Will Israel Attack Iran? (Dennis Prager: Bottom Line, If Under Threat Of A Second Holocaust, Yes!)

Townhall.com ^ | 7/22/2008 | Dennis Prager

[goldstategop]

It is difficult to imagine Israel attacking Iran.

It is, however, more difficult to imagine Israel not attacking Iran.

Consider three questions:

First, does Iran mean what it says about destroying Israel? When its leaders repeatedly call for Israel's annihilation, after referring to it as a cancer and using other rhetoric not heard on a national level since the Nazi regime's depiction of Jews, is this just rhetorical flourish? Or do they really hope and plan to destroy Israel?

Second, can Iran do it? One can hope and even plan to do something outrageous, but that does not necessarily mean that one can accomplish it. So, the second question is whether Iran can destroy Israel or at least murder a high enough percentage of its population and destroy enough of its infrastructure to enable surrounding Arab states to invade and do the rest of the job that the majority of Arabs favor (even if some of their governments have a peace treaty with Israel).

It seems to me that the answers to the first two questions are so obvious that any burden of proof rests on those who argue otherwise. Do they think Iranian leaders are bluffing? Why would these leaders bluff? And why would one think they are bluffing given their faith-based hatred of Israel? I write "faith-based" not to argue that Islam necessarily demands the destruction of the Jewish state, but because that is what the Iranian leaders believe Islam demands.

Iran is ruled by people who believe it is God's will to destroy the Jewish state. It is also a country rapidly acquiring the ability to use nuclear weapons to achieve this goal -- through direct attack, handing nuclear weapons to terrorists or both.

There has never been a hatred as deep as Jew-hatred nor is there one today. And hatred of the Jewish state is similarly unparalleled. The depth of Iran's hatred for Israel was made evident again last week in a story from the Olympic swim trials in Croatia. The Iranian government ordered its athlete not to participate when it learned that one of the other swimmers was a Jew from Israel. There are no nationals other than Israeli Jews with whom nationals of another nation would refuse to enter a swimming pool.

This unique hatred explains why the forms of deterrence that have worked in the past do not seem applicable to the Iranian regime. The most obvious one, the one that rendered nuclear war highly improbable during the Cold War, was MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD was so simple a child could understand it: You bomb me; I bomb you. Our people die en masse; your people die en masse. No matter how vile the Soviet regime was, MAD worked because Soviet leaders wanted to live.

But MAD works only with the sane.

We regard a defining element of sanity as the desire to live. And we regard a defining element of morality as the valuing of human life. Neither applies to Islamists such as those who govern Iran. Their motto, as so often expressed by its Hamas and Hezbollah allies, is "We value death as much as you [Jews, Americans, Westerners in general] value life." For people like Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the vision of millions of Iranian Muslims dying from a counterstrike while Israel burns is not frightening; it is a necessary sacrifice.

If the answers to the first two questions are as clearly in the affirmative as I have argued, the only remaining question is whether Israel or anyone else can stop these plans from materializing.

The one nonviolent way of doing so is sanctions. A worldwide vise of economic, social and political sanctions against the Iranian regime should be tried and might work. That is certainly my first choice and, one presumes, Israel's as well.

But it now appears unlikely that the world is willing to suffocate the Iranian regime as it did the South African apartheid regime. Iran has oil; South Africa had none. Iran has worldwide support from Muslim regimes, which do not threaten a fellow Muslim regime, especially over its being too anti-Israel; South Africa had virtually no such allies. Iran has almost automatic support from at least two Security Council members, Russia and China; South Africa had no equivalent support. And much of the world is more exercised about white racism against blacks than about genocidal threats against Jews.

Therefore, if the world does not unite in ostracizing the Iranian regime, there remains only one other way to stop it from attempting to destroy Israel -- destroy its nuclear facilities.

There are strong arguments against Israel doing so. But if Israel believes that Iran will soon have the ability to attack it with nuclear weapons, and that Iran will do so, it is difficult to argue that Israel wait and run the risk of experiencing another Holocaust.

[goldstategop]

Bottom line? Israel will attack. No Jew is going to sit around waiting for a Second Holocaust to be inflicted upon Israel. This an issue on which there is a wall to wall consensus in the Jewish State. Faced with the threat of annihilation from a radical anti-Semitic regime permeated with Jew-hatred, Israel cannot accept a nuclear armed Iran. That is a red line.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Eagles6]

We can only hope.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

JMHO : Ain’t gunna happen...

[Rembrandt]

If Israel doesn’t act to deprive Iran of its nuclear weaponry, Ahmanutjob has promised to destroy Israel.

Israel respects peace but first and foremost, Israel respects and defends its right to exist.

If Israel DOES bomb Iran, what would be the consequences? The UN and the Arab countries would ostracize Israel after treating them so nicely since 1947?

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

I don’t think the Iran strike will come till after the

election,,,

If the POTUS pulls the trigger,,,(Big IF),,,

~~~DEC.~27-08~~~

1.Christmas will be over,,,

2.Rats-n-Rinos will be home,,,Full-n-Drunk,,,

Too late to stop him,,,

3.Elections will be over,,,won’t matter then,,,

4.Hurricane season will be over,,,

5.Louisiana refineries will be in production of

Home Heating Oil,,,(80% of the total for the USA),,,

6.New Moon(dark night),,,

7.Iran’s air defenses will be lulled/worn out by

constant runs by 5th Fleet FA-18s(FOO-FOOs),,,

8.The carrier (USS George Washington)that is off-line

for fire damage will be fixed,,,

9.B-2s that will carry the M.O.P.s will all be ready,,,

10.Israel ain’t got the reach/range or the fire-power to

take out all 100 or so of the nuke sites AND Iran’s

military in a first strike without giving Iran a chance

to hit US forces in Iraq or Israel itself,,,JMHO...

P.S. I would take out Iran’s drinking water plants too!

I am sort of MEDIEVAL!!!,,,MUUuuahahahaha!Count Dat!...:0)

[Rummyfan]

It will happen sometime between election Tuesday and inauguration Tuesday..... Election Day itself would probably be best.

[Christian4Bush]

mark

[DB]

My bet is Iran already has at least one nuke from either Russia, NK or Pakistan. They’ve been begging to be attacked. When they are attacked they can stand before the world and justify their use of their weapon - after all they simply were defending themselves from a much more powerful outside aggressor and much of the world will agree.

We live in dangerous times.

[MarkL]

Bottom line? Israel will attack. No Jew is going to sit around waiting for a Second Holocaust to be inflicted upon Israel. This an issue on which there is a wall to wall consensus in the Jewish State. Faced with the threat of annihilation from a radical anti-Semitic regime permeated with Jew-hatred, Israel cannot accept a nuclear armed Iran. That is a red line.

I honestly don't know... I don't think so. At least, it depends on who's really in charge in Israel. Remember, the "old guard" of those who fought to build that country as less and less in command of the government. Leftists seem in many ways to be the "leaders." And one thing that I've come to realize about leftist Jews is that what they see as their "qualifier" as a Jew, what gives Judaism meaning to them, is VICTIMHOOD. They're uncomfortable with Jews who are willing to defend themselves and fight back.

So I believe that there's a very real possibility that Israel will NOT do a premeptive strike, and I actually wonder if they'll respond with a nuclear strike if attacked... Though by that time, it is quite possible that if more than half the population of Israel is wiped out, the "adults" may take charge.

Mark

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

[Eye of Unk]

I say use the Rods from Gods, tomorrow.