Benny Morris Justifies Israel's Coming Attack on Iran

On Friday July 18 the New York Times published an op-ed by the Israeli historian Benny Morris. It is entitled "Using Bombs to Stave Off War." Morris chose this American venue to announce that Israel would "almost surely" attack Iran some time in the next few months. And he indicated that America would be well advised to support the attack.

The reputation of Benny Morris is founded on unquestioned scholarly achievement and a far more dubious political stance. As one of Israel's "new historians," he recovered the record of harassment, murder, and expulsion of the Palestinians in the war of independence -- a finding that largely discredits the Israeli myth that the inhabitants fled from their own timidity, or because they were told to flee by Arab governments.

But speaking as an Israeli citizen, more recently, Morris has declared his view that the mistake of Ben-Gurion and the leadership of 1948 was that they did not carry the expulsion of the Palestinians all the way. Morris sees Israel in 2008 as a state under perpetual siege and the focus of a clash of civilizations; he sees Palestinians -- and to a degree, all Arabs; and Iranians, too -- as a species of animals not yet inducted into full humanity. Thus in a well-known interview
with Ari Shavit, published in Haaretz on January 5, 2004, Morris described the Israeli problem with the Palestinians:

"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."

In the years since Benny Morris spoke those words, the construction of the Israeli wall in the West Bank, and the blockade of Gaza by land, sea, and air have created the cage he believed was necessary.

Now, writing from Israel for the American newspaper of record, Morris offers his advice concerning the proper treatment of Iran and Iranians. Since Iran is five years from being able to make a nuclear bomb (Morris says one-to-four years), Israel is compelled to bomb Iran "in the next four to seven months."

One may notice that the Israeli attack goes on a much faster schedule than the Iranian pace of research and discovery. Why the haste for destruction? Could it have something to do with the American presidential election of 2008 (which comes at Morris's four-month lower limit), or something to do with the inauguration of a new president in 2009 (thirty days before his upper limit of seven months)? Morris does not say. He writes, he says, because people need to realize that the success of Israel's coming "conventional assault" on Iran will be good for Israel, for the United States, and even for Iran. If, on the other hand, this conventional assault fails, Israel will some day launch a nuclear attack; and that will be less good.

The choice, Morris concludes, lies with the rest of the world, and especially with the United States. If Iran does not submit rapidly to the next round of international pressure, the world had better support Israel and hope for the success of its first aerial assault against Iran.

Morris confesses, or implies, one reservation. It would better if the United States could launch the attack. But, being realistic, he remarks the lack of enthusiasm among Americans "for wars in the Islamic lands."

"Which leaves," says Morris, "only Israel."

There is an irritant driving this article, a motive more deeply lodged than Morris is willing to avow. For he suspects Israel alone cannot do the job well enough. So having first dismissed the U.S. and the American public as faint-hearted and unequipped for "wars in Islamic lands," and having then come half way to ask again, Morris at last accuses the United States. If we do not soon intervene, and attack Iran as he counsels, the result will be further nuclear progress by Iran. This will be terminated eventually with a nuclear attack by Israel against Iran.

A nuclear attack on a nation of seventy million people (a great many of them innocent of the desire to wipe Israel off the map) is morally indefensible. How can Morris defend it? He can because he knows -- not believes but metaphysically knows -- that the moment that Iran comes into possession of its first weapon, the leaders of Iran will commit national suicide in order to obtain the pleasure of destroying Israel.

Morris alludes to his ulterior knowledge in two sentences so full of blandness, abstract jargon, and bureaucratic euphemism that their meaning is not initially clear; but if one reads with care, one sees that the message is never in doubt:

"Given the fundamentalist, self-sacrificing mindset of the mullahs who run Iran, Israel knows that deterrence may not work as well as it did with the comparatively rational men who ran the Kremlin and the White House during the cold war. They are likely to use any bomb they build."

Iran will use a nuclear bomb, Morris is sure, as soon as it has one, even knowing that to do so means the destruction of Iran. The Mullahs will do it because that is the kind of people they are.

