Summary: Team Trump plans to increase tensions with Iran (as with Russia and many other nations). Our news media tell us only what the hawks want us to know. Here Israel’s most famous peace activist tells us the rest of the story — giving us a perspective on Israel’s geopolitical situation and strategy that is seldom seen in US media.
“Without Fear, Without Prejudice”.
— Official slogan of Haolam Hazeh magazine.
“Who is Afraid of the Iranian Bomb?“
By Uri Avnery at the website of Gush Shalom, 4 November 2017.
Posted with their generous permission.
I HATE self-evident truths. Ideals may be self-evident. Political statements are not. When I hear about a self-evident political truth, I immediately doubt it.
The most self-evident political truth at this moment concerns Iran. Iran is our deadly enemy. Iran wants to destroy us. We must destroy its capabilities first.
Since this is self-evident, the anti-nuclear agreement signed between Iran and the five Security Council members (plus Germany) is terrible. Just terrible. We should have ordered the Americans long ago to bomb Iran to smithereens. In the unlikely event that they would have disobeyed us, we should have nuclear-bombed Iran ourselves, before their crazy fanatical leaders have the opportunity to annihilate us first.
All these are self-evident truths. To my mind, all of them are utter nonsense. There is nothing self-evident about them. Indeed, they have no logical basis at all. They lack any geopolitical, historical or factual foundation.
NAPOLEON ONCE said that if one wants to understand the behavior of a country, one has to look at the map. Geography is more important than ideology, however fanatical. Ideologies change with time. Geography doesn’t. The most fanatically ideological country in the 20th century was the Soviet Union. It abhorred its predecessor, Czarist Russia. It would have abhorred its successor, Putin’s Russia. But lo and behold – the Czars, Stalin and Putin conduct more or less the same foreign policy. Karl Marx must be turning in his grave.
When the Biblical Israelite people was born, Persia was already a civilized country. King Cyrus of Persia sent the “Jews” to Jerusalem and founded what can be called the “Jewish people”. He is remembered in Jewish history as a great benefactor.
When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, David Ben-Gurion saw in Iran a natural ally. It may now sound strange, but not so long ago Iran was indeed the most pro-Israeli country in the Middle East. Ben-Gurion was an out-and-out realist. Since he had no intention whatsoever to make peace with the Arabs, a peace which would have prevented the original small State of Israel expanding without boundaries, he looked for allies beyond the Arab world.
Looking at the map (yes, he believed in the map) he saw that the Muslim Arabs were surrounded by a number of non-Arab or non-Muslim entities. There were the Maronite Christians in Lebanon (not Muslims), the Turks (Muslims, but not Arabs), the Kurds (Muslims but not Arabs), Iran (Muslim, but not Arab), Ethiopia (neither Muslim nor Arab) and more. Seeing this, Ben-Gurion devised a grand plan: a “partnership of the periphery”, an alliance of all these entities surrounding the Arab world and which felt threatened by the emerging pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser and other Sunni-Muslim-Arab states.
ONE OF the greatest enthusiasts for this idea was the Shah of Iran, who became Israel’s most ardent friend. The “King of Kings” was a brutal dictator, hated by most of his people. But for many Israelis, Iran became a second home. Tehran became a Mecca for Israeli businessmen, some of whom became very rich. Experts of the Israeli Security Service, called Shabak (Hebrew initials of General Security Service) trained the Shah’s detested secret police, called Savak.
High-ranking Israeli army commanders traveled freely through Iran to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they trained the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in their fight against Saddam Hussein’s regime. (The Shah, of course, did not dream of giving freedom to his own Kurdish minority.)
This paradise came to a sudden end when the Shah made a deal with Saddam Hussein, in order to save his throne {e.g., part of which was the 1975 Algiers Agreement}. To no avail. Radical Shiite clerics, who were very popular, overthrew the Shah and established the Shiite Islamic republic. Israel was out.
By the way, another element of the “Periphery” broke away too. In 1954 Ben-Gurion and his army chief, Moshe Dayan, hatched a plan to attack Lebanon and establish a pro-Israeli Maronite dictator there. The then Prime Minister, Moshe Sharet, who knew something about the Arab world, nixed this adventure, which he considered stupid. Thirty years later Ariel Sharon, another ignoramus, implemented the same plan, with disastrous results.
In 1982, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon. It duly installed a Maronite dictator, Basheer Jumayil, who signed a peace agreement with Israel and was soon assassinated. The Shiites, who populate the South of Lebanon, welcomed the Israeli army enthusiastically, believing that it would help them against the Sunni Muslims and withdraw. I was an eye-witness: driving alone in my civilian car from Metullah in Israel to Sidon on the Lebanon coast, I passed several Shiite villages and could hardly extricate myself (physically) from the embraces of the inhabitants.
However, when the Shiites realized that the Israelis had no intention of leaving, they started a guerrilla war against them. Thus Hezbollah was born and became one of Israel’s most effective enemies – and an ally of the Shiite regime in Iran.
