On Saturday I posted on AEI's Danielle Pletka surprising admission that a nuclear armed Iran's threat to Israel wasn't that it would launch an attack but rather that it could upset the "balance of power" in the region. Mark Wauck responded to the post by emailing me a useful article, The Root of All Fears: Why is Israel so Afraid of Iranian Nukes, by Ariel Ilan Roth, published by the Council in Foreign Relations two years ago; and Roth came to the same conclusion:
Iran needs only to possess nuclear weapons, not to use them, in order to further enhance its international prestige and force adversaries to take it seriously. Likewise, the deterrent power of an unused nuclear capability would allow the regime to spread its ideology without the constant worry of regime change imposed from abroad.
But along the way Roth convincingly breaks down all the reasons Iran is unlikely to initiate an attack on Israel. But fear of attack is not why Israel is so obsessed with Iran. The reason it pressures for an attack is to prop up 'national morale' because Israelis believe that their own safety is dependent on an iron wall. "Most Israelis believe the key to enduring peace in the Middle East is convincing Israel’s adversaries that ejecting Israel through force is an impossible task not worth pursuing." An Iranian nuke would shatter any 'perception of invincibility' Israel has continually relied upon.
In a follow up email Wauck articulates:
Unstated in Roth's article are a number of important factors. Of especial importance is the changing nature of Israeli society itself. Every day brings new news of settler excesses, of the ever growing influence of religious fundamentalism, of the constant brain drain of Israel's creative secular elite, who no longer feel at home in Israel.
These mean that the Netanyahu regime--and every Israeli government--finds itself increasingly in a bind. Military invincibility is essentially insured, but the pressure of living in a hostile Middle East is taking its toll on the national morale of Israelis, and especially on the segment of its population that is necessary for Israel's continued economic health. It's my belief that part of the drive to eliminate even the appearance of an Iranian challenge--however slight--to total Israeli regional hegemony is the desire to reassure Israelis of their security in perpetuity. But societal change is undermining even this hope.
Roth sees a strike against Iran as only a temporary solution--what Israel needs is a rethinking of its future and a new strategy to break out of the dead end of gradual but ever increasing isolation:
The possibility that Israel may no longer be capable of forcing peace upon those who deny its right to exist is beginning to dawn on many Israelis. Whether Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or not, the time has come for Israel’s defense community to develop a strategic doctrine for long-term coexistence that does not rely on a posture of invincibility.But what could such a new strategic doctrine for long-term coexistence be? Coexistence must begin at home, with the Palestinians, but with the growing strength of fundamentalism such a development is increasingly unlikely.
And so, I believe, there is an increasing possibility that an Israeli government might take a desperate gamble, risk a bold military stroke that it hoped could somehow break the deadlock and force peace on a reluctant Middle East. This may be what Roth is hinting at in his final paragraph:
But, given that widespread Arab acceptance of Israel’s right to exist does not appear to be on the horizon, most Israelis, including the current prime minister, insist that Israel’s most urgent strategic objective is to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Doing so would temporarily remove the threat of a regional nuclear cascade and maintain Israel’s superiority of arms. More important, it would hold at bay the suspicion that Israel may never attain true peace. This increasingly widespread fear has a toxic effect on national morale, is an existential threat to the Jewish state, and lies at the root of Israel’s obsession with the Iranian bomb.Notice that this has little or nothing to do with an existential threat to Israel in a military sense. Rather, it has much more to do with an existential crisis inherent in the entire Zionist project, the inability to ever attain a nebulous "true peace." "
I think some Israeli leaders at least also see a regional war as an opportunity to conduct some ethnic cleansing and thus to solve their Palestinian problem.
“And so, I believe, there is an increasing possibility that an Israeli government might take a desperate gamble, risk a bold military stroke that it hoped could somehow break the deadlock and force peace on a reluctant Middle East”
They bet the American house on black in Iraq.
2 trillion dollars and it turned out red.
Now it’s doubles or quits.