Here then is the way around the charge that Israel, in attacking Iran some time before March 2009, will be committing a crime. By Morris's logic the attack by Israel will be an act of self-defense. Indeed, it will be preemptive -- hardly more than common sense -- given the knowledge that Benny Morris possesses of the "fundamentalist, self-sacrificing" nature of the leaders of Iran. No evidence for his intuition is ever offered -- evidence from (say) the history of Iranian foreign policy over the past fifty years, or 200; evidence founded on actions rather than words. What if Iran's words since 1979 have been wilder than its deeds? What if Israel's actions since 2002 have been wilder than its words (wilder, even, than Benny Morris's words of 2004)? These findings could not possibly touch the argument. Morris writes as a man in possession of a racial and religious knowledge that is superior to evidence.

Of course, he hopes that Israel will not be forced to go all the way (though he has deplored Ben-Gurion's failure to go all the way with expulsion of the Palestinians). He imagines most Iranians would prefer not to see "Iran turned into a nuclear wasteland." Morris has thus given the readers of the New York Times a vision of a hellish future, but then atoned for the extravagance by suggesting that, if things fall out so, it will be the fault of Iran and the United States. Israel will have done the best it could with a monstrous and implacable enemy and a reluctant ally.

All circumstances taken together, this New York Times op-ed by Benny Morris is at once the most overt and the most peculiar intervention we Americans have witnessed thus far, by an Israeli attempting to influence U.S. policy in the Middle East. The article is weakly founded on partial facts and conjectural truths. It passes without transition from mock-prudential calculations to a tyrannical threat to destroy a civilization for the good of the world. Yet, though unpersuasive, it acquires significance when published between a recent visit to the U.S. by the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and the current visit by the defense minister Ehud Barak. Morris's article is meant to be read in the context of such recent assurances as Olmert's, for example, that President Bush "understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and
intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."

But let us return for a last look at Benny Morris.

No person into whose mind had entered the idea that an Iranian may be a human being--and that there are millions of innocent Iranians -- could have generated with such casual facility the image of Iran as a "nuclear wasteland." Yet this was the image of Iran that the Israeli Benny Morris decided to conjure up for American readers in the New York Times.

In the Haaretz interview of January 5, 2004, the following exchange occurred between the interviewer Ari Shavit and Benny Morris:

"Would you describe yourself as an apocalyptic person?"

"The whole Zionist project is apocalyptic. It exists within hostile surroundings and in a certain sense its existence is unreasonable. It wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1881 and it wasn't reasonable for it to succeed in 1948 and it's not reasonable that it will succeed now. Nevertheless, it has come this far. In a certain way it is miraculous. I live the events of 1948, and 1948 projects itself on what could happen here. Yes, I think of Armageddon. It's possible. Within the next 20 years there could be an atomic war here."

This apocalyptic danger Morris may conceive himself to have put off a few more years by writing an editorial on behalf of Israel's coming attack. But whether the attack on Iran comes sooner or later, whether it is executed by Israel or the U.S. or both, and whether carried out with conventional or nuclear weapons, Morris has no doubt of one thing. It will have served the "apocalyptic" vision of the "whole Zionist project," and it will coincide with the highest values of
humanity properly defined.

Comments

[CindyMax]

Thank you, Dr. Bromwich, for your post, horrifying as it is. As always, it illuminates a critical aspect to current events (or future ones).

And, thank you OmnesOminibus for this: "The only way forward, the only hope in fact, is for the Israelis to work for peace from within eventually creating a new and better state in which all citizens, Jewish and Muslim, are equal. Hard to achieve and painful, surely, but what is the alternative?" I started breathing again when I read that. Maybe courageous, sane individuals will prevail.

[SouthpawSass]

Morris is no better than anyone, Iranian, Arab or otherwise, who wants to eliminate the Israel... And yet, why is this man given a venue in any US newspaper at a time when our diplomatic relationships in that region are precariously hanging on a very thin thread?

