(Translated from the wekend Makor Rishon Hebrew newspaper by Rochel Sylvetsky. Likud primaries are Tuesday, January31st.)
The stronger sanctions that the EU decided to implement against Iran last week are not severe enough to stop Ahmadinejad’s nuclear program, but they are a significant step in that direction and a great achievement for Netanyahu.
I am aware that is not politically correct to say the above forbidden phrase. It is forbidden on the left where deriding Netanyahu is the existential formulation of the left’s raison d’etre. It is forbidden on the right because one must not flatter the man who uttered the words “Palestinian State”, and besides, in order to save Migron, Netanyahu must be weakened and shown on what side his bread is buttered. But what must I do? Sometimes the plain truth will out.
And the plain truth is that this is an enormous achievement. Like the boy with his finger in the dike, or, if you will, like Cato the Elder in Rome, Netanyahu repeated again and again - like a real nudnik - that the Iranian nuclear bomb is the most important item on the world’s agenda.
All the politicians grimaced and all the commentators hooted. Yet he didn’t budge an inch. Everyone made a point of explaining, rather superciliously, that the man simply does not get it. The chief topic of the day is the Palestinians, not the Iranians. Listen to President Obama.
Netanyahu went to Obama with the same message about the Iranians, and the US president made fun of him - with his body language, malicious leaks to the press and in official media announcements.
It isn’t Bushehr, Mr. Prime Minister, it is Yitzhar. When will you capiche, they heckled. And if that is the way it was in Washington, where we are liked somewhat, in antagonistic Europe it was even colder. They kept telling him that what counts are Palestinians, settlements, Abu Mazen, in any order. He kept repeating Iran, Iran, Iran.
Stubborn words alone do not suffice to change the world’s order of priorities. Simultaneously, Netanyahu succeeded in making it clear to the world that Israel is preparing seriously to attack Iran militarily, and that put the pressure on European and American leaders to do something. The Prime Minister doesn’t threaten military action day and night, in fact he does the opposite most of the time. He maintains that this is the last option and that the preferred route is international sanctions and diplomatic pressure. Once in a while, though, he hints rather heavily about attacking.
Heaven forfend. May we never reach that point. Attacking Iran will not resemble attacking the Iraqi nuclear site or destroying the nuclear facility that had begun to be built in Syria. Iran would fight back and so would her proxies to the north and south of Israel, Hizbullah and Hamas. They have been provided with tens of thousands of missiles and other kinds of death wielding arms that put all of Israel within their range. This frightening scenario is actually a nerve-wracking poker game played by Netanyahu against all the world’s leaders.
To prevent him from attacking, they will increase the sanctions against Iran, and to ensure that, he will make his message stronger and the preparations for an attack more obvious.
Part one took place last week. On the day the EU sanctions were announced, the Prime Minister did not let his gratitude to the Europeans overwhelm him, to say the least, letting his face and response express his disappointment that they did not go farther.
That same day, coincidentally, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and in his Knesset speech, Netanyahu had hard words: “Today, on a day when there has been international cooperation and a significant achievment vis a vis Iran, I wish to remind us all that the main lesson we can learn from the genocide of our people is that, in the end, when there is an existential threat facing us, we must not allow our future to be in the hands of anyone but ourselves. When the subject is our survival, we can rely only on ourselves.”
No one knows if we will ever reach the critical point when the only choice left is war with Iran. No one knows if when that moment arrives, Netanyahu will have the courage to decide to attack. He is under pressure from many sources, within Israel and from the outside world, not to attack. But at least last week it was proven that on the question of what the top item on the world’s agenda is, Netanyahu scored a victory.
Three years ago, when he formed the government, Binyamin Netanyahu said he had two goals that put all other plans in the shade: containing the Iranian nuclear threat and preventing the Israeli economy from being drawn into the world’s economic crisis. And nothing can be done about the fact, although it is really not in fashion to give him credit, neither on the right nor on the left, that in truth he has succeeded beyond expectations on both counts.