The Iranians are asking for it and the Israelis should give it to them!

I find it incredulous when people accuse the Israelis of paranoia and unwarranted aggression in dealing with their Arab neighbours. And my incredulity is only exacerbated when the people making these accusations are otherwise reasonable, intelligent and fair-minded.

But after watching Harvard Law Prof. Alan Dershowitz and MIT Linguistics Prof. Noam Chomsky debate the topic – “Israel and Palestine After Disengagement: Where Do We Go From Here?” – on C-SPAN last Sunday, I am convinced that disabusing anyone of political bias in this context is a quixotic notion. Because, after 90 minutes of provocative but surprisingly ad hominem exchanges, neither one of these brilliant men ceded an inch of rhetorical territory for the sake of peace.

Minutes into their debate, it became clear that Prof. Dershowitz (left) and Prof. Chomsky (right) would completely ignore the rules of engagement as they “disagreed vigorously on most issues, including the diplomatic history of the dispute, the validity of each other’s sources of information, and the details of the current proposals for a two-state solution” [Staff Photo Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard News Office]

To be fair, however, at least Dershowitz acknowledged that their respective intransigence reflects the curious fact that American supporters of Israel (like him) tend to be more Jewish than the Israelis, and American advocates for a Palestinian state (like Chomsky) tend to be more Palestinian than the Palestinians.

Despite Chomsky’s passionate defense of his cause, however, I have no doubt that he would condemn Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic remarks about the state of Israel and the Holocaust that sounded so macabrely familiar to European leaders (especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel who summoned Iran’s ambassador last Friday to receive her government’s official protest). After all, it seems a genocidal delusion and utterly counterproductive for Ahmadinejad to profess his support for a Palestinian state by declaring that Israel “should be wiped off the map”. (In keeping with Dershowitz’s acknowledgement, this Persian president is clearly posturing as more Palestinian than the Palestinians.)

But then, perhaps to demonstrate that – like Adolf Hitler – his delusions about the Jews are grounded in a strategic geopolitical vision, Ahmadinejad merely compounded international alarm on Monday when he expounded on his final solution for Peace in the Middle East by offering that:

“…the Jewish state should be moved to Europe or North America. They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets.”

Of course, it is contemptible (and threatening) enough that the president of Iran seems religiously committed to denials about the fact that 6 million Jews were massacred in the Holocaust. (In fact, notorious historian David Irving was recently arrested in Austria for making similar public denials). But Jews cannot rely on condemnations to ensure that history does not repeat itself in this horrific context. Because if ever there were a case where fighting words should trigger the categorical imperative of (preemptive) Lex Talianos! (a principle which holds that “we will destroy you not only if you mess with us but also if we just think you’re going to mess with us!”), Ahmadinejad’s words clearly qualify.

(Indeed, anyone remotely familiar with the recent history of the Middle East knows that in 1981, based on this principle, Israel launched strategic attacks in Iraq to destroy its nuclear facilities when Saddam Hussein failed to provide adequate assurances that he harboured no military aggression against the Jews.)

Therefore, it seems exceedingly foolhardy for Ahmadinejad to continue provoking Israel in this manner. Yet the case for preemptive strikes was only strengthened on Tuesday when Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Palestinians to reject Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s historic and seismic overtures for peace because:

“The experience of the past 50 years shows that compromise with the Zionist occupiers and negotiations with them will not improve the situation….We therefore conclude that victory will be achieved only through resistance.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad kissing the hand of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who, with the consent of his council of Mullahs, has blessed and even abetted Ahmadinejad’s genocidal anti-Semitic crusade

I am profoundly troubled by these developments because, as this previous article on Ahmadinejad’s election as president will attest, I supported Iran’s nuclear ambitions. I did so because I believe it is untenable and unsustainable for the United States and other nuclear powers (the nuclear club) to determine so arbitrarily which countries can possess nuclear weapons. After all, not too long ago, the nuclear club held that Pakistan and India were “prohibited”; yet today, both countries are bona fide members of the club.

But now I believe that Ahmadinejad’s irrational and irresponsible threats have effectively forfeited Iran’s right to possess nuclear weapons. And, whatever the merit of Iran’s “negotiations” with the EU (pursuant to the Tehran Declaration of October 2003) about the intended use of its nuclear facilities, it is patently fatuous for oil rich Iran to claim that its going nuclear solely to provide energy for the Iranian people.

(Just one nuclear bomb could accomplish in an instant for Ahmadinejad what the Holocaust and all of World War II could not for Adolf Hitler….If you were an Israeli Jew, wouldn’t you be paranoid?)

Therefore, given that Ahmadinejad’s openly hostile rhetoric appears to reflect official state policy, I believe it would be wise, if not categorically imperative, for Israeli PM Sharon to invoke the law of preemptive Lex Talianos to deal with Iran just as Israel dealt with Iraq over 2 decades ago.

Shalom!

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