Shame on Morris and the the NYT for printing such hatred.

[semorg]

I agree! Shame on NTY for publishing this. Morris is one person, but NYT is an organization, and for such rubbish to appear on NYT is beyond me.

[pdxbohica]

"wipe Israel off the map"

Why keep repeat this incorrect translation? According to various scholars including, Juan Cole, he said, "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#.22Wiped_off_the_map.22_or_.22Vanish_from_the_pages_of_time.22_translation

Why is it that if Iran is such a radical Islamic state, they would go against the fatwa of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a saying the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons was forbidden under Islam. The fatwa was cited in an official statement by the Iranian government at an August 2005 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei

[Fein]

During the cold war, the U.S. Gov misstranslated a speech by USSR's Kruschiev to say, "we will bury you (the USA)". They ran 'the commercial' extensively for many years to foment public fear of the USSR & justify their military expenditures. (History of Fear Mongering, 101)
We now know that that was a propaganda lie, by our own gov., Kruschiev's never said that.
So , it's amazing to see people fall for another propaganda program based on a misstranslation
as justification for "preemptive' war. We are truly the only animal that can get skinned twice!

[GZLives]

This endless defense of "wiping Israel off the map" by using the "lost in translation" excuse is a joke given the rest of the evidence that indicates what Iran has in mind for Israel and the Jews ...

Rockets parading year after year with banners proclaiming "Death to Israel". Crowds chanting the same message. Iran bombing a community centre in Buenos Aires. Iran sponsoring Hizbollah terrorism. Iran threatening Jewish targets all over the world. Hizbollah rhetoric expressing the hope that Jews will gather in Israel to make the job of destroying them easier. Ahmadinejad sponsoring an exhibition of anti-semitic art. Ahmadinejad sponsoring a conference of Holocaust deniers. Following Streicher who likened Jews to rats, Ahmadinejad likens Israel to bacteria. Iranian leaders, like many Muslims, claiming the Jews of Israel are not Jews for the laughable reason that, as they would have it, Jews have deserted the laws of Moses. Iranian leaders, since Khomenei, proclaiming the destruction of Israel. Ahmadinejad's devotion to the "return" of the "Hidden Imam" at the end of days who will lead the Muslims to victory against the Jews. In word and deed it's crystal clear that Ahmadinejad wants to finish the job that Hitler started. What is the excuse of those posting their hatred of Israel?

[wmbear]

I DON'T DOUBT FOR A MINUTE...

That there are many Arabs, some of them in positions of power, who would not spare a tear if Israel were to cease to exist. I think this is unfortunate and I do think that many Arabs have a lot of trouble accepting certain basic facts of life and political realities. For all the existence of some liberal strains within it, and for all its history of achievement, Arab culture does remain mired, by and large, in an essentially fundamentalist and dogmatic rendering of the Koran that makes modernization and the facing up to the political realities of the modern world extremely difficult for them. Given this fact, is it so surprising that their reaction to their own difficulties of this sort is an unremitting hostility to the Western world? And for Muslims in general, Israel represents the presence of that world smack in their midst.

But the solution to this conundrum is to bomb 'em? I don't think so...

Interesting, is it not, that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all derive from essentially the same source -- they are the so-called "Abrahamic religions"....

[terramartom]

I say the USA gives Israel Florida!
Move the entire country and people here.
Much safer, weather is nice. No walls are needed.
Take apart the Great Wall and rebuild it here.
Bring some of the "Mother Land's" dirt back with you for comfort.
Fanatical Islam will not give up for one reason, and that is the volume of poor Muslims around the World that have nothing but dispare for the future or a very bleak future at best.
The have nothing to lose by continued war. It actually gives them something to do besides staring at dirt, and lsitening to more blather from the Mullahs.

