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Part Six - The Freedom of the Citizen and Internal and External Security
The Iranian threat
"If one comes to kill you, rise up and kill him" –Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin.
"The quickest way to end wars is to eliminate the bastards who start them" –George Patton.
The danger of delegitimization of Israel's existence
Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran means the ability to destroy Israeli cities all at once at once and obliterate their residents. In the face of this danger, Israel continues to equip itself with weapons for attack and defense, and acts to delay Iran's nuclear program, but Israel does not eliminate the danger as it did in the past, when the IDF attacked and destroyed the nuclear facilities in Iraq (1981) and in Syria (2007).
However, the main danger lies not in the nuclear weapon itself. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran, with all their frightful dimensions of destruction, will not entirely destroy even a country like Israel. The fear of nuclear weapons in the hands of our enemies blinds us to the actual danger of this weapon[17].
Commentators rightly add that Iran's nuclearization will inevitably lead to a nuclear and conventional arms race throughout the Middle East, which will further increase the threat to Israel. This is an arms race that has already begun[18], and has intensified since the "nuclear agreement" in 2015 made it clear that the United States and the "world" will allow Iran to reach the nuclear threshold without interference. Even the economic sanctions which made things very difficult for Iran have been removed, and all of the world's arms suppliers (except for Israel) are now lining up to accept their share in Iran's rich "shopping list" on the one hand and their worried neighbors on the other[19] (including Israel). The Middle East is now flooded with more and more advanced weapons, and soon, perhaps even nuclear weapons.
However, the real danger is the delegitimization of the very existence of a Jewish state in the world. The Iranians are explicitly threatening us with annihilation, without real response, and the world is once again becoming accustomed to the idea.
In order to understand the depth of the danger, it suffices to recall that this happened to us in the not so distant past. The Holocaust did not begin in the death camps. The Holocaust began with Hitler's speeches of hatred, from when he took power in Germany, where he spoke explicitly about the annihilation of European Jewry. When a head of state announces his intention to exterminate the Jews, and the world goes about its business, the international legitimacy of Jewish existence disappears, and our destruction is once again perceived as legitimate.
When the Iranian rulers explicitly announced their intention to "wipe Israel off the map," while investing enormous resources in their military nuclear program, the world expected an Israeli response in accordance with the "Begin Doctrine" which explicitly stated: "Under no circumstances will we allow the enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against our people. We will defend the citizens of Israel pre-emptively, and by all the means at our disposal."[20]
But while the Israeli response stalled, Iran's leaders intensified their statements about Israel, increasing the pace of their nuclear program[21], and the process of delegitimizing Israel's very existence began anew.
Instead of acting against the danger, Netanyahu worked steadily to transfer responsibility from Israel to "the world," thereby lowering Israel's status in the world from that of a sovereign state that would clearly defend itself to the status Czechoslovakia had on the eve of the Munich Conference in 1938: Of a state that has renounced its right to determine its own destiny, and now others determine its fate, in accordance with their own interests, of course.
This change in Israel's status has already happened, and the similarity between the 1938 Czech leader who was not allowed to participate in discussions about the fate of his country and Netanyahu, who was not allowed to participate in the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2015, is a horrifying similarity. Instead of acting as an independent state, Israeli leaders accustom themselves, us, and the world to the fact that Israel refrains from operating without a "green light" from the world, and not only in the nuclear field, but also in Gaza and Lebanon. They have said so repeatedly, explicitly and publicly.
Israel today is stronger militarily and economically than ever, and continues to grow steadily. But in terms of its national strength, its international standing and the justness of its existence, Israel is at the weakest point since the beginning of the War of Independence, because our continued existence has become a subject of open and public discussion in the world. And at the end of the day, what counts is not what you can do, but what you do.
Elimination and deterrence of enemy leaders themselves
The enemy is not the Iranian nuclear bomb and its development and production facilities, but the Iranian regime[22]. Whoever seeks to destroy us, and invests the best resources of his people in the development and equipping of the weapons intended for this purpose, is the enemy. He, not his weapon. In war, the main target of the attack is the enemy itself, not the weapons and other means. Certainly weapons can and should be damaged, in accordance with the "Begin Doctrine"[23], but weapons are not the enemy.
The heads of the Iranian regime who call for our destruction and are doing everything in their power to advance this, are the enemy, they are the "head of the snake," and eliminating them is necessary, moral, and also possible.
