Ephraim Sneh
Photo: Erez Erlichman
America’s bear hug
US efforts to prevent Iran strike by lavishing us with gifts come with a price
Iran is approaching the accumulation of sufficient enriched uranium quantities for producing nuclear weapons – this is not only based on Israel’s intelligence assessment, but also on an International Atomic Energy Agency report. Nobody is stopping Tehran.
Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, our life in this country will not be the same. Immigration will decline, the brain drain will grow, and foreign investments will drop. Moreover, the decision-making establishment in Jerusalem will necessarily be affected by the threat hovering above us. Arab world radicalism will grow due to the backwind given to it by Iran’s nuclear power. States that are scared of Iran, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, will also seek to acquire nuclear weapon.
Observations
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says that as a result of Tehran's nuclear activities, he would never expect Israel to abandon its own, 'supposed nuclear arsenal'
It is highly doubtful whether Israeli deterrence has any value vis-à-vis a regime premised on radical religious faith that requires the elimination of the “Zionist entity.” In the Iran-Iraq war, this regime sent waves of Iranian children and boys to Iraqi minefields in order to clear them with their own bodies and make way for the Revolutionary Guards troops. Why would those who did not have mercy on their children back then show mercy to their own citizens today?
As of late, the regime in Tehran has been praising and glorifying the barbaric sacrifice of children as human mine clearers. Apparently, there is a reason for this.
Iran’s advancement towards a nuclear bomb and the international community’s inaction in stopping it necessarily give rise to the option of Israel having no choice but to act on its own. However, our great ally, the United States, is making it difficult for us to build this option.
At first we had the leak to the New York Times regarding the long-range exercise carried out by the Air Force above the Mediterranean. This was followed by the statements of Admiral Mullen, the chairman of the joint chief of staff, in respect to the danger inherent in an operation against Iran. Later, according to media reports, the US rejected Israel’s request to purchase systems that would improve the Air Force’s ability to operate against long-range targets.
America’s message: Do nothing
Yet then came the compensation; a compensation prize in the form of an advanced American early warning system to be deployed in the Negev. This radar, which is connected to a satellite system, will extend the warning of incoming ballistic missiles by precious minutes. The chance to intercept these missiles will also grow. The system to be deployed in the Negev will be manned by US troops or citizens.This gift improves Israel’s self-defense capabilities, and we should be thankful for that. However, it limits our freedom to act both operationally and diplomatically. Our problem is not only how to protect ourselves. We need to be able to act against those who made the State of Israel’s elimination their top priority. This ability of ours has been undermined. The message inherent in the granting of the radar system is the same message of American refusal to our previous requests: Do nothing. There is no certainty that the words uttered by presidential candidates McCain and Obama against the Iranian nukes will be translated, in 2009, into a more forceful policy than that of the current US Administration.
Meanwhile, the approval for selling 25 advanced F-35 fighter jets to Israel does not constitute good news only. Israel will receive the expensive jet ($80 million) as part of the aid budget, yet the terms of the deal have not yet been finalized. Israel has not yet been granted the option of installing Israeli-made systems in the plane. This is not only a blow to our defense industries, which have improved the F-16’s capabilities not only for Israel’s benefit, but also for the benefit of other countries. The ban on entering the plane’s “electronic brain” deprives the Air Force of its operational freedom. Britain, for example, refused to purchase the F-35 before it was granted the authority to use it.
The current government, as well as the next one, does not have the moral right to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran. The American gifts will not clear it of its responsibility for the inaction. No compliance with external pressures will absolve it of the responsibility for a failure that is a thousand times worse than Golda and Dayan’s rejection of Chief of Staff David Elazar’s request for a pre-emptive strike in the morning of Yom Kippur in 1973.
Dr. Ephraim Sneh is the Chairman of the Strong Israel party and a former government minister