[bluescat47]

A great article. Israel does not have the military capability, refueling capacity, bunker busting conventional warheads,etc to take out the dispersed nascent Iranian nuclear program. The Iranians obviously know this so Morris has ratcheted up the heat, suggesting that Israel will essentially terminate Persian civilization with nuclear weapons. Morris is hoping, as are some other crazed elements in Israel, to drag the U.S. into this conflagration, as they cannot permanently stop the Iranian nuclear program without us. His threats of nuclear genocide against the Iranians is appalling.
Iran does pose a long term threat to the region if they develop nuclear weapons, which they are planning to do (keep in mind intelligence reports conclude they have only stopped warhead design - which is the least complicated task here - but continue with uranium enrichment and ballistic missile development). You dont build ballistic missiles to put conventional warheads on them!
But they can be deterred by the overwhelming military capabilities of the U.S. and Arab states; Iran has vintage front line fighters and no significant naval assets. They are "ants" militarily, as our past CentCom commander stated. And there are many Persian nationalists in the Iranian government who will not risk the destruction of Iran to fulfill Ahmeinajad's dark religious fantasies.

[Mogamboguru]

The piece of Benny Morris in the NYT - which I happened to read myself yesterday with raised hair and an ever growing nauseous feeling in ny stomach - is not a historically valid vision of a vetted, experienced political journalist - this is a clinical case of severe, religiousl­y-induced, paranoid supremacism.

Many thanks to David Bromwitch to infuse his voice of reason back into the discussion - and relieve me of my nauseous feeling again.

If Benny Morris' NYT op-ed was good for ONE thing ONLY, then it was, to teach the american people that, a foreign entity has become so extremely powerfull in their own home country, as to be able to liteally DEMAND from the US-public to wage wars in their name - but not for their own, but for the foreign entities' sole benefit.

With a deeply felt hope that the moderators of HuffPo may accept the following statement, I might add:

I really, deeply, dearly hope that, any time soon Zionism will REALLY be viped off the pages of history - BY THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL THEMSELVES - to finally enable all the free people of the Middle-East to seriously engage in a peacefull discourse and - in the end - a well-negotiated, mutually accepted and internationally guaranteed peace.

Salam. Shalom. Peace.

[GZLives]

"to teach the american people that, a foreign entity has become so extremely powerfull in their own home country, as to be able to liteally DEMAND from the US-public to wage wars in their name - but not for their own, but for the foreign entities' sole benefit."

And I bet you think you aren't an anti Semite?

You really believe we are that powerful?

You are pathetic

[sparkandy]

This is very scary. The Rapturists must be in ecstasy right about now, because Armageddon is being contemplated by Israel. Then they can be raptured, leaving behind all the non believers, including the Jews of Israel, who are mere means to an end for them.

[joanndarc]

Doesn't Pakistan have Nuclear Warheads? And you expect that one culturally close nation will not support the other? I strongly doubt that oil starving China and India will remain neutral.
US at this point has a tarnished reputation on the world stage, and right now EU will not support the state of Israel. US is the only card Israel will be able to play. Will American people be totally behingd Israel? Israel's Coming Attack on Iran might trigger UN to revise the ligality of theocratic state of Israel.
Good luck Zionists!

[earthwealth]

Morris’s main problem is that he believes everybody shares the same mentality with him. He puts himself in Iranian’s position and draws such conclusion. Certainly for this process he uses only one brain with very narrow point of view. If one uses similar argument about for not “expulsion of the Palestinians” it would be that if Cyrous the Great (King of Persia) did not save the Jews 2500 years ago, there would not have been an Israel today threating Iran with nuclear weapons. Another question can be raised that whether Israel has any nuclear arsonels! And if she does, would it be in line with International Laws & IAEA regulations? We already heard repeatedly that Iran has no intention to start a nuclear weapon program. However learning about such frightenning mentality and ideas, Iraninan leaders with any common sense may have to think twice about their decsion.

[Elliott32]

Obama/Bromwich '08!

David Bromwich is a foreign policy genius! Together they could solve any global crisis.

[rabrophy]

What's New? Zionism is racism, and the U.S.A. has been paying the bills for 60 years.
And now that the Bush administration is in it's death throes, the only hope to get McCain elected is start another war in the mid-east.