If the house wins again the Jewish state will be forfeited.
yeah, i agree seafoid.
the time has come for Israel’s defense community to develop a strategic doctrine for long-term coexistence that does not rely on a posture of invincibility
the time came a long time ago, even before this article was written in 09. it’s even more dire today.
there were half a dozen ways the Peter Beinart video was revealing and important.
One was Firestone’s exhortation that young American Jews come to “love” Israel not by becoming “infatuated” with Israel’s beaches but by developing a “loving” relationship after interacting with Israel’s soldiers!
The revelation as I interpreted it, is that Israel is a militarized society not just operationally but ideologically and spiritually.
Jabotinsky has prevailed, but then, militarization was Herzl’s vision as well. Herzl’s closed “Der Judenstaat” with the battle cry, “The Maccabees will rise again.” For 100 years, and millions of lives, Jews have been re-fighting a war that a few deluded and ultimately suicidal rebels fought and lost over 2000 years ago.
Jabotinsky won but Buber was right.
Maccabees were not deluded zealots, but they actually won and made a dynasty. Do not confuse them with Zealots (capital Z) of Massada.
Force peace on the Middle East? That’s never been what Israel desired Annie. Peace would mean an end to Israeli expasionism, which ISrael have only been able to get away with under the false pretext of being in a state of war.
“most Israelis, including the current prime minister, insist that Israel’s most urgent strategic objective is to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.”
And much more to do with the fact that Israelis and Netanyahu, obviously, do not understand a strategic objective and how its consequences determine the future, not the objective. But then, they’ve only had 63 years of practice and refuse repeatedly to acknowledge history. Or reality.
yeah I have long thought that Israel is incapable of any real long term thining
Zionism works dunum by dunum. You build a fort. You build another fort. you are patient. The Arabs lose. they give up. They leave. You build another fort. And so on
Zionism is rotten with systemic risk. What happens if the basic assumptions are dud?
Israelis and Netanyahu, obviously, do not understand a strategic objective and how its consequences determine the future, not the objective.
a little disclosure. originally i had merged this article with the one up today about the ‘captured’ stealth bomber: link to mondoweiss.net
fortunately other minds prevailed and the stealth got an article all on it’s own, which it deserved. but lost in the mix was a scrap of text which i was reminded of when i read your comment mrw. so here it is:
Israel hasn’t got a hope in hell of turning Iran away from a nuclear defence. The Taliban are a crowd of illiterate peasants who cost the US $100bn in Afghanistan per year. That means with all that fancy drone shit the US can’t beat a crowd of illiterate farmers. Israelis venerate technology as much as dumb Americans do but they have nothing to offer the Persians and they don’t have a spare 300,000 soldiers for any 2 year long “surge” that becomes necessary.
There was an article in Ha’aretz a few years back on a similar theme, but this time on the subject of Hizbullah, and why it is dangerous to Israel. It was based on an analysis by Daniel Sobelman of Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, who found that Hizbullah’s firing missiles into Israel was neither random nor unprovoked nor unrestrained, but was carried out specifically in response to actions Israel carried out against sovereign Lebanese territory, like assassinations and overflights.
[A] new study showed that the firing of the antiaircraft missiles was not random, but came as a response to the IAF’s violation of Lebanese airspace. “A comparison of IAF flight data with the data on the firing of the antiaircraft missiles shows a direct relationship between the violations and the firing,” wrote Daniel Sobelman of Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.
Sobelman studied Hezbollah activities over the past four years and concluded that the Shi’ite organization actually wants to preserve the status quo created in the north after the IDF’s departure from Lebanon. He found a clear contradiction between Hezbollah’s declared ideology, which calls for the destruction of Israel, and the restrained policy that it actually implements, which is based on rules of behavior that have crystalized between it and Israel.
These rules are the name of the game, according to Sobelman, and Hezbollah follows them. The most important rule is “action-reaction,” that is, Hezbollah responds to Israel’s “aggressive acts.” Among these are overflights of Lebanese territory, border crossings into Lebanon by IDF troops or targeted killings of the organization’s members in Beirut…
Apparently, as difficult as it is, Israel’s policy makers must come to terms with the creation of a balance of fear and deterrence with regard to Hezbollah. It is not easy to admit that an organization numbering only a few hundred fighters can deter the country with “the strongest army in the Middle East,” but it should always be remembered that Hezbollah is Israel’s creation, and the daily occurences (sic) in the north are, among other things, the result of myopia on the part of Israel’s senior defense officials. This is especially important these days as we recall that Hamas was also established under Israel’s aegis and with its encouragement.
