.
“He said the chief threat was that Israel will face competition in the region from a rival hegemon.”
Is that a quote, or a representation, or a speculation, or a misrepresentation?
Haaretz quoted Barak as saying that Iran was NOT an existential threat to Israel.
That wasn’t the full quote, Witty. Liar liar, pants on fire!
Does nuclear Iran have a right to exist? How about does nuclear Israel have a right to exist alone in the otherwise non-nuclear Middle East:
“DOES ISRAEL HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST ? Excellent Question and Response too:
Rights are inherent and inherently just, like the right to live with dignity and to be masters of one’s own fate. It is a human right not be persecuted and oppressed because you happen to belong to one religion and not another.
That Israel simply take property belonging to Palestinians is not a right. That is theft. That Israel cut off the movement of food, medicine and other basic goods to the Gaza strip, causing massive malnutrition, economic collapse and misery because Palestinians elected particular leaders is not a right. That is an affront to humanity. That Israel rain death from the skies on an already battered and starved Gaza, murdering over 3000 human beings and maiming thousands more in a single month is not a right. It’s a war crime. That Israel has employed every imperialistic tactic to subjugate, humiliate, break, and expel an entire nation of principally unarmed civilians because of their religion is not a right. It is a moral obscenity. That every Jew from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia be entitled to dual citizenship, one in their native country and one in Israel, while the rightful heirs to the land linger as refugees without citizenship anywhere is not a right. It is an outrage.
- Susan Abulhawa – Tuesday, 16 June 2009″
I hate to say it, Citizen, but I don’t think the Zionists would have treated the Palestinians very much differently even if the Palestinians were Jewish. If they were, they would have been the wrong type of Jew for the Zionists.
Just a hunch. Remember, even if the Palestinians were mostly Jews, they would have been “Arab Jews”. Could the fate of Zionism and the Jewish State have been safe in such backward hands?
If you read through the quote, it’s clear Barak was saying the route was from Iran to terrorists to Israel, possibly through some other country first, due to a Middle East arms race. With all those nukes all over, it’s clearly an existential threat to several countries, including Israel. Interpreting it otherwise is simply an error. That’s the lives of several dozens of millions of people under threat.
And, of course, Iran retains, and will retain and improve, it’s ballistic missiles, for a long, long time. This makes Iranian nuclear weapons a direct existential threat to several countries, held back only by the policies of the current leadership, according to Barak. Or maybe the nutty Ayatollahs will just launch. Want to bet your life? Want to bet millions of lives?
The Ayatollahs are actually more reasonable, smarter and more mentally balanced than any Israeli government. But, since you’re here to shill, reality means nothing to you. All you do is sit in Oakland California for all we know while you spread that horsemanure far and wide. Another case of projection. You seem to think that everyone else in the Middle East must be as dumb and violent as the Israeli leadership.
Persia is a civilization that is millennia old, yet you think you know better.
“With all those nukes all over, it’s clearly an existential threat to several countries, including Israel. Interpreting it otherwise is simply an error. That’s the lives of several dozens of millions of people under threat.”
Complete garbage. Iran has no nukes and is not producing nukes. Even Israeli leaders and generals state that Iran is no threat to Israel.
80% of Israelis believe a nuclear Iran is no threat.
“‘This makes Iranian nuclear weapons a direct existential threat to several countries, held back only by the policies of the current leadership, according to Barak. Or maybe the nutty Ayatollahs will just launch. Want to bet your life? Want to bet millions of lives? “‘
There are no Iranian nuclear weapons.
RE: “‘NYT’ says Barak called Iran an ‘existential threat’. He didn’t say that” – Weiss
SEE: The NYT Veers Necon, By Robert Parry, 02/28/10
Many American progressives don’t want to recognize how bad the U.S. mainstream news media has become. It’s easier to praise a few exceptions to the rule and to hope that some pendulum will swing than to undertake the challenging task of building a new and honest media infrastructure.
But the hard reality is that the U.S. news media is getting worse, with now both premier national newspapers – the New York Times and the Washington Post – decidedly sliding into the neocon camp, where the likes of the Wall Street Journal have long resided.
For the Post, this may already be an old story, given its enthusiastic cheerleading for the Iraq War. The Times, however, was a somewhat different story. Yes, it did let Judith Miller and other staff writers promote the fictions about Iraq’s WMD, but it hadn’t sunk to the depths of the Post.
That is now changing as the Times – behind executive editor Bill Keller and editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal – tosses aside all pretense of objectivity in the cause of seeking “regime change” in Iran, today’s top priority for the neoconservatives.
At Consortiumnews.com, we have noted this trend for some months, not only in the New York Times opinion section but in its news columns where Iran’s alleged interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon is trumpeted incessantly (despite its denial of such a desire), while rogue nuclear states in the region (such as Israel, Pakistan and India) are given a pass. [See, for example, “US Media Replays Iraq Fiasco in Iran.”]
This Sunday, the Times’ bias was on display again in the lead editorial entitled, “New Think and Old Weapons,” [ link to nytimes.com
] which purported to examine the state of nuclear weapons in the world.
Fitting with the Times’ deepening neocon tendencies, Iran’s nuclear weapons (even though they don’t exist) were a major topic, while the rogue nuclear states of Israel, Pakistan and India (which have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) weren’t mentioned.
So, you had formulations like this: “Iran, North Korea and others have seemingly unquenchable nuclear appetites” and the need to “bolster American credibility … to rein in Iran, North Korea and other proliferators.” In all, there were four such references to North Korea and Iran, but no specific references to Israel, Pakistan and India….
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to consortiumnews.com
Let history tell us who is threat to whom?
The leaders of the World Zionist Congress – which was established in Basel (Switzerland) on August 29, 1897 to campaign for the establishment of Eretz-Israel (Greater Israel) in Ottoman Palestine by applying every mean to populate the with European Jews – had realized the strategic importance of the Red Sea (which leads to Suez Cannal, Mediterranean and Dead Sea) being the only Sea route open to their land-locked Eretz-Israel dream. The proposed map of Eretz-Israel which was presented by Theodor Herzl (d. 1904) and wrote in his Diaries, vol. II, page 711: “The area of Jewish State stretches from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrate”. This map (shown at the bottom of this post) was also inscribed on Israel’s 10-agora coin, showing the Zionist entity stretching from “the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia and from Red Sea to Euphrate and upto Medinnah in Saudi Arabia.”.
Yemen, Red Sea and Israel
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com