[azyuwish]

Thank you for stating it so clearly. Zionism IS racism and more. The entire notion of a "chosen people" is stultifyingly chauvinistic to boot.

Additionally, why in the year 2008 are we to expect the rest of the world's people (presumably the non-chosen) to regard the notion that a Bronze Age patriarch heard a voice; deemed Divine ,"say" that a piece of desert real estate was to be his in perpetuity? Most people these days who hear "voices" are known to be suffering from schizophrenia, yet because this occurred several thousand years ago, the people of the world are expected to respect and even OBEY this patriarch's utterances?? It is absurd on its face.

People need to remember that THIS is what we are dealing with and is the crux of the matter. Zionists believe they have an invisible friend who promises them things (very self-congratulatory things) and therefore their sense of entitlement is inflated beyond all rationality. There is no rational argument to be had with such believers.

People also need to understand the symbiotic relationship the US has with Israel; many of the neo-cons who pushed and sold the war in Iraq are American Zionists. They have dual loyalties and that is a major part of the problem with our Middle Eastern policy. "Yaweh" is the unspoken foreign affairs advisor in the US State Department. THAT is the bottom line.

[BubbaC33]

Zionism is not racism. There is no need to explain or justify.

[scottarino]

Seems to me the notion of an "invisible friend" be it Yaweh or whatever is a bit silly, but then again I'm not brainwashed enough to drop to my knees a dozen times a day and face the east........

[GZLives]

If Zionism were racism, then what's Wahabbism?

Barbarism?
Animalism?
Primitivism?

Zionism is the belief that the Jews are entitled to live in their historic homeland.
I fail to see where the racism is in that notion.
Is it anymore racist that every liberation movement in the world or is it only racism because you have a problem with Jews?

[jackstpaul]

According to every source I've heard, it is impossible to destroy all of Iran's nuclear facilities by conventional airwar, even with nukes.

Obviously; who know where everything is?

So what happens after an initial attack? Are periodic attacks made in the future? A ground war?

How does anyone know how long they can forestall Iran's nuclear development if they don't know exactly what's going on and where in order to destroy it?

It seems to me that it wouldn't be so easy to get at much of their stuff (and I'm not saying that they do have weapons in development) given the lessons that they would have learned from Osirak, etc. by Israel. If they were serious, won’t they have engaged in very, very serious deceit and defense forces in order to make it not so easy to wipe their stuff out? I can’t see how not.

P.s.
I've been suspicious about the Syrian attack last Sept.

It seemed to be in such plain sight, whatever it was, as to be a fake or something else. Given Osirak, etc. who would invest in such a simple, plain-to-see, easy-to-destroy, weapon-development approach/facility? Was it some sort of charade to attract Israeli attention/attack for some reason? Obtuseness by Syria? Not nuclear at all? Nothing adds up.

[gro]

Israel cannot attack Iran without the consent of the American military controlling Iraqi airspace. When Iranians rally around their flag and retaliate, there will be many US soldiers nearby. And Benny Morris believes the logical escalation is the use of nuclear weapons?
Perhaps the Russians or Chinese will have something to contribute to an Israeli wish for Armageddon.

[JayWilliams]

Problem here is that Benny has a lot of folks who love the 'end times' notion of our future...sooooo romantic....soooooo erotic. Tell people about Benny's visions and those who love Jesus by thinking about the book of Revelation, will love Benny.
Can't win folks. Huge numbers of people suck on these fantasmic straws of insanity.

