Netanyahu Is “The Right Man” to Address the US Congress on Iran

Global Research, March 03, 2015

Israel’s Prime Minister is well-placed to explain to the U.S.
Congress the alleged danger of a nuclear Iran. After all, it was Israel
and its allies in Washington who fabricated this issue to begin with. It
is thus incumbent upon Mr. Netanyahu to try to give credence to that
allegation even as U.S., European – and even Israeli – intelligence
agencies agree that Iran is not trying to produce nuclear weapons. Some
may remember that the claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass
destruction had come largely from the same people close to Israel’s
right-wing Likud party.

The role of this Likud lobby has been seminal in stirring the
campaign against Iran. It was at the AIPAC meeting in Spring 2006 that
Iran was made a special target, with giant screens alternating clips of
Adolf Hitler denouncing the Jews and then the Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad threatening “to wipe Israel off the map”. The show ended
with a fade-out to the post-Holocaust vow “Never Again.” Within months,
the lobby distributed anti-Iran press kits to thirteen thousand
journalists in the United States alone, durably embedding these
emotionally charged images in mainstream media.

Iranian leaders have been routinely portrayed as deniers of the
Holocaust who threaten to wipe Israel off the map. These two claims have
been reproduced in thousands of newspapers, depicting Iran as a rogue
state and a danger to world peace. They have also been used to impose
Western sanctions on Iran for allegedly trying to produce nuclear
weapons. Millions of Iranians suffer from these sanctions, and many more
may suffer from military action that remains “on the table” in Tel-Aviv
and Washington. This is why these claims, which present Iranian
decision-makers as irrational Jews-haters, deserve closer scrutiny.

The issue of Iran’s nuclear programme requires cool-headed analysis.
However, conflation of Israel and Zionism with Jews and Judaism has long
stifled rational debate concerning the Middle East. This is how critics
of Israel, whether Gentile or Jewish, are routinely accused of
anti-Semitism. Such accusations have come to impact international
relations on a larger scale, and “Iran’s nuclear bomb” is a case in
point. Mr. Netanyahu arrives in Washington pretending to speak on behalf
of world Jewry rather than as an elected representative of Israeli
citizenry, at least one third of whom are not Jews.

Holocaust Denial

Among the participants at an international conference on the
Holocaust convened by the former Iranian president nearly a decade ago
there were a few notorious Holocaust deniers as well as black-clad
Orthodox Jews who spoke of the massacre of their own relatives at the
hand of the Nazis. It is of little practical interest to debate whether
Mr. Ahmadinejad denies the veracity of the Holocaust since he has long
been out of power. But one may wonder why we tend to consider Holocaust
denial as exceptionally grievous. Indeed, a denier of the massacre of
hundreds of thousands of Jews in Ukraine in the 17th century or of the
expulsion of Jews from Spain in the 15th would attract no more attention
than a member of the Flat Earth Society. It is not only the immediacy
and the magnitude of the Holocaust, but the Zionists’ uses of its memory
that make it unique.
Iranian leaders were not the first to decry the price that the
establishment of the state of Israel has exacted from the Palestinians
(Muslims, Christians as well quite a few Jews) who have been made to pay
for the crime committed in Europe by European Nazis against European
Jews. Whatever this objection is worth, it is not a denial of the
Holocaust, but rather an objection against using this tragedy as a tool
to legitimize Zionism and Israel’s continuing dispossession of the
Palestinians.
According to Moshe Zimmermann, professor of German history and public intellectual in Israel,

“the Shoah [Holocaust] is an oft-used instrument.
Speaking cynically, it can be said that the Shoah is among the most
useful objects for manipulating the public, and particularly the Jewish
people, in and outside of Israel. In Israeli politics, the Shoah is held
to demonstrate that an unarmed Jew is as good as a dead Jew”.

Political uses of the Nazi genocide are common. Israel’s former
minister of education affirmed that “the Holocaust is not a national
insanity that happened once and passed, but an ideology that has not
passed from the world and even today the world may condone crimes
against us.” In addition to providing Israel with a highly persuasive
raison d’être, the Holocaust has proved a powerful means of leveraging
aid. An Israeli parliamentarian put it bluntly:

Even the best friends of the Jewish people refrained from
offering significant saving help of any kind to European Jewry and
turned their back on the chimneys of the death camps… therefore all the
free world, especially in these days, is required to show its
repentance… by providing diplomatic-defensive-economic aid to Israel.