Hezbollah plays by the rules
And that was why Hizbullah was so threatening to Israel: it wasn’t a military danger to Israel in the sense it was going to invade and overrun it, but in the sense that it took away Israel’s ability to do whatever it liked without having to worry about the consequences. For the first time ever, Israel found itself facing an enemy practicing deterrence against it. And a nuclear armed Iran will be able to do the same thing.
The article you quit was published in 2004. Unfortunately subsequent events proved the author wrong. On 12 July 2006 hizballa carried out a provoked raid on an israeli patrol operating inside israeli territory killing 5 soldiers and hijacking the bodies of 2. it must be pointed out that this was the culmination of a sustained effort by hizballah to attack and hijack IDF soldiers. Based on the authors own logics this can be presented as obvious indication that hizbaala does not “play by the rules”‘ and neither does iran.
benedict,
How many times do we have to dissect the beginning, the middle and the end of the 2006 war?!
Hundreds of Lebanese kidnapped by israel actually died in captivity and their bodies held by the idf until 2004 when germany successfully negotiated body-swaps between them. Many other Lebanese hostages were still held in israeli jails after this swap, rotting there for years without trial etc. Hizbollah’s attack on the israeli soldiers in 2006 was a REACTION to this unconscionable israeli crime. That was THE purpose of this attack on the idf and also note that hizbollah DIDN’T ATTACK ISRAELI CIVILIANS, but the idf itself.
Israel NEVER plays by gentile rules and you know it.
Israel’s god is the god of Thomas Aquinas, the Uncaused Cause. Israel NEVER, EVER does anything that causes reactions. It’s always a bolt out of the blue, motivated by sheer evil or magic or something — the Goldhagen thesis — that people
who have been oppressed by Israeleventually get fed up andreact.yeah mother, they ALWAYS are only responding. i was just commenting about that over @ davids gaza wapo article. it drives me nuts how journalists always defer to this meme. what bs.
Important thing not mentioned is Israel’s need to keep itself as the US’s “only real ally”.
If the US had normal relations with states like Iran in particular–as in even talking to them –it would make Israel’s claims as an asset to the US even more non existant.
Walt covered this well in “The Israel Lobby” with evidenced examples of Israel’s deliberate covert and overt torpedoing of US efforts to establish diplomatic ties and relations with many ME states.
Every FP realist will say the US has more to gain by a relationship with Iran, with their regional influence and strategic location, than Israel could ever offer. The very fact that the benefits of a US agreement with Iran are so obvious is what makes it even more of a target for Israel.
“The reason it pressures for an attack is to prop up ‘national morale’ because Israelis believe that their own safety is dependent on an iron wall. ”
Do you really believe what you write? Or do you simply refract everything through your blinders to reach your predetermined conclusions?
Are you capable of acknowledging that there is an argument that Israel does face a threat from Iran that might influence their thinking on this issue?
Do you really think that Israel is going launch an attack on Iran because of national morale? Israelis have plenty of national morale.
And it is nonsense to argue that Israel’s invincibility drives their Iran rhetoric. Why would Israel take this threat seriously if they believed they were invincible? It would be exactly the opposite. It is precisely Israel’s vulnerability in a hostile region that drives its thinking.
Israel perceives a threat from Iran. Iran uses its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, to threaten Israel. (That’s a casus belli alone.)
A nuclear Iran would embolden them to attack not settlements or occupied territories, but Israel proper, the North through Hezbollah, the South through Hamas.
And yes, as the Saudis, the Americans, and the Europeans have all said time and again, a nuclear Iran would upset the balance of power in the region and likely set off an arms race.
>> And yes, as the Saudis, the Americans, and the Europeans have all said time and again, a nuclear Iran would upset the balance of power in the region and likely set off an arms race.
And who would have started the arms race? –N49.
