by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright June 28, 2008
ll Rights Reserved.

earing another Holocaust, Israel engaged in more saber-rattling against Tehran, staging military maneuvers June 20 designed to simulate a bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities. Whatever one thinks about Iran's stubborn resistance to give up its uranium enrichment program, Israelis have leapt across the logical divide, concluding Tehran's atomic enrichment program translates into an imminent nuclear attack. Neither the United States, nor the U.N. nor any other country can say with certainty that a nuclear-armed Tehran would obliterate Tel Aviv or any other country. Iran's fiery President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad frequently panders to the radical fringe and Arab street, denying the Holocaust, pledging support for Palestine and threatening to “wipe Israel off the map.” Ahmadinejad's reckless words don't translate into an imminent nuclear attack.

      When Ahmadinejad talks about “wiping Israel off the map,” it's the exact same language used by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who never accepted Israel's borders. He encouraged all Arab cartographers, including maps in school textbooks, to “wipe-out” the Jewish state. Ahmadinejad's words have been wrongly interpreted as an eventual nuclear attack. One of the big sticking points to a comprehensive peace treaty is the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees, whose property was appropriated during Israel's founding in 1948. Since then, Palestinians have rejected Israel's borders that included territory called the “British Mandate of Palestine.” While Palestinians talk about the right of return, they don't acknowledge not holding any territory before the 1967 War. Israel's original borders didn't include Jordan's West Bank, Egypt's Gaza Strip or Syria's Golan Heights.

      Without the 1967 War, in which Arab states tried to destroy Israel, there would be no land on which to create a Palestinian state. Before the 1967 War, no Arab state, including non-Arab Iran, offered Palestinians one inch of territory. Palestinians frequently refer to Gaza and the West Bank as “occupied territories,” though Israel left Gaza Sept. 5, 2005, now a hotbed of terrorism. While Israel built some settlements in Gaza and the West Bank since 1967, Palestinians flocked to the territories, essentially claiming Israel's spoils as their own territory. With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on shaky ground, he's now trying to “wag-the-dog” threatening to attack Iran's enrichment facilities. Lame duck U.S. President George W. Bush has pushed the U.N. to impose greater sanctions on Iran for Ahmadinejad's refusal to suspend his uranium enrichment program.

      Growing discontent in Iran gives Ahmadinejad the ultimate propaganda tool: Pitting the West against Iran's fledgling right to nuclear fuel. Ahmadinejad claims Iran has a right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for “peaceful purposes,” that is generally meant as generating electricity. But as India and Pakistan found out, going nuclear is the best deterrent to aggression. With the U.S. and Israel raising the ante with Iran, there's no evidence Iran would use a nuclear weapon in a first strike against Israel. Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli rhetoric has been grossly misinterpreted in and out of Israel to signal a future nuclear attack. His statement about “wiping Israel off the map,” has been deliberately distorted to mean he'd A-bomb Tel Aviv. Threatening to bomb Tehran's enrichment facilities helps Olmert divert attention away from his political demise.

      Ahmadinejad laughed off the European Union's June 23 sanctions restricting travel and freezing more assets for his failure to stop uranium enrichment. “On the nuclear issue . . . the enemies were not able to stop our nation and will never succeed in stopping our program,” said Ahmadinejad June 26, thumbing his nose at the EU's attempt to punish Iran. “These bullying powers . . . should know that threats and pressure will not save them from us,” raising anxiety in the U.S. and Israel. Israel and the West haven't yet accepted that it's probably too late to stop Iran's march toward a nuclear weapon without a catastrophic bombing campaign. While Israel itches for a confrontation, the West can't afford another oil shock, driving the price of crude to over $200 a barrel. For years, the EU and U.N's International Atomic Energy Agency sat idly by while Tehran enriched uranium.

      Israel and the U.S. must get over their paranoia about Tehran's pursuit of its first A-bomb. Despite nonproliferation talks, the U.S. and U.N. couldn't stop India or Pakistan from going nuclear. Tehran shows no let up in its uranium enrichment program, which, in all likelihood, will lead to an A-bomb. Israel now fears that if Obama gets elected, he won't support an attack on Iran's enrichment facilities. McCain has made in plain where he stands. “The only thing worse than war is a nuclear-armed Iran,” said McCain, signaling he would consider unilateral military action. Absence an imminent attack on the Jewish State, there's no excuse for Israel or U.S. to threaten attacking Iran's enrichment facilities. There's no reason to believe, knowing the dire consequences, that Ahmadinejad would nuke Israel or hand the bomb to some rogue regime or terrorist group to finish the job.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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