Norman Finkelstein’s Holocaust Industry amply documents how the
memory of the Nazi genocide can be harnessed for political purposes. For
decades, the Holocaust has functioned as an instrument of persuasion in
the hands of Israeli foreign policy to mute criticism and to generate
sympathy for the state, which styles itself as the collective heir of
the six million victims. Mr. Netanyahu regularly invokes the Holocaust
in public debate about Iran. He claims that the hypothetical Iranian
nuclear bomb constitutes “an existential threat”. However, in a peculiar
non sequitur he calls Israel “the only secure place for the Jews”. In
the wake of the recent attacks on Jews in Paris and Copenhagen Mr.
Netanyahu again called on European Jews to leave their countries and
move to Israel that he referred to as their “real home”. His invocations
of “a nuclear holocaust” at the hands of Iran play well among his
supporters but hardly represent a rational foreign policy argument.

Wipe Israel Off the Map

Much ink has been spilled over another claim, viz., that Iran
declared its intention to “wipe Israel off the map”. Juan Cole and
others have since shown that the translation was false and the word
“map” does not even appear in the original. In fact, it was a quote from
one of Ayatollah Khomeini’s old anti-Zionist diatribes: Esrâ’il bâyad
az sahneyeh roozégâr mahv shavad, which means “Israel must vanish from
the page of time.” After the canard about “wiping Israel off the map”
circled the world and was firmly implanted in the public mind, the
Zionist instigators of the anti-Iran campaign quietly dropped it from
further use. A recent report about Iran published by the Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs, a Zionist think tank particularly active in
stirring the anti-Iran campaign, translates the Khomeini quote correctly
but still insists that the quote is “genocidal”. The latter term has
become a favourite in recent Zionist publications: the same report
refers to “the failed genocidal 1948 war of several Arab states and
Palestinians against Israel.”

In fact, Iranian leaders have repeatedly called for a need to solve
the problems facing the world, including the Palestinian issue, through
dialogue. They propose, inter alia,

“a free referendum to establish a government based on the
will of the Palestinian nation in which all Palestinians, including
Jews, Christians and Muslims will be given the chance to vote.”

None of this seems to imply military action and cannot be interpreted
as an “existential threat.” This may explain why none of this catches
the attention of mainstream media: moderate statements from Tehran are
not deemed “fit to print”.

Iranian leaders have also said that “the Zionist regime will be wiped
out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve
freedom.” Just as the Soviet Union was dismantled peacefully, Israel may
disappear peacefully under the weight of its internal contradictions.
Just as the Soviet Union was not wiped out in a hail of nuclear bombs,
Iran does not suggest using force to bring about the demise of Israel.
Nor would this be even remotely serious since Israel enjoys an
overwhelming military superiority in the region, in which it remains the
sole nuclear power.

The call for an end to Zionism does not mean the destruction of
Israel and its population. According to Jonathan Steel of The Guardian,
it is no more than “a vague wish for the future”. This wish may amount
to no more than the prayer “for the peaceful dismantlement of the
Zionist state” uttered regularly by members of the Jewish anti-Zionist
group Neturei Karta. In fact, Jewish liturgy itself abounds in rather
aggressive stances against those who do not recognize God or commit evil
acts. For example, in the High Holiday services, we have the phrase
u’malkhut ha’rishaa kula ke’ashan tikhleh (And the kingdom of evil
should disappear like smoke). Again, although this literally means to
annihilate and destroy a whole country, what really is meant is that the
“regime of evil” – any acts of evil done in any place – will be wiped
out. Not any person in particular, certainly not thousands of innocent
people.