Thanks Hop, for that superb display of monumental stupidity and lack of analysis. Did the US doubt it’s invincibility when it manufactures the Iraq threat and attacked it?
Has it not occured to your Zionist brain that militaristic states are driven by the need to go out in search of enemies to maintain their permanent state of siege and justify their aggression?
Was it
More intellectual flatulence. How would nukes possibly change the status quo? Nukes in Iran’s hands would not make one iota of difference to Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s military capabilities.
No Hop, the leaders of SA have said that, but the majority of the Arab world believes nukes in the hands of Iran would be good for the region.
The arms race was started by the Israelis and the US, who looks for any excuse to sell arms the the despots in the region.
“proxies” = lies
Iran may support and fund Hezbollah and Hamas and ultimately this is meaningless
A nuclear Iran would only be a deterrent to Israel. Period. Arms race my arse. Check mate
there is no valid argument that Iran is a threat. just because an argument exist doesn’t mean it is a good one.
you fail to understand. it is not tha they think they are invincible its if preception that they are which he is talking about. and another state having nukes ends Israel’s ability to have other believe that no matter what they will win. though Israel does have a supierority complex steming from the fact they have never been at a total disadvantage ever in any conflict they have fought in.
good damn that’s crazy. believing there is a threat is not grounds for cassus belli. if that were true you would have to admit the palestinians had a right to defend them selves against zionist aggression since at least the 1920′s which you don’t. no for you to have cause for war their has to be a provable valid threat which Iran does pose. and hell by your own logic you make the case for to not only Iran to pursue nukes but actually use them on Israel because of the grave threat Israel poses to Iran
pjdude-
re: good damn that’s crazy. believing there is a threat is not grounds for cassus belli. if that were true you would have to admit the palestinians had a right to defend them selves against zionist aggression since at least the 1920′s which you don’t. no for you to have cause for war their has to be a provable valid threat which Iran does pose. and hell by your own logic you make the case for to not only Iran to pursue nukes but actually use them on Israel because of the grave threat Israel poses to Iran
That’s one of the things that was fascinating about a letter to the editor in the Akron Beacon Journal, concerning the situation after Julio Pino shouted “Death to Israel” when CAMERA supported a speech by Khalid on the Kent State campus, and Akron U. professor Walter Hixson responded to the clamor with an op-ed calling on Israel to “face up to its past.”
Try to find/follow the logic in that letter writer’s argument–
“A nuclear Iran would embolden them to attack not settlements or occupied territories, but Israel proper, the North through Hezbollah, the South through Hamas.”
And our proxies like MEK and Baluchis will invade and take Tehran. Each scenarion is equally possible (which means, not possible).
Nukes allow to commit some minor shit and get away with it. E.g. assuming that Indians are correct that ISI orchestrated attacks in Mumbai, Pakistan got away with it. But it does not mean that it can invade India and take over Kashmir, however fervently it would wish to do it.
Actually, the whole deterrence and “agressive posture” potential of Iran is based on
a) a conventional missile program
b) access to very strategic location including, but not limited to, Strait of Hormuz.
Nukes are unusable, but the threat over Hormuz is very much usable. Nuclear program has wholly peaceful application IMHO:
i) grandstanding; as an imperfect democracy, Iran needs grandstanding to secure loyalty of a key segment of the population (and so does Israel, by the way)
ii) trap for USA and Israel; a real program is perhaps easy to attack, but a creature of fog, mirages and sleight of hand, everywhere and nowhere, try to destroy that!
Finally, who is this “Balance of Power” that is so easy to upset? A comely but high-strung girl? “Do not upset her! You are saying all those vile things, she will cry in a moment!”
Hopmi, it feels there is a slight contradiction in your argument, which gives me the impression your challenge of Annie is basically a projection: she has blinders
I am no expert but: Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia from the early iron wall perspective were part of Israel’s peripheral pact, a security belt around it’s hostile Arab neighbors, based on the perceived vulnerability at the time?
Enlighten me about my, Annie’s or Avi Shlaim’s blinders by letting us know at what point Israel dropped it’s Iron Wall Strategy. It was meant to be dropped at one point after all.
