by Dan Margalit
Everyone hears the
sounds of Iran's centrifuges spinning down the path toward forbidden
nuclear weapons, but the West is pretending not to notice.
Europe knows the
magnitude of the danger, yet is not responding. While America is hoping
that new winds are blowing in Tehran, the opposite may be true. New
Iranian President Hasan Rouhani speaks sweetly, lulling the world's
democracies to sleep. So what will stop Iran?
Let's do a quantitative
comparison. How much time and energy has Europe invested in preventing
the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? There are
almost no indicators of such an investment. The same is true even in the
U.S., where the level of fundamental concern about Iran is higher than
in Europe. On the other hand, how much exhaustive effort has Europe
invested in settling accounts with Israel (which soon will not be able
to export goods from Judea and Samaria to the old continent)? This is
truly Sisyphean harassment of Israel by Europe.
Israel differs from the
European Union's view that it must separate from territories across the
Green Line to receive European funding for science. And even those who
accept European pressure on Israel find it hard to understand why it is
being applied now, at a time when Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have
restarted and efforts are being made to build trust between the two
sides. Is Europe knowingly and intentionally sabotaging the talks?
If Israeli
representatives are not able to dissuade European governments from
boycotting settlement goods, there will be no choice but to come to
terms with the EU's one-sided conduct. But why is the EU doing this now,
as peace talks have gotten underway, and why isn't the EU making a
distinction between the main settlement blocs (which will remain part of
Israel in any case) and remote settlements and outposts? And, most
importantly, how is this in line with the over-arching strategic need to
thwart Iran's nuclear intentions (which threaten the future of
humanity)? Israel is not asking these questions loudly. But Europe (and
America) aren't answering with the type of language that is customary
among friends.
Israel did develop a
military option against the Iranian nuclear program. Meir Dagan
(then-Mossad chief), Yuval Diskin (then-Shin Bet chief) and, to a
certain extent, Gabi Ashkenazi (then-Israel Defense Forces chief) banded
together to thwart that option from being implemented. Did Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak truly
intend to send Israel Air Force planes to bomb Iran's nuclear sites? In
my opinion, Netanyahu and Barak conducted successful diplomatic
brinkmanship to get the West to implement painful economic sanctions on
Iran, which are still burdening it today.
But memories of that
old Israeli threat have passed. Netanyahu is trying to revive the threat
by reminding the world of the military option he has at his disposal
for use against Iran's nuclear program. International, Intelligence and
Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Thursday that the
Iranian nuclear program could be destroyed with "a few hours of
airstrikes." I know there are others who have different opinions on
that, but there is no reason that Israel should not use Steinitz's words
to reunite the free world behind imposing deeper sanctions on Iran and
threatening Iran's nuclear facilities with military action.
Perhaps this will succeed, but Israel is reheating latkes that were frozen a year or two ago.
Dan Margalit
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5305
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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