Do you know the joke about the guy who murdered his parents, and then begged the court for mercy because he was an orphan?
Who brought us the miserable nuclear agreement with Iran, if not Binyamin Netanyahu? It was his policy that transferred responsibility to deal with Iran’s nuclear program to the US. And when Obama and the ayatollahs met to discuss the deal, Netanyahu found himself on the wrong side of the door.
After I give a speech, if someone comes over to me and says, ‘I didn’t understand exactly what you were getting at,’ I know that I have failed.
Today, everyone is trying to explain what Netanyahu tried to say in his internationally broadcast speech yesterday:
That Iran plans to destroy us?
They already made that declaration a decade ago.
That after the agreement expires they will progress toward nuclear weapons?
They do not deny that.
That they are liars?
That they are dangerous?
What were you trying to say?
You sent an entire country into pre-war mode, and in the end, what did you say?
Menachem Begin did not make a presentation on the Iraqi reactor.
Olmert didn’t do that for Syria, either.
For years, I attempted to convince the PM and then-Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, that Israel’s strategy vis a vis the Iranian nuclear threat was catastrophic and that it would necessarily lead Iran (and later, the entire Middle-East) to the bomb. The few times that I met with them on the issue, I did not receive a significant answer to my claims. With no other choice, I took advantage of one of the major faction meetings in the Knesset (Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu) and in the presence of all the ministers and MKs of the two parties, I turned to the PM and asked: “Mr. Prime Minister, when did Israel enjoy more legitimacy to attack Iran’s nuclear installations? 8 years ago, when Ahmadinijad had just begun to talk about our destruction, or today?”
Netanyahu looked at me and didn’t know what to answer. A murmur went through the crowd and it was clear that everyone agreed that today, there is much less legitimacy for attacking Iran’s nuclear installations today. (This took place before the Iran Nuclear Deal).
“Today, it is much more difficult for us to attack – both operationally and politically,” I continued. “So maybe we are doing something wrong? Perhaps our strategy is taking us backwards instead of forward? Perhaps the time has come to re-evaluate our strategy?”
More than anything else, the depth of yesterday’s farce was expressed by the fact that Netanyahu spoke in English. This was not a Churchillian speech of the leader of the sovereign nation that lives in Zion, a leader who candidly addresses his nation and prepares them for the difficult challenge ahead. Instead, it was the speech of a community leader lobbying the local landowner – and speaking in his language. As if the State of Israel had never been founded between Weitzman’s plea to the British to bomb the German death camps and Netanyahu’s plea to the US to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
For 70 years, we have been dragging every visiting VIP directly from the airport to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.
Why?
So that at the moment of truth, we will once again place our fate in their hands?
Trump is a fine fellow – but he will not sacrifice one millimeter of America’s interests for us – just as we will not do for the Kurds, for example.
A decade ago, while nobody noticed, Netanyahu returned the responsibility for our existence to the nations of the world.
It doesn’t happen all at once. Tactically, Israel certainly defends itself quite impressively. But strategically, we are in the wrong direction.
PM Netanyahu has brought a strategic catastrophe upon us. The central achievement of Zionism is that Israel has taken its fate into its own hands. Netanyahu has eroded that principle. And with the impressive farce to which he treated us yesterday, he eroded it even more.
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