On Tuesday, Peter Beinart chastised American Jews for not listening more closely to Israeli soldiers. “There’s nothing American Jews love more than Israeli soldiers, except perhaps, Israeli spies,” he wrote in a piece in the Daily Beast titled “U.S. Jews Should Heed Top Israeli Soldiers Who Oppose Bombing Iran.” “So perhaps American Jews should start noticing that an astonishing number of Israel’s top soldiers and spies are warning against bombing Iran.”
A few years ago, I witnessed a debate inside the Israeli Knesset between two former heads of Israeli military intelligence, research and assessment, General Yaakov Amidror and General Danny Rothschild. The veterans disagreed on everything — technology, threats, solutions, defensible borders, control of territory and disengagement. During my service in the military, I saw the same phenomenon among officers at every rank. In robust democracies “listening” to soldiers—or civilians—is almost never a shortcut to obvious or unanimous answers.
With that in mind, Beinart is as guilty as anyone of not listening to Israeli soldiers. Consider all the Israeli generals whose opinions he casts aside because they differ from his. On the matter of Gaza and the West Bank, he rejects the opinion of former Chief of Staff General (ret.) Moshe Ya’alon, who opposes disengagements on security grounds. He disregards the former head of Israel’s General Security Service, Avi Dichter, who warned that “the evacuation [from Gaza] is dangerous, and the retreat will give the Palestinians a sense of victory and encouragement for terrorism.” Beinart dismisses the assessments of withdrawals of former head of Israeli intelligence, General Zeevi Farkash, former Israeli Air Force Chief General Ben Eliyahu, and former military secretary to the prime minister, General Gadi Shamni. He also rejects the advice of current National Security Advisor General Amidror, who believes control of territory is essential to defeating terrorism.
On the Iranian threat, he casts aside the warnings of former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit, that a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is the best way to keep Israel safe.
Beinart has every right to favor withdrawals from territories and oppose a strike on Iran, but this has little to do with his listening to Israeli soldiers.
The heart of the Iran question is complex. What to do when a brutal theocracy regularly threatens to destroy a member state of the UN and is on the verge of acquiring the most deadly weapons known to man?
Instead of addressing the issue on that basis, Beinart prefers tendentious guilt-by-association. He writes, “Netanyahu’s taste for the apocalyptic flows less from his Jewishness than from his conservatism—a conservatism learned during his close association with the Republican right while he served as a diplomat in Washington and New York in the 1980s.”
Iran does not stand in violation of the Genocide Convention because Netanyahu was hanging out with Republicans in the 1980s. Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said triumphantly, “an atomic bomb would leave nothing in Israel.” Does his actual “taste for the apocalyptic” flow from his time spent secretly cavorting with Republicans in the 1980s?
Seventy percent of Israel’s population and 80 percent of its industrial capacity resides on a tiny strip of coastal territory, which two nuclear bombs could obliterate. Israeli military officials who work day and night to thwart this scenario aren’t fear-mongering right-wingers. They despise war, but many of them have come to the conclusion after painstaking deliberation that only Israeli jets can stop Iranian nukes. It was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after all, who described his nuclear program as a train without brakes.
Beinart writes that “shifting power balances and increased threat levels” coming from Iran are “a far cry from Netanyahu’s language of existential destruction.” Others believe when a country threatens genocide, it should be taken seriously. Iranian euphemisms for Israel’s destruction such as “erased from the pages of history” don’t placate Israeli fears much. Nor does the Iranian leader’s reference to Israel as a “black and dirty microbe” and the subsequent parading of Shihab-3 missiles covered in banners reading, “Israel must be uprooted and erased from history.”
No one outside of a tiny circle of theocratic, apocalyptic, terrorist fanatics knows if Iran will actually use nuclear bombs. But would you bet the lives of millions of civilians on the guess that the Iranian regime’s stated goal is no more than a rhetorical ruse?
By all means, Americans should listen to Israeli soldiers—those who agree with them and those who don’t. But let no one slander those dedicated to stopping the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism from attaining the most deadly weapons on the planet as right-wing warmongers unwilling to listen to Israeli soldiers.
In reality though, once you strip out Chris Matthews, the New York Times, Huffington Post, Salon, the New York Review of Books you're really left with almost NO ONE who's saying the either Israel will or should attack Iran. If I were cynical I'd have to say that the leftist press is serving much the same role now as it did in 1967 when it practically dared Israel to save herself then condemned her when she did.
I recommend large doses of Haloperidol for whatever is profoundly broken in your head.
The heart of the Iran question is complex. What to do when a brutal theocracy regularly threatens to destroy a member state of the UN and is on the verge of acquiring the most deadly weapons known to man? nThis is not complex!! Take out Iranian Nukes no matter the consequence, since you already know the stated consequences of Iran with nukes. It is really quite simple.
Brutal theocracy – Iran nBrutal Democarcy – Israel nWhat's in a name, Pilgrim? n nCorrection: It is Israel that continiously threatens to attack a UN member state – Iran. A violation (Israels' #2,012 violation, jajaja) of the UN Charter.
I was an IDF Officer. To anyone who thinks Israel's invincible it' not. Personally, I surmise an attack on Iran would be devastating FOR ISRAEL.
Was an Israeli officer? What happened? Did you die and come back as a hillbilly? Even this haggis-eating Goy knows that once an officer in the IDF, always an officer, in the reserves and right up to full retirement. Paulbot, go home.
if Iran is too dangerous to stop, then won't they be a whole lot MORE dangerous when they actually have the bomb? n nok former IDF officer, I'll bite: tell us why it would be better for Israel to let Iran get nuclear weapons than to attack them and try to stop them.
Once Iran has multiple nuclear weapons the only defense will be hair trigger offense with nuclear weapons because that will be the only way to be even remotely sure of getting all launchers in real time. I would hate to hold that responsibility.
Problem is what happens if the operation goes sideways without accomplishing its goals a la 2006 war with Hezbollah–worst case. But wasting bytes on Peter Beinhart whose purpose is to get snark cred while tossing out twoferone beanbags at the GOP and Israel? Why bother? The game is given away upfront with the wholly gratuitous dual-loyalty canard that the only thing American Jews like more than the IDF is ISRAELI SPIES ooooooo! bugga bugga. Jazz hands! A professional ignoramus, in the middle ages he would have provided cheap bear-baiting thrills in disputations before audiences as contemptuous of him as his rabbinic fall-guys–nowadays he gets to publicly pull boogers out of his nose for the blogotard set. Yippee.
Bravo! n nI think that we have to continually remind our readers that the disparity in size of territory, population, military forces, and raw resources dramatically emphasizes the seriousness of Iran's threat toward Israel. n nImagine living with the prospect that the next day could bring widespread death and destruction from an entity that for some irrational reason seeks to destroy you – such would be the situation if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb. n nMaybe no imagination is needed – all we have to do is consider millions of defenseless European Jews annihilated by germans, who were (in)directly assisted by populations of many other countries. n nA tragedy that the world is willing to let happen again.
Did anyone notice that, in Beinart's article, he asserts: "So perhaps American Jews should start noticing that an astonishing number of Israel’s top soldiers and spies are warning against bombing Iran. He provides a link to support his claim. It takes you to a Bruce Reidl article reporting that two individuals are taking that position. I guess it doesn't take much to "astonish" Peter Beinert.