by Dr. Gabi Avital
In the spirit of the wise men of Chelm, Obama is offering Israel a hole-ridden missile defense umbrella, instead of preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
I used to think the old
fables about the wise men of Chelm were just harmless jokes and nothing
more. That was until I read the reports about the military assistance
the U.S. plans to provide to Israel in the wake of the nuclear deal with
Iran. As part of his PR campaign to build support for the deal,
President Barack Obama promised he was ready "to enhance the already
intensive joint efforts underway to identify and counter the range of
shared threats we face in the region, as well as increase missile
defense funding so that Israel and the United States can accelerate the
co-development of the Arrow-3 and David's Sling missile defense
systems."
This reminds me of the
story about a dangerous bridge in Chelm. Instead of fixing the hole in
the bridge, the wise men of the city decided to build a hospital next to
it to treat those who were injured while passing over it.
In the spirit of the
wise men of Chelm, Obama is offering Israel a hole-ridden missile
defense umbrella, instead of preventing Iran from getting nuclear
weapons. Instead of striking a blow to the Iranian terror machine, the
leader of the world's most powerful nation wants to "identify ways to
accelerate the ongoing collaborative research and development for tunnel
detection and mapping technologies to provide Israel new capabilities
to detect and destroy tunnels, because they could be used to threaten
Israeli civilians."
The situation is very
grave. After all, Israel was only compelled to build its missile defense
systems because the "free world" did not let it eliminate the terrorist
threats it faces. Israel is the leading producer of interceptor
missiles because it is the world's only country whose entire territory
is under a tangible missile threat.
Missile defense systems
do not win wars, but Israel has shown great resiliency while under
prolonged missile fire during recent conflicts. However, what will the
situation be when the missiles carry nuclear warheads?
As advanced as it is,
the Arrow missile defense system does not provide a hermetic shield
against nuclear-tipped Iranian missiles. In the past, I repeatedly said
that an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would involve
very few casualties and decisively set back Iran's efforts to obtain
nuclear weapons. But during a war with a nuclear-armed Iran, any error,
however small, by Israel's missile defense network would be
catastrophic.
Let us move past the
contempt Obama has for the intelligence of Congress members and the
American public. More than being embarrassing, Obama's proposals
regarding Israel's security are truly frightening. No missile defense
system will make Israel's skies an impenetrable barrier to a
nuclear-tipped missile. And no tunnel detection system will compensate
for the dangers posed by the abominable nuclear deal with Iran.
Regarding American promises, I
remember a famous letter given to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion after
the 1956 Sinai Campaign in which the U.S. vowed to reopen the Straits of
Tiran immediately if Egypt ever blockaded the strategic naval
passageway again. In 1967, when Egypt did again close the Straits of
Tiran, Foreign Minister Abba Eban demanded that President Lyndon Johnson
honor the American promise from a decade before. "We can't find the
letter," Eban was told by the wise men of America at the time.
Dr. Gabi Avital
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=13579
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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