The primary threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is not to Israel.
That should have been established by a few dozen articles and comments.
The main threat of a nuclear-armed Iran is in change in relations between all parties in the region and Iran. With a nuclear weapon, Iran has a yes/no veto power on all developments in the region, and a way to step up its threat in the event of military or near-military conflict.
In a word, it will have the ability to throw its weight around, where it didn’t before.
That is relevant to relations with its immediate neighbors: China, Pakistan, Persian Gulf states including Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
It escalates its power over the Straits of Hormuz enormously.
Relative to Israel, its role is not as direct relationship, but in vetoing any improvement in relations between Israel and the Arab world, and in exercising very suppressive backup defense (to Israel) of Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas and other Gazan factions.
In that respect, Iran would be butting into politics 800 miles from its border, in very broad self-definition of its moral responsibilities/empire.
Does anybody else hear a lot of muttering?
actually Mooser, that muttering of Witty’s was so atypically lucid that I figured somebody had stolen RW’s id.
“that I figured somebody had stolen RW’s id”
Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, teta. Rw’s id seems to be going strong. And he seems to have a super ego, just super.
In other words, the fact that Iran nukes would serve as a deterrant against an attack is considerd a theat in the eyes of war obsessed Likudniks like yourself.
You mean like Israel does? Shock horror. Imagine anyone but Israel behaving like that?
Only insofar as it would eliminate the option to attack Iran, which I know is an option would would hate to see go to waste.
Iran does not need nukes to ex ercise power over the Straits of Hormuz.
When you say improvement in relations between Israel and the Arab world , you mean is lessens the capacity to which Israel can maintain and assert is dominance.
Wow, imagine that!! A country butting into politics 800 miles from its border!! Say Witty, what US territory lies 800 miles from the Middle East?
BUT, as Danielle Pletka conceded, Iran would likely NOT behave like that, which is the REAL threat to Israel: Israel would be revealed for all the world to see as the lying entity that it is. Fit meet Shan.
Witty, WTF? Seriously, everybody has nukes except the ‘enemies’ of ‘Israel’ (LOL!!! … “Israel”…. HAHAHA… What is an “Israel” anyways? Non-existent, that’s what! Zionism is a lie, if you are Zionist you may as well worship the devil)
I welcome a nuclear Iran. I prey to you G-d that Iran obtains nukes just to LOL and play chess with *”Israel”
* Israel in reality does not exist, it is called Palestine in rational reality
I should add a few more points Annie.
The myth of Israel’s invincibility was ended in 2006 with their defeat at hands of Hezbollah. Washington established from that day forward that Israel’s military is little more than a gang of cowards bloated with military hardware that has compensated for their inadequacies.
When it comes to Iran, Israel know they don’t have a hope in hell of pulling it off on their own. All the bluster about a hail Mary attack on Iran is based on the assumption the the US and the UK will be there to finish what Tel Aviv has started.
For my part, I believe that the present Israeli “obsession” about the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon is, to a great extent, a smokescreen to divert world attention from its real concerns – the continuation of the “status quo” of settlement building and the denial of a Palestinian state.
I strongly doubt that any reasonably well-informed Israeli really believes that Iran would ensure its own annihilation with a nuclear attack on Israel.
Taken to its extreme, this would mean that with an attack on Iran the Israeli leadership would be willing to accept the massive world-wide economic disruption and the Israeli deaths and destruction from the resultant retaliation in order to maintain the “status quo” for a few more years.
RE: “most Israelis, including the current prime minister, insist that Israel’s most urgent strategic objective is to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Doing so would temporarily remove the threat of a regional nuclear cascade and maintain Israel’s superiority of arms.” ~ Annie Robbins
NOT NECESSARILY SO: Fmr Saudi Intel Chief: It Is ‘Our Duty’ To Consider Obtaining Nuclear Weapons, By Ben Armbruster, Think Progress, 12/06/11
SOURCE – link to thinkprogress.org
REUTERS ARTICLE – link to af.reuters.com
Annie-
We have already seen what repressive regimes are capable of doing once they feel that there backs are to the wall (Syria, libya). A fundamentalist theocratic regime such as iran is inherently unstable. How do you think a nuclear armed fundamentalist regime will react once it is backed in to a corner.? I think that alone is a reason to appose a nuclear iran.
