http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1345260872/
Uri Avnery's Column
Mad or Crazy?
Gush Shalom
18/08/12
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU may be crazy, but he is not mad.
Ehud Barak may be mad, but he is not crazy.
Ergo: Israel will not attack Iran.
I HAVE said so before, and I shall say so again, even after the endless talk
about it. Indeed no war has been talked about so much before it happened. To
quote the classic movie line: If you have to shoot, shoot. Dont talk!
In all Netanyahus bluster about the inevitable war, one sentence stands
out: In the Committee of Inquiry after the war, I shall take upon myself
the sole responsibility, I and I alone!
A very revealing statement.
First of all, committees of inquiry are appointed only after a military
failure. There was no such committee after the 1948 War of Independence, nor
after the 1956 Sinai War or the 1967 Six-day War. There were, however,
committees of inquiry after the 1974 Yom Kippur war and the 1982 and 2006
Lebanon Wars. By conjuring up the specter of another such committee,
Netanyahu unconsciously treats this war as an inevitable failure.
Second, under Israeli law, the entire Government of Israel is the Commander
in Chief of the armed forces. Under another law, all ministers bear
collective responsibility. TIME magazine, which is becoming more
ridiculous by the week, may crown King Bibi, but we still have no
monarchy. Netanyahu is no more than primus inter pares.
Third, in his statement Netanyahu expresses boundless contempt for his
fellow ministers. They dont count.
Netanyahu considers himself a modern day Winston Churchill. I dont seem to
remember Churchill announcing, upon assuming office, I take responsibility
for the coming defeat. Even in the desperate situation of that moment, he
trusted in victory. And the word I did not figure large in his speech.
IN THE daily brainwashing, the problem is presented in military terms. The
debate, such as it is, concerns military capabilities and dangers.
Israelis are especially, and understandably, worried by the rain of tens of
thousands of missiles expected to fall on all parts of Israel, not only from
Iran, but also from Lebanon and Gaza. The minister responsible for civil
defense deserted just this week, and another one, a refugee from the hapless
Kadima party, has taken his place. Everybody knows that a large part of the
population (including myself) is completely defenseless.
Ehud Barak has announced that no more than a measly 500 Israelis will be
killed by enemy missiles. I do not aspire to the honor of being one of them,
though I live quite near the Ministry of Defense..
But the military confrontation between Israel and Iran is only a part of the
picture, and not the most important one.
As I have pointed out in the past, far more important is the impact on the
world economy, already steeped in a profound crisis. An Israeli attack will
be viewed by Iran as American-inspired, and the reaction will be
accordingly, as explicitly stated by Iran this week.
The Persian Gulf is a bottle, whose neck is the narrow Strait of Hormuz,
which is totally controlled by Iran. The huge American aircraft carriers now
stationed in the gulf will be well advised to get out before it is too late.
They resemble those antique sailing ships which enthusiasts assemble in
bottles. Even the powerful weaponry of the US will not be able to keep the
strait open. Simple land-to-sea missiles will be quite enough to keep it
closed for months. To open it, a prolonged land operation by the US and its
allies will be required. A long and bloody business with unpredictable
consequences.
A major part of the worlds oil supplies has to pass through this unique
waterway. Even the mere threat of its closure will cause oil prices to shoot
sky-high. Actual hostilities will result in a worldwide economic collapse,
with hundreds of thousands - if not millions of new unemployed.
Each of these victims will curse Israel. Since it will be crystal clear that
this is an Israeli war, the rage will be turned against us. Worse, much
worse since Israel insists that it is the state of the Jewish people,
the rage may take the form of an unprecedented outbreak of anti-Semitism.
Newfangled Islamophobes will revert to old-time Jew-haters. The Jews are
our disaster, as the Nazis used to proclaim.
This may be worst in the US. Until now, Americans have watched with
admirable tolerance as their Middle East policy is practically dictated by
Israel. But even the almighty AIPAC and its allies will not be able to
contain the outburst of public anger. They will give way like the levees of
New Orleans.
THIS WILL have a direct impact on a central calculation of the warmongers.
In private conversations, but not only there, they assert that America will
be immobilized on the eve of elections. During the last few weeks before
November 6, both candidates will be mortally afraid of the Jewish lobby.