BUT IS the Shiite Iranian regime such a deadly enemy of Israel? I rather doubt it. Indeed, when the religious fanaticism of the new regime in Iran was at its height, a curious business occurred. It became known as “Iran-Contra” affair. Some conservatives in Washington DC wanted to arm rightist insurgents in leftist Nicaragua. American laws prevented them from doing so openly, so they turned to – who else? – Israel. Israel sold arms to the Iranian Ayatollahs (yes, indeed!) and gave the proceeds to our Washington friends, who transferred them illegally to the Nicaraguan rightist terrorists, called “Contras”.
The moral of the story: when it served their practical purposes, the Ayatollahs had no qualms at all about making deals with Israel, the “little Satan”.
Iran needed the weapons Israel sent them because they were fighting a war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It was not the first one. For many centuries, Iraq served the Arab world as a bulwark against Iran. Iraq has a large Shiite population, but the Iraqi Shiites were Arabs and had no real sympathy for their fellow-Shiites in Iran. They still have little.
Israel helped Iran in that war because it feared Saddam Hussein. Therefore, Israel helped to convince the US to invade Iraq. The invasion was highly successful: Iraq was destroyed, and the historic bulwark against Iran disappeared. So it was Israel which helped to remove the main obstacle to Iran’s hegemony over the Middle East.
Sounds crazy? Is crazy. Ben-Gurion’s grand design has been stood on its head. At present, the “periphery” of Lebanon and Iran, supported by Turkey, is our mortal enemy, and the Sunni bloc of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Egypt are our open or half-secret allies.
HERE I hear the impatient reader shout: “Cut the bullshit, what about the nuclear danger? What about the mad ayatollahs obtaining atomic bombs and annihilating us?”
Well, I am not afraid. Even if Iran obtains nuclear bombs, I shall sleep well. Why, for God’s (or Allah’s) sake? Because Israel is well provided with nuclear weapons and a second-strike capability. Bombing Israel would mean the annihilation of Iran, the multi-millennial civilization, the proud heritage of innumerable philosophers, artists, poets and scientists. (The very word “algorithm” is derived from the name of the Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi).
The current Iranian rulers may be fanatics (I doubt it) but they are not suicidal. There is not a single indication in that direction. On the contrary, they seem eminently practical people.
So why do they clamor against Israel? Because their aim is to become the dominant force in the Muslim world, and cursing Israel is the obvious way. As long as Israel does not make peace with the Palestinians, the Arab and Muslim masses everywhere hate Israel. Iran’s current leaders are very good at cursing the Little Satan.
Experts report that Islam has recently been losing strength as the main force in Iran, while Iranian nationalism has been gaining. The cult of Cyrus, who preceded Muhammad by more than 1200 years, is gaining ground.
SINCE THE nuclear bomb was invented, no nuclear-armed country has ever been attacked. Attacking a nuclear-armed country simply means suicide. Even the mighty USA (the “Big Satan”) does not dare to attack little North Korea, whose endeavor to obtain a nuclear strike force is far from irrational.
So I shall sleep soundly even if Iran goes nuclear. Though perhaps with one eye half open.
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About the author – his life is a history of Israel
The following is an excerpt from the autobiography on his website, slightly edited. It’s worth reading in full. See his website for more about his publications and his work.
Uri Avnery is a peace activist, journalist, and writer. He was a founding member of Gush Shalom (peace bloc) in 1993, publisher and editor-in-chief of HaOlam Hazeh news magazine from 1950-1990 (see Wikipedia), member of the Knesset (three terms: 1965-1969, 1969-1973, 1979-1981), and a founding member of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (1975).
He arrived with his family in Israel in November 1933. In 1938, just before turning 15, he joined the Irgun underground (Irgun Tsvai Leumi – National Military Organization; see Wikipedia), to fight against the British colonial regime. He served for three years, but left the Irgun in protest against its anti-Arab and reactionary social attitudes and terrorist methods.
in 1946 Avnery founded the Eretz Yisrael Hatzira (“Young Palestine”) movement. They believed that the Jewish community in Palestine constituted a “new Hebrew nation” within the Jewish people, and that this nation belongs to Asia and is a natural ally of the Arab national movements.
The idea of a partnership between the two national movements – the Hebrew and the Arab – became a cornerstone of Avnery’s world view, and constitutes, in his view, his main contribution to Israeli thought. In September 1947, on the eve of the Israeli-Arab war, Avnery published a booklet entitled “War or Peace in the Semitic Region”, which called for a radically new approach: an alliance of Hebrews and Arabs for the liberation of the “Semitic Region” (a term coined by him so as to avoid the colonialist term Middle East) from imperialism and colonialism, to create a Semitic community and common market, as a part of the emerging third world.
At the outbreak of the war, Avnery joined the army (Givati brigade) and later volunteered for “Samson’s Foxes”, a motorized commando unit on the Egyptian front which soon became legendary. He took part in dozens of engagements, became a squad leader, and was severely wounded in the last days of the war at Iraq al-Manshiyya (the present Kiryat Gat). His life was saved by four soldiers of his squad, new immigrants from Morocco, who rescued him under murderous fire and enabled him to reach hospital in time. There, a part of his intestines was cut out.