[OmnesOmnibus]

What the Morris op-ed piece offers is a look into the paranoic and frightened mind set of the old traditional Israeli Left. It is a sad and unvarnished look into the despair and pessimism that has overtaken a once dynamic and optimistic people. The last Intifada, the nhilistic death cult terrorism of the Palestinians, the brutal Israel response, and the Wall once again creating a ghetto for the Jewish people, have brought the state of Israel to its knees and a refutation of all its Zionist dreamers had hoped for. (No they didn't envision themselves locked behind gates surrounded by millions hoping for their destruction. Morris's apocalpytic vision is truly terrifying, but he also listed the reasons why it won't likely happen and is perhaps a compelling insight into why Condi Rice has apparently pushed back in the other direction - I pray, successfully). The only way forward, the only hope in fact, is for the Israelis to work for peace from within eventually creating a new and better state in which all citizens, Jewish and Muslim, are equal. Hard to achieve and painful, surely, but what is the alternative? Unending war gets nowhere. Nuclear war unquestionably will spell their own destruction. Benny Morris and those who think like him seem utterly mad. More than the reaction to the Morris piece here, it will be instructive to see what, if any reaction takes place in Israel itself.

[TamysDMilo]

One of the greatest challenges facing the newly elected President will be keeping Israel from killing itself. The question is not which candidate is tough enough for Iran, but which one is tough enough to take on Israel.

[ProfessorDuh]

Well put.

[GZLives]

"The question is not which candidate is tough enough for Iran, but which one is tough enough to take on Israel."

Imagine, people perceive the problem as being those who want to build homes - but not those holding anti semitic art shows. They see those who want to cure disease as problems but not those holding Holocaust denial conventions complete with David Duke in attendance.

The problem is that distardly country with all those scientists and Nobel prize winners, not the country who stones to death people because they're gay or hangs rape victims because they've dishonored their families.

How have we ever arrived at this upside down place?

[MagisterLudi]

"...have brought the state of Israel to its knees..."
In your dreams pal.
Israel is a wildly successful post-modern technogically and socially advanced state providing social benefits to its Jewish, Christin and Arab citizens on par with most advanced European states. Economy s booming. Israel has the third best educated population in the world.

Israel is at peace with the entire world. Only the two oppressive states:Islamicist Iran and quasi- fascist Syria are its weak but vociferous enemies.

"The only way forward, the only hope in fact, is for the Israelis to work for peace from within eventually creating a new and better state in which all citizens, Jewish and Muslim, are equal"

Certainly if Arab countries like Saudi, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon and Egypt open their border to Jewish citizens and investment Israel can open it's borders to Arabs.

But if Arabs ( as they expressed many times) want to over breed in order to control Israel with demographic pressure, it's certainly a no go. Tiny country Israel absorbed 800,000 destitute Jewish refugees from Africa and Levant. Surely, wildly rich Arabs can absorb a few more million Arabs. then Middle East will be at at peace...

The same psychotic idea has been posed by Jihadists about Europe. The demographic pressure on Euopre will trn it inot a Muslim enclave. Just like other half-baked Muslim notions: Pan Arabism, Baathism and JIhadism, this idea will come to nothing as well.

[Precisionist]

Have you ever travelled the Middle East? I have and I can assure you that Israel is the most hated state EVERYWHERE in the Middle East. In some countries, due to pressure from American puppet monarchies, average citizens are not allowed to voice their views openly. In other places like Dubai (UAE), the state of Israel is not even officially recognized. In fact, if you are trying to fill out an application form for almost anything requiring entering your demographic information, you will not see Israel as a choice for country (in the address field).

Israel's economy is NOT booming. Deficits are growing and causing siginificant cuts to services everywhere. In fact, today Israel is even more dependent on American economic aid to boost the economy.

Israel is NOT at peace with the entire world. Obviously, in your view, you confuse the official political propaganda with reality.

Iran already opens its borders to Jews from anywhere. There are currently 25,000 Jews living quite well within Iranian borders, who despite pleas from Ariel Sharon, refused to leave Iran for Israel.

No one can deny the significant technological advances in Israel. It has the potential for becoming a truly great country once it learns to live at peace with its neighbors.

[pakiman]

Excuse me, but what social benefits does it provide to Arab citizens? Keep propagating these lies...how are we even supposed to have a debate when you spout off lies and claim they are well-known facts? The Arab Peace Initiative calls for fully normalized relations with Israel, including the lifting of any restrictions on Jews or other Israeli's to travel freely in the region. Why was this proposal rejected by Israel?