“there backs are to the wall (Syria, libya) ” [sic] — that’s a favorite phrase used by Benny Morris, isn’t it? It resonates because in the summer of 2008 Morris took his revision of his book on 1948 on a speaking tour of the US, explaining that, in 1948, Jews in Palestine killed 5-10-15 times more innocent civilian Arabs than Arabs killed Jews because Jews felt “their backs were to the wall.”
Shortly after Morris’s speaking tour, then-candidate Barack Obama spoke before a Town Hall in Davenport, Iowa. Making the obligatory genuflection to Israel, he said, “we must ensure Israel’s security because ‘they feel their backs are to the wall.’ ”
(Here’s what’s puzzling, tho: a few months later, Israel killed the heck out of Gaza, knocking down the walls of the homes and schools of innocent Palestinians. Was Israel’s ‘back to the wall’ against unarmed, imprisoned Palestinians? Or is this ‘back to the wall’ schtick an internalized get-out-of-moral-accountability-free card that Israelis use? And if the latter, when did Israelis start using it — in 1948? in 1933? in 1914? in 2008? When?)
Back to the topic at hand: Would Iran respond in a situation where “their backs are to the wall?” We don’t need to rely on Israeli zionist projection to assess that; we have facts of history: In the 8-year long US-supported Israel-supplied war between Iraq and Iran, Saddam Hussein dropped chemical weapons on numerous Iranian civilian villages and towns, as well as Iranian troops. Chemical weapons had been proscribed after the first world war; the use of deadly gasses against Iranians was the first time those weapons had been used since 1918. British diplomats became aware of Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran at latest by 1984; according to testimony by a US Naval intelligence officer,
How did Iran respond to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons (supplied by Germany & facilitated by US)? Iran made numerous appeals to the United Nations to compel Iraq to abide by the 1925 Conventions proscribing use of chemical weapons. Initially, the letters went unanswered. When the UN eventually resolved the numerous conflicts of interest within its body and did make demands on Iraq to cease its use of chemical weapons, the UN’s actions were ineffective:
In a meeting with the Soviet ambassador in Jan. 1988, Speaker Rafsanjani said “that Iran has not used chemical weapons.” Maybe it was virtue, maybe it was the sheer expedient that Iran did not HAVE chemical weapons — as Adm. Studeman observed, Iran was only just developing chemical weapons; whichever, the reality is the same: Iran did not respond to at least 5 years of chemical attacks on its citizens by retaliating with chemical weapons.”
Logic compels the conclusion that when Iran’s “back was to the wall,” it responded by applying to the agencies the world had created to resolve those conflicts, and when that process failed, Iran STILL did not retaliate in kind, although it employed every means at its disposal to defend its children, women, and men.
Just for grins and giggles, what was Israel’s posture during this period when Iran’s “back was to the wall?” The answer is, Operation Seashell, Israel’s scheme to sell weapons to Iran. Award-winning Israeli journalist and author Ronen Bergman describes Seashell “ The Secret War with Iran.:
Regarding your hasbara about Iran being a “fundamentalist theocratic regime” as well as the cheap rhetorical tricks of repeating the phrase and posing a sham question begging the reader’s assent to a false claim — it’s all seriously unoriginal, Benedict; is hasbara central scraping the bottom of the barrel?
Finally, why in the world do I waste my time responding to a hasbarabot whose ziocained brain is firewalled from reality (h/t to American re ‘firewall’). Here’s why: Because the facts are not on your side; because you are full of shit and lies, and the only way to disinfect shit and lies is by exposing them to sunlight and to all the world.
You. are. going. down, Benedict; you and your fellow hasbarats and zionists. Reliqua pars in profundissimum infernum.
for us. that’s why you do it. it isn’t a waste of time. we just have to counter every lie with truth until there’s total exposure, completely decimate their lies one by one each and every time. you are a warrior on the battlefield of public perception and we have the truth on our side.
benedict, How do you think a nuclear armed fundamentalist regime will react once it is backed in to a corner? I think that alone is a reason to oppose a nuclear israel.