The calculation goes like this: Netanyahu and Barak will attack without
giving a damn for American wishes. The Iranian counter-attack will be
directed against American interests. The US will be dragged into the war
against its will.
But even in the unlikely event that the Iranians act with supreme
self-restraint and do not attack US targets, contrary to their declarations,
President Obama will be compelled to save us, send huge quantities of arms
and ammunition, bolster our anti-missile defenses, fund the war. Otherwise
he will be accused of leaving Israel in the lurch and Mitt Romney will be
elected as the savior of the Jewish State.
This calculation is based on historical experience. All Israeli governments
in the past have exploited American election years for their purposes.
In 1948, when the US was required to recognize the new Israeli state against
the express advice of both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of
Defense, President Truman was fighting for his political life. His campaign
was bankrupt. At the last moment Jewish millionaires leaped into the breach,
Truman and Israel were saved.
In 1956, President Eisenhower was in the middle of his re-election campaign
when Israel attacked Egypt in collusion with France and Britain. It was a
miscalculation Eisenhower did not need Jewish votes and money and put a
stop to the adventure. In other election years the stakes were lower, but
always the occasion was used to gain some concessions from the US.
Will it work this time? If Israel unleashes a war on the eve of elections,
in an obvious effort to blackmail the president, will the American public
mood support Israel or could it go the other way? It will be a critical
gamble of historic proportions. But like Mitt Romney, Netanyahu is a protégé
of the Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, and he may be no more averse to
gambles than the poor suckers who leave their money in Adelsons casinos.
WHERE ARE the Israelis in all this?
In spite of the constant brainwashing, polls show that the majority of
Israelis are dead set against an attack. Netanyahu and Barak are seen as two
addicts, many say megalomaniacs, who are beyond rational thinking.
One of the most striking aspects of the situation is that our army chief and
the entire General Staff, as well as the chiefs of the Mossad and the Shin
Bet, and almost all their predecessors, are totally and publicly opposed to
the attack.
It is one of the rare occasions when military commanders are more moderate
than their political chiefs, though it has happened in Israel before. One
may well ask: how can political leaders start a fateful war when practically
all their military advisors, who know our military capabilities and the
chances for success, are against it?
One of the reasons for this opposition is that the army chiefs know better
than anyone else how totally dependent on the US Israel really is. Our
relationship with America is the very basis of our national security.
Also, it seems doubtful whether Netanyahu and Barak have a majority for the
attack even in their own government and inner cabinet. The ministers know
that apart from everything else, the attack would drive investors and
tourists away, causing huge damage to Israels economy.
So why do most Israelis still believe that the attack is imminent?
Israelis, by and large, have been totally convinced by now (a) that Iran is
governed by a bunch of crazy ayatollahs beyond rationality, and (b) that,
once in the possession of a nuclear bomb, they will certainly drop it on us.
These convictions are based on the utterances of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in
which he declared that he will wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
But did he really say that? Sure, he has repeatedly expressed his conviction
that the Zionist Entity will disappear from the face of the earth. But it
seems that he never actually said that he or Iran - would ensure that
result.
That may seem only a small rhetorical difference, but in this context it is
very important.
Also, Ahmadinejad may have a big mouth, but his actual power in Iran was
never very great and is shrinking fast. The ayatollahs, the real rulers, are
far from being irrational. Their whole behavior since the revolution shows
them to be very cautious people, averse to foreign adventures, scarred by
the long war with Iraq that they did not start and did not want.
A nuclear-armed Iran may be an inconvenient near-neighbor, but the threat of
a second holocaust is a figment of the manipulated imagination. No
ayatollah will drop a bomb when the certain response will be the total
annihilation of all Iranian cities and the end of the glorious cultural
history of Persia. Deterrence was, after all, the whole sense of producing
an Israel bomb
IF NETANYAHU & Co. were really frightened by the Iranian Bomb, they would do
one of two things:
Either agree to the de-nuclearization of the region, giving up our own
nuclear armaments (highly unlikely);
Or make peace with the Palestinians and the entire Arab world, thereby
disarming the ayatollahs hostility to Israel.
But Netanyahu's actions show that, for him, keeping the West Bank is vastly
more important than the Iranian bomb.
What better proof do we need of the craziness of this whole scare?
*
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