AFTER GAZA, IRAN
Frederick Krantz
Israel’s brief, intense war with Hamas in Gaza, initiated by the terrorist movement’s renewed rocketing, is over. A shaky truce, negotiated through a U.S.-pressured and Moslem Brotherhood-affiliated Egyptian President Morsi, is, so far, holding.
While the Gaza leadership has emerged from its hiding-holes to claim “victory”, it’s clear that–thanks in large part to powerful pin-point counter-bombing of the IDF and the remarkable, over-80% effectiveness of the new “Iron Dome” anti-missile batteries—Israel came off well in the exchange. (Hamas claims over 160 fatalities, while Israel suffered five dead.)
Several leading Hamas terrorist figures were killed in carefully targeted strikes. And Hamas’ Iran-supplied stock of new, long-range Fajr-5 missiles, several of which reached the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, has been destroyed, along with other rocket caches and many of the supply-tunnels from contiguous Egyptian territory.
Some Israelis (particularly in the South, most subject to Hamas’ attacks) would have preferred a ground invasion to, finally, wipe out the Hamas leadership and all the hidden (among civilian schools, hospitals, and houses) rocket bases. Such a move may yet be necessary, either because the current truce breaks down, or because, after an interval, as after Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09, Hamas will resume its missile terrorism.
But for now, with a January 22, 2013 Israeli election looming, and the far more serious Iranian problem on the near horizon, a solid defeat of Hamas and a truce backed by Egypt’s commitment to prevent further rocketing, is sufficient.
Israel’s fundamental, over-riding concern must now be the immanent Iranian nuclear capacity. A recent IAEA report indicates that a multiplying number if centrifuges means Iran can generate sufficient uranium to arm a bomb in about three months—that is, by late spring (March-April) 2013, shortly after the Israeli election.
That election must be seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s Iran policy, which very clearly states that Israel will not allow the Iranians to reach nuclear capability. The U.S. position, different, and fuzzier, emphasizes the actual building of a nuclear weapon; it gives U.S. policy makers more time, perhaps up to a year, before having to act.
But Israel’s “red line” is more concrete, and cogent: the time-lag between achieving “capability”, and actually building a bomb-tipped missile, may well be quite short; and in any case, achieved capability alone will greatly enhance Iran’s power in the region. And waiting until Teheran actually has a verifiable weapon may well be too late.
This is a chance Israel cannot take; for Israel, the issue is existential, and a mistake on here is irreversible and potentially fatal. The US, not the focus of initial attack and infinitely larger and more powerful, can afford to be more patient.
For the Jewish state, one bomb exploded over Tel Aviv will mean what the Iranians have consistently been threatening, genocide. Israel’s existence, as the legatee of the Jewish People, and the realization of Zionism’s vision of Jewish sovereignty and national independence, is neither negotiable nor, finally, answerable to the vagaries of world “opinion”.
Hence we should be ready for an Israeli attack—led by a reinforced post-election Likud government–on Iran’s nuclear installations sometime in or after late spring, 2013. And we must anticipate the criticism and hostility of the “international community” and, perhaps, of the newly re-elected President Obama.
The testing time of Israel and the Jewish People is fast approaching; it, and we, have not asked for this, but ein brera, there is no alternative. And we must all be ready to pass the arduous, and imminent, test being prepared for us.
(Dr. Krantz is Director of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research,
and Editor of its Israfax magazine. He is Professor (History),
Liberal Arts College, Concordia University, Montreal)