>> A fundamentalist theocratic regime such as iran is inherently unstable. How do you think a nuclear armed fundamentalist regime will react once it is backed in to a corner.?
It will react roughly the same way an inherently unstable, religion-supremacist “Jewish state” regime will react once it is backed into a corner. That alone is a reason to oppose a nuclear Israel.
Sounds to me like a reason to oppose a nuclear Israel.
The Roth piece reads as a sort of propaganda – full of cliches “arabs will just never accept Israel;” “Iran wants regional hegemony” – based on what, exactly?
and when he talks about israel’s “ability to continually trounce its enemies” he never mentions the ass whooping they took in southern lebanon…
Israel’s superior mole thwacking
Except the moles pop up faster these days
and there’s a big mole that might be getting a very big stick in the near future.
Israel’s invincibility myth only works if they continue to produce these cliches. If you read about every military conflict Israel has had with their neighbors, the odds are always stacked in their favor for various reasons: They attack pre-emptively, usually destroying military targets. They get help from a third party (Czechoslovakia arms shipments in the 40s… US aid most other times). Especially in the beginning they weren’t facing a real trained military with modern equipment (something like only Jordan had a real army in ’47). Speaking of equipment, theirs is superior to most of their neighbors. Mostly compliments of the US and also because they have methods of keeping certain weapons out of the hands of their neighbors (most importantly nukes).
The Israeli “David vs Goliath” narrative is a fabricated myth purposely used to connect Zionism to the biblical story. The south Lebanon example is a dose of reality. A resistance group whupped their ‘invincible army’ with inferior technology. Israel’s army is not a real army. Just a bunch of kids playing dress up army shooting Palestinians for target practice while in the back of their head believing they are invincible. If Israel ever faces a legitimate and real war like they did in ’73, they will wind up on the losing end just as they were about to in ’73 until they threatened nukes and the US ‘saved the day’.
Israel boasts of their superiority while bullying their neighbors. And if one of their neighbors catches them off guard, they just might hit the self-destruct button. Not sure how any Israeli can be proud of such cowardliness.
Excellent post Charon,
You should add that the other aspect to Israel’s invincibility myth is the understanding that the US is there to hold there hand should they bite off more than they can chew.
So the “David vs Goliath” narrative is more a case of the schololyard bully picking fights while his older brother is standing behind him.
Exactly. “my dad will beat up your dad.”
I have been making this argument for a few years now. For Iran to obtain nukes will really be an existential threat to Israel. Not because they will use them against Israel, but simply because the Israelis will perceive this as a threat. It is psychological warfare. On top of this pressure is the well known fact that many Israelis already have passports from Europe and the US so it would be very easy for them to emigrate if they perceive that the evil Muslim neighbors do have the bomb. Hell if that happened and I lived there, I would be on the earliest airplane out of there.
Is it worth fighting a destructive, potentially disastrous war to prevent people from leaving a country that they are so willing to leave?
Israel’s strategy of deterrence has always been based upon the concept of taking the battle to the enemy’s territory early in a conflict and occupying the enemy forces in a defensive war. If an enemy isn’t deemed to be sufficiently deterred, it is subjected to a preemptive attack or preventative war. Some Israeli military leaders admit that Israel’s deterrence is rooted in its ability to conquer territory, e.g. link to israelnationalnews.com
None of those tactics will work worth a damn against Iran and anyone who suggests otherwise is delusional.
this is insane.
The myth that drives Israel is not invincibility. It is the myth that the US will always support it.
Annie (with a capital A), first, congratulations on becoming a ‘front pager’ on Mondoweiss. May your star shine bright.
Second, it’s great that you repeated-for-emphasis Pletka’s statement about Iran’s nukes NOT being a threat to Israel.
I wish you had driven home the point that Israel’s biggest fear about Iran getting nukes is that the world would then see that ISRAEL WAS WRONG ALL ALONG when Israel engaged in fortune-telling and insisted that IF Iran got nukes it would behave irresponsibly.