[elcojonu]

'wildly succesful' achieved with U.S aid and ptotection.
Israel is 60, time for it to leave home and set out on it's own.
They will make no peace with their neighbors as long as Daddy protects and spoils them; why should they ?
They're likea son who failed to mature and refuses to leave home; what a joke.

[OmnesOmnibus]

Where is their constitution? Do Jews and Muslims have equal rights? Yes Muslim citizens enjoy many benefits in Israel, but until they have the same rights as Jewish citizens, then this is a country that is more theocracy than democracy.

[kevinw]

The ghetto created was not for the Iraeli people, it is for the people they occupy. The Palestinians are the ones that have to travel through roadblocks in their own neighborhoods. They are the ones the wall prevents their travel, sometimes prohibits them from going from their homes to their farms. The Jewish people have had a long and hard struggle over the modern period. Christianity has not been fair or kind. Yet they now perceive the only way to deal with the palestinian problem is to handle them the way they were treated in Europe by the Christians. The idea that the only problem with the area today is that they did not have a total ethnic cleansing when founding Israel. We have allowed allies, long time and recent, to get the bomb. Pakistan and India have almost come to exchanges a couple of times already. Why Pakistan and not Iran? Israel is already talking about using the bomb as though it is just another tool in the arsenal. Even in Morris's piece, they have taken for granted that the US will come in after they drp the bombs and clean up the mess. Do we know for sure that Iran does not have peace agreements with other countries like Russia or China thatt could trigger retaliation. With the kind of talk coming Morris and the Jewish government wouldn't all Arab governments be thinking they need the bomb for their own protection.

[GZLives]

"Palestinians are the ones that have to travel through roadblocks in their own neighborhoods. They are the ones the wall prevents their travel, sometimes prohibits them from going from their homes to their farms."

Because they are the ones attacking Israeli citizens with suicidal bombers. When there was no bombers there was no wall. Now with the wall, the bombing is down almost 80% and so the wall is a success. Perhaps when the Arabs end their dream of exterminating the Jews and reclaiming what they perceive as Muslim land, the wall can come down altogether but until that time, because of their own behavior, they will have to endure the hardship they created for themselves.

Its fascinating to see how many just insist on ignoring where all of this came from.
Had the Arabs accepted their share of the partition in 1948, they would have had their State. But they chose war and the idea of pushing the Jews into the sea. It failed and here they are.

Their hardships are all as a result of their own doing ... it doesn't have to be this way.

[earthwealth]

Which Arab governments? There is NO one real Arab government that stands and speaks for their people. Bunch of stooges who would do anything even selling their country cheap to prolong their positions. None of them have their own population’s support. They are all supported and maintained by foreign powers. It is very evident that Iran is a real saver of the opressed portion of the world which incidentally the larger portion. When it comes to Israel, it is NOT the fear that Iran may be agreesive if she achieves nuclear technologies experty and become aggressive. It is mainly because if Iran achieves nuclear technology capabilities, Israel would not be able to assert the same agression as they are presently angaged in doing. Foe better understanding you may read Al Capon life story.

[OmnesOmnibus]

Yes, the Israelis created a ghetto for the Palestinians, but ironically it is they who have walled themselves in from the rest of the Middle East. Their wall is madness, an illusion of safety. Rockets can travel over walls as they know all too well. They are boxed in. I don't think it's possible for them to remain a "Jewish State." They will have to become a multi-religious, multi-cultural state. They must write a constitution. They could become a beacon for the region. It will take people of vision and courage to do it, they will need people ten times braver and wiser than the founding fathers of the US. Will they find them?

[Forsetti]

Excellent analysis!

It is unfathomable that a nation that was built on the memories of millions of deaths could even consider nuclear war as an option. There are no moral arguments for mass murder/genocide. Israel could make a strong case to the world community for specific strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities like they did in Iraq in 1981 but anything past this would be unacceptable.