Even though millions of Jews recite this every year, they don’t mean
nuclear war. But if one wanted to demonize Jews, one could take this
statement and turn it into a baseless accusation that Jews wish to wipe
out entire countries. Some Israeli secularists have even interpreted
that traditional prayer as a call to destroy the secular majority of
Israel’s Jewish population. This is why Jewish tradition abhors literal
readings of sacred texts and relies on their rabbinical interpretations
however far-fetched these may sometimes appear. For example, the rabbis
unanimously interpret the biblical principle of “an eye for an eye” as
an obligation to pay monetary compensation, not to get the culprit’s eye
knocked out. The above piece of Jewish liturgy is a case of religious
rhetoric relying on strong metaphors while expressing a desire to see a
world without evil.

More to the point, the last time Iran attacked another country was
over three centuries ago. This is not exactly the record of Israel or
the United States. To consider Iran somehow less responsible than
Israel, which is reported to possess nuclear weapons, seems like an
incongruous vestige of colonial mentality.

Moreover, Iran is actively combating the extremists of Daesh (“the
Islamic State”) who justify their atrocities by literal interpretations
of the Koran. The Jews of Iran continue to practice Judaism without much
interference from the Iranian authorities and remain committed to
staying put in the country they have inhabited for thousands of years.
While overtly anti-Zionist, Iranian leaders have emphasized that they
are not anti-Jewish. Had they been anti-Jewish, Iranian authorities
would have harassed local Jews rather than provoke a nuclear-armed
Israel.

Mr. Netanyahu’s claim to speak “on behalf of the Jews” endangers
Jews, particularly in Iran. However, some Zionists remain undeterred and
go as far as to reproach Iranian Jews for not leaving for Israel long
ago. This attitude exposes the largest and perhaps the oldest Jewish
community in the Muslim world since Israel’s raison d’Etat has naturally
and often taken precedence over the welfare and the very survival of
Jewish communities. Zionists relate to Jews outside Israel as potential
immigrants or temporary assets in promoting Israel’s interests.

Jewish Dissent

Mr. Netanyahu’s appearance before the U.S. Congress and his current
anti-Iran campaign has generated a profound schism between Jews who
unconditionally support Israel and those Jews who reject or question
Zionism and actions taken by the state of Israel. Public debate about
Israel’s place in Jewish continuity has become open and candid, not only
in Israel but elsewhere. Many see the future of the state of Israel as a
state of its citizens, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and atheist, rather
than a state established and run on behalf of world Jewry.

While there are relatively few Jews who publicly wonder whether the
chronically insecure Israel is “good for the Jews”, many more deplore
that militant Zionism destroys Jewish moral values and endangers Jews
both in Israel and elsewhere. For example, the film Munich by Steven
Spielberg sharply focuses on the moral cost of Israel’s chronic reliance
on force. During one scene, as a member of the Israeli hit squad
hunting Diaspora Palestinian activists quits in disgust, he proclaims
“we’re Jews. Jews don’t do wrong because our enemies do wrong…we’re
supposed to be righteous. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s Jewish…”
While Schindler’s List explores threats to the physical survival of the
Jews, Munich exposes threats to their spiritual survival. No wonder that
Likud supporters in America besmirched the Jewish director and his film
even before it was released. It also lashed out at several recent books
(Prophets Outcast, Wrestling with Zion, Myths of Zionism, The Question
of Zion) that are concerned with the same essential conflict between
Zionism and traditional Jewish values. Mr. Netanyahu’s speech before the
U.S. Congress has deeply sharpened his intra-Jewish conflict.

The Likud lobby routinely alleges that Jews who dare criticize Israel
endanger its “right to exist” and foment anti-Semitism. This provokes a
number of prominent Jews in Britain, Canada and the United States to
speak out, which moved candid debate about Israel into mainstream, even
conservative publications. The eminently pro-establishment Economist has
published a survey of “the state of the Jews” and an editorial calling
which calls on rank-and-file Diaspora Jews to move away from the “my
country right or wrong” attitude adopted by many Jewish organizations.
This certainly erodes the image of the Jews as a group united around the
Israeli flag.

