Properly building deterrence - Amnon Lord

by Amnon Lord

Netanyahu's revelation is doubly effective when combined with the stunning audiovisual production we saw in Syria – the massive explosions near Aleppo and Hama.

Apologies have been the theme recently. The Arab-Israeli town of Sahnin, its soccer club and its fans issued their customary demand for the prime minister to apologize. Surely, the bombshell Netanyahu dropped at his press conference Monday also obligates a few apologies. First, Labor leader Avi Gabbay has to say sorry. Several hours before Netanyahu revealed the incredible intelligence trove lifted directly from Iran's nuclear archives in Tehran, Gabbay declared that the Israeli government was no longer democratic, that Israel under Netanyahu was turning into a Turkey-style democracy.

I am certain that if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would invite Natalie Portman to receive a national prize from him, she would not decline. The only ones threatening democracy is Iran, its proxy in Gaza, Hamas, and the organizations that represent the terrorist group in the Israeli High Court of Justice. Gabbay, therefore, has to apologize for his irresponsible attack on Israeli democracy.

Number two on the list of those who owe an apology is Tzipi Livni, who for years has mocked the prime minister, describing him as obsessive over one singular issue: Iran, Iran, Iran! To put it bluntly, she was a stooge for an American administration granting a certificate of legitimacy to the Islamic terrorist regime in Tehran, striving to acquire atomic weapons. To say the previous American president, Barack Obama, should apologize to Netanyahu is superfluous. Netanyahu was and remains a party crasher. When he delivers the bad news in such a powerful manner, appeasers from Berlin to Washington will always prefer to show him the door and ignore his message. Who wants to hear stuff like that?!

Exposing the lies spewed by those familiar darlings of The New York Times – the moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his moderate foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif – is spectacular. Of course, it was all coordinated with the U.S. president and if anyone thought Trump only wants to improve the previous nuclear deal, it appears that isn't the case. Trump and Netanyahu won't settle for anything less than a new nuclear deal, which forces the Iranians to completely dismantle their nuclear facilities and accept strict supervision over all their projects, including their weapons unit at the Parchin site and ballistic missile development.

Netanyahu's presentation, however, is doubly effective when combined with the stunning audiovisual production we saw in Syria – the massive explosions near Aleppo and Hama. These images, followed by a perfectly timed speech, properly create deterrence. We have to hope the Iranians and their new partner, Russian President Vladimir Putin, will respond to the American show of force similarly to the North Koreans and their Chinese patron. From an Iranian perspective, they are surely saying to themselves that if the Israelis know everything up to 2015, they have to be interested in what we are doing now as well. It stands to reason, then, that Israel also knows precisely how the Iranians are cheating in 2018.

Amnon Lord

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/properly-building-deterrence/

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