Will Iran and MAD be discussed in the coming Israeli elections? Of course not.

In her article Is Gantz falling from grace?, Ruthie Blum writes: “The good news is that Gantz has little to no chance of heading the next government. He couldn’t even sustain positive press coverage for a full week. “

This is debatable. The constant attacks at Netanyahu through the years have eroded support for him and the “anybody but Netanyahu” mindset is spreading.  

The fact that Bibi is the only Israeli leader apart from Michael Oren who has quoted Bernard Lewis’s warning about Mutually Assured Destruction not being a deterrent for the Iranian leaders is irrelevant to the majority of Israelis.  First, most Israelis have never heard of Bernard Lewis. Second, most Israelis know nothing about Twelver Shisim and their eschatology and hence many believe that Bibi has being crying wolf regarding Iran for years.  Third, they are convinced that other Israeli leaders could easily take Netanyahu’s place including handling the Iranian threat although none of them ever mentioned Iran having no problem with mutual destruction.

The combination of the above results in that nobody in Israel ever discusses the possibility of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel due to the death of the MAD doctrine which managed to prevent a nuclear exchange during the Cold War.    

To put it in Orwellian terms, “a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words“  The two words together - Iran and MAD - do not exist in the vocabulary of Newspeak. 

    

Benny Gantz on Iran

Benny Gantz (R) and Moshe Ya'alon (L) at an event in Tel Aviv, January 29th, 2019. 

In June 2016, at Ben-Gurion University, Benny Gantz put the threat from Iran on 5th place in significance of the dangers threatening Israel, so after the lecture I came up to him and asked him should we not be more concerned about Iran since according to Prof. Bernard Lewis   “for people with this mindset, Mutually Assured Destruction M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement... “ and therefore  Iran cannot be deterred, only preempted.  

His answer – Israel will defend itself if attacked.

I am afraid that would be too late.  It seems Benny Gantz does not take Bernard Lewis seriously enough, if he understood whom I was quoting in the first place.  

Russian logic

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said:  "The practice of delivering arbitrary airstrikes against a sovereign state should be ruled out. The escalation of hostilities in the region is not in line with the interests of Middle East states, including Israel."

So according to Maria Zakharova, not preventing Iran, whose Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh just stated that Iran’s young airmen were prepared for the day when Israel will be destroyed, from entrenching itself on Israel’s border is actually in line with Israel’s interests!?

Following this logic, the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland,1939, Finland,1939, Baltic states, 1940, Czechoslovak coup d’etat and the defenestration of Jan Masaryk, 1948, invasion of Hungary, 1956, Czechoslovakia,1968, Afghanistan,1979, and Russian invasion of Georgia, 2008, and Ukraine, 2014, had all been in the interests of these respective invaded sovereign states.

When it comes to Russia, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Iran, you seem to be lost.

Bertrand Russell on meeting Lenin

I wish we had heard Bertrand Russell’s impressions of Lenin in my high school history lessons.  

Moshe Ya'alon announces new party but should clarify his position on the Iranian threat

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, December 31, 2018

Regarding “Gantz, Ya’alon may combine parties” (December 27), there are only three Israeli politicians who I am certain understand the magnitude of the Iranian threat. They are Benjamin Netanyahu, Michael Oren and Moshe Ya’alon. Why only them? Because Netanyahu and Oren quoted Bernard Lewis’s warning, “For people with this mindset, Mutually Assured Destruction is not a constraint; it is an inducement.”

Ya’alon, in a 2012 interview, said: “The regime of the ayatollahs is apocalyptic-messianic in character... It will be impossible to accommodate a nuclear Iran and it will be impossible to attain stability. The consequences of a nuclear Iran will be catastrophic.” 

While other Israeli politicians may share the above concern, I find no record of them declaring that the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine would not work with the ayatollahs of Iran.

I had every respect for Moshe Ya’alon. He stood up to US secretary of state John Kerry and president Obama’s absurd policies toward Israel and his paper “A New Strategy for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” is excellent. However, in 2016, after leaving the cabinet, he said: “At this point, and in the foreseeable future, there is no existential threat facing Israel.”

While Ya’alon may consider that an estimated three-month breakout time after the Iran Deal with the expiration due to the sunset clause in the Deal as sufficient reason to change his mind, I do not think that the Iranian existential threat has diminished. This change of opinion by Ya’alon looks more like an issue picked by him to differ from Netanyahu than as a result of him responding to a changed reality.

A politician has to be consistent, especially on such an important topic as Iran, or he loses credibility. I urge Ya’alon to clarify his position on the Iranian threat.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC 
Beersheba

Jeremy Corbyn denies calling Theresa May 'stupid woman' in PMQs clash

"I did not use the words 'stupid woman' about the prime minister or anyone else and am completely opposed to the use of sexist or misogynist language in absolutely any form at all."

Jeremy Corbyn ‘clearly ‘ used phrase ‘stupid woman’ – team of lip readers tell Sky News

MI5 or the Mossad can easily filter out the noise from the Commons recording and establish without any doubt what Corbyn said.  Is it not obvious that this is exactly what should be done?