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.  
excerpt from the audio:

Lenin: Oh dear me no, we are not establishing peasant proprietorship, you see there are workers and some rich peasants and we stirred up the poor peasants against the rich peasants and these soon hanged them to the nearest tree . Ha, ha, ha, ha! 

Bertrand Russell:  I did not much like that.