In 1949 the editor of Haaretz, Gershom Shoken, invited him to join his staff as a writer of editorials. After one year Avnery quit, protesting that he was not allowed to express his opinions freely, especially about the mass expropriation of Arab lands by the Ben-Gurion government. In April 1950, together with some of his war comrades, he bought a moribund family magazine and turned it into a unique Israeli institution. He served as its Editor-in-Chief for exactly 40 years, until 1990.
In April 1950, together with some of his war comrades, he bought a moribund family magazine and turned it into a unique Israeli institution. He served as its Editor-in-Chief for exactly 40 years, until 1990.
Haolam Hazeh was a combination of mass-circulation news magazine, similar in style to Time Magazine or Der Spiegel, and mouthpiece for aggressive political opposition to the establishment, with exposes of political and economic corruption and advocacy for a radically different national policy. It also created a new Hebrew style, now adopted by all Israeli media, and served as a school for many of the young men and women who became outstanding Israeli journalists. Its official slogan, which became an Israeli byword, was: “Without Fear, Without Prejudice”.
Haolam Hazeh was an apparent paradox: a mass-circulation paper attacking the most sacred beliefs and myths of the masses. Because of mounting financial difficulties, it folded in 1993.
The chief of the secret service in the 50s, Issar Harel, later testified that the Ben-Gurion establishment considered Avnery and Haolam Hazeh the “Public Enemy Number 1”. This may explain why attacks on Haolam Hazeh were often violent. Its editorial offices and printing facilities were bombed several times and some employees injured; Avnery was ambushed and both his arms broken after he criticized Sharon’s infamous Qibya massacre (1953). In 1975, he was the victim of an assassination attempt by a person officially declared mad. Avnery escaped with severe knife wounds to the chest. The offices of Haolam Hazeh and its invaluable archives were completely destroyed by arson in 1972.
In 1956 he created, together with ex-Stern Group chief Natan Yellin-Mor and others, a movement called “Semitic Action”, which advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state and an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian federation. Some years later he set up the “Israeli Committee for a Free Algeria” and established contacts with the underground FLN leadership.
The most determined attempt to silence Avnery was made in 1965, when the government enacted a special press law, openly aimed mainly against his magazine. This provided the final push for starting an operation which had been on Avnery’s mind for a long time: the creation of a new political party to fight for the principles advocated by Haolam Hazeh. The new party (which adopted the name of the magazine and called itself “Haolam Hazeh – New Force Movement”) came into being on the eve of the 1965 elections as a citizens’ volunteer movement. It astounded the establishment by winning a seat in the Knesset, at that time an unprecedented feat for a completely new party. In the 1969 elections it gained two seats.
in 1974, with the beginning of the change in the PLO line, Avnery established contact with senior PLO officials. These contacts were initially secret, but Avnery reported on them to the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. For Arafat, the contacts were conducted by the PLO representative in London, Said Hamami, who was murdered because of this in 1978 by Palestinian extremists. In 1975, Avnery himself fell victim to an attempt of his life. The would-be assassin missed his heart by a centimeter, was caught on the spot and declared mad. He was not prosecuted.
In 1993 he helped found Gush Shalom, and has led it since then.
For a better look at his beliefs and work, see his 2008 book Israel’s Vicious Circle: Ten Years of Writings on Israel and Palestine
About Gush Shalom
Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc) has become the leading (and often sole) voice in Israel calling for the creation of the State of Palestine in all the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the release of all Palestinian prisoners, the dismantling of all settlements and the recognition of Jerusalem as the joint capital of both states. Since its creation, it has organized hundreds of demonstrations, mostly together with Palestinian activists, and numerous other political actions. See Wikipedia. Also see their website.
Also see their website. Especially about Gush Shalom in action, Gush Shalom’s aims, Make a Difference, their Opinions, and their Campaigns.
For More Information
If you found this post of use, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also see these about Israel, about Iran, about Iran’s nukes, and especially these…
- The Fate of Israel — A prediction.
- Martin van Creveld: A history of the turmoil in the Holy Land (you can’t understand the action without it).
- Iran will have the bomb in 5 years (again) — Forecasts of an Iranian bomb really soon, going back to 1984.
- What happens when a nation gets nukes? Sixty years of history suggests an answer.
- What happens if Iran gets nukes? Not what we’ve been told.
To better understand the story, read…
To understand how Israel came to such a point, see van Creveld’s The Land of Blood and Honey: The Rise of Modern Israel
“The definitive one-volume history of Israel by its most distinguished historian.
“From its Zionist beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century through the past sixty, tumultuous years, the state of Israel has been, as van Creveld argues, “the greatest success story in the entire twentieth century.”
“In this crisp volume, he skillfully relates the improbable story of a nationless people who, given a hot and arid patch of land and coping with every imaginable obstacle, founded a country that is now the envy of surrounding states. While most studies on Israel focus on the political, this encompassing history weaves together the nation’s economic, social, cultural and religious narratives while also offering diplomatic solutions to help Israel achieve peace. Without question, this is the best one-volume history of Israel and its people.”