Even in the days of the Bible, our ancestors succeeded, with the means they had, to eliminate enemy leaders. Ehud Ben Gera liquidated the king of Moab[24], and leveraged the assassination for a crushing defeat of the Moabite army, which gave the people of Israel eighty years of security and quiet, eighty years of deterrence, in which our neighbors did not dare attack us.
The correct answer when an enemy poses a question mark about our very right to continue living is to reply in kind and place a question mark on his own right. Today, with the sophisticated means we have developed to defend ourselves, Israel has the ability to reach the enemy leaders directly, and to eliminate them with precision weapons.
This is true in Tehran, as it is in Gaza. Israel has the ability to convey a clear and sharp message to anyone who replaces the assassinated enemy leader, as well as to any other leader in the Middle East. The message is simple: Anyone who tries to destroy Israel, Israel will eliminate him personally.
When this becomes the price of "playing with fire" with Israel, the playing with fire will cease and they will no longer dare to try to hurt us when they know that they themselves will be killed, and not just their soldiers and their citizens.
Modern military technology, especially that of Israel, now allows[25] for a revolution in the nature of war. It allows us "to eliminate the bastards who start wars," as General Patton put it at the top of the chapter, and therefore allows us to end and even prevent wars. For decades, Israel has been talking about deterrence, and that does not always work[26]. Eliminating the enemy leader will create real deterrence. Instead of killing thousands of enemy soldiers, causing enormous destruction, and also harming innocents, it is possible, and also necessary, and it is also the most moral, to kill the criminal, the "head of the snake", the one that is causing the war. Maybe we will not have a "peace agreement" or "eat hummus in Damascus" or Tehran, but peace, which is to say security, we will have.
[17] Quoting from "The Nuclear Threat in Practical Outlook", a book by Dr. Joshua Sokol, head of the Forum of Nuclear Engineers, "In terms of the worst-case scenario: hundreds of atomic bombs in the absence of effective civil defense, our losses can reach as much as 10% of the total population. Losses of this magnitude are very difficult, but they are not unprecedented ... " However, of course, we want to completely prevent an attack,, to thwart the nuclear threat to Israel.
[18] After decades of "quiet" in this area, the media has reported in recent years a renewed effort in the nuclear field in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.
[19] Saudi Arabia announced at the end of 2016 that it would increase its annual defense budget by roughly the equivalent of the annual US military aid to Israel.
[20] The day after the IDF destroyed the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, the Israeli government headed by Menachem Begin published an official statement explaining why Israel attacked the nuclear reactor and would attack again in every similar case.
[21] For many years, Iran has progressed slowly in the path of partial uranium enrichment, allowing it to claim that it is a non-military nuclear program, and has avoided progress on the plutonium production route, which allows for much faster and cheaper nuclear weapons, but has no civilian use. But after years of talk instead of actions by Israel, the Iranians were encouraged and in 2012, began to move forward on building a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium near Arak.
[22] Just as in the Gaza Strip the enemy is not the rocket or the tunnel, but rather the enemy is Hamas.
[23] The obvious principle of "If one comes to kill you – rise up and kill him" - that is, the State of Israel will act by all means to remove the threat to its existence pre-emptively – greatly preceded the "Begin Doctrine". In 1956, the Egyptian army was equipped with new weapons of high quality and quantity, which put Israel's existence at imminent risk. In response, Israel embarked on the Sinai Campaign. In 1962 there was a concern that former Nazi scientists were developing unconventional weapons in Egypt that could be used to attack Israeli cities. In response, Israel acted in secret and caused the scientists to leave and project to be destroyed. In 1967, Israel faced an imminent and explicit existential threat. In response, Israel embarked on the Six-Day War.
[24] Book of Judges, Chapter 3.
[25] Twenty-four years ago, Israel had the technological ability to eliminate an enemy state's ruler with precision weaponry, but at the time, the operation required bringing fighters closer to the target, and the operation was canceled before it was carried out (the Tze'elim B disaster). Today, the Israeli Air Force is equipped with unmanned Israeli-made aircraft that can reach Tehran and beyond, wait many hours in the air for the right moment, conduct high-quality surveillance from a very large distance, and to attack accurately, without endangering fighters. All this is according to open sources.
[26] In 2004, Israel assassinated two Hamas leaders one after the other, but since then it has clearly ceased the practice, and we have all seen the results since then. There are also examples of positive Israeli deterrence over decades, where it is clear to the other side the price it will pay, and the most salient example is the decades of quiet in the Golan against the Syrian ruler.
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