Making a stand for Jewish emancipation from the state of Israel and
its policies has bridged some old divides and also created new ones.
Thus an ultra-Orthodox critic of Israel, usually antagonistic to Reform
Judaism, commended a Reform rabbi who had said that

“when Israel’s Jewish supporters abroad don’t speak out
against disastrous policies that neither guarantee safety for her
citizens nor produce the right climate in which to try and reach a just
peace with the Palestinians … then they are betraying millennial Jewish
values and acting against Israel’s own long-term interests.”

Many Jews and Israelis believe that the Likud lobby, a collective
effort of right-wing Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists, is a major
threat to Israel’s long-term security since it invariably supports
Israel’s hawks and undermines those Israelis who work for reconciliation
in the region. The lobby is also a potent source of anti-Semitism since
it is often seen as “Jewish”, which creates the erroneous impression
that the Jews dictate American foreign policy by pushing it to the
right. In fact, a vast majority of American Jews have voted for Barak
Obama. While Israel’s current leaders and their allies in America
continue to incite the world against Iran, several peace organizations
in Israel and in various Jewish Diasporas issued statements condemning
the anti-Iran campaign and Mr. Netanyahu’s behaviour.

Nowadays, when no Arab state poses a military threat to Israel it is
Iran that many Israelis are made to fear. Just next to Iran, which has
repeatedly denied any interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon, lies
Pakistan, an unstable regime with a strong Islamist movement, including
elements of Al-Qaeda, and a real, not imaginary, nuclear arsenal. While
Pakistan has not threatened Israel, there may be no end to “existential
threats” if the Zionist state stays its course and continues to defy the
people of the entire region by denying justice to the Palestinians.

In Praise of Precision

The two emotionally charged claims hurled at Iran have dominated
Western media. Another accusation that Iran had allegedly passed a law
requiring Jews to wear a yellow insignia, reported by Toronto’s National
Post a few years ago, further strengthened the image of Iran as a new
Nazi Germany. While the report was retracted the following day, more
people remember the damning news than the subsequent retraction from the
daily whose owners are active in Canada’s own Likud lobby.
This disinformation certainly helps prepare the public opinion for a
military strike – by the United States or Israel – against the oil-rich
Iran, a disquieting remake of the scare of Iraq’s illusory weapons of
mass destruction that triggered an all-out military attack on that
unfortunate country, whose population had suffered from Western
sanctions for over a decade. Saddam Hussein was duly portrayed as
another incarnation of Hitler, and, once again, the spectre of a nuclear
Holocaust was invoked.

It is Israel that reportedly possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons
and, unlike Iran, refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
Iran has never declared an intention to produce nuclear weapons.
According to reputable Israeli experts, Iran cannot acquire a military
nuclear capability for five to ten years, and if and when it does
acquire it, they expect Iran to use it to restrain Israel’s foreign
incursions rather than attack it.

Iranian leaders are misrepresented as demented extremists with
unlimited powers who can be expected to act irrationally. It follows
that they must be stopped at any cost. This has become a mantra not only
of the Israeli right wing politicians, such as the eloquent Mr.
Netanyahu, who, in defiance of the U.N. Charter, overtly threatens to
attack Iran, but for quite a few American politicians who admire him.
While the White House and foreign policy and intelligence professionals
know that neither Israel nor the United States are in danger of an
attack from Iran, their rational arguments seem less persuasive than
emotional rhetoric from the Hill. The United States has well known
geopolitical interests in the Persian Gulf, but the accusations against
Iran based on the deliberate conflation between Israel and the Jews may
fatefully distort foreign policy making in Washington.
Intellectuals appreciate precision. Policy-makers need it no less
since they are expected to act prudently and rationally. Mr. Netanyahu’s
intervention in America’s foreign policy making is part of a long-term
attempt to align the lone superpower’s interests with those of the
Zionist state. This is why his arguments should be weighed carefully and
without undue emotion so often obscuring issues concerning Israel and
its neighbours. For several years, Western chanceries have focused on
restraining Israel from military action against Iran. Israel’s hands
were thus freed to deal with the Palestinians with virtual impunity. The
new “existential threat” from Iran’s hypothetical weapon of mass
destruction has already served Israel’s purpose as a “weapon of mass
distraction”.
The phenomenal growth of Daesh graphically shows what demodernization
and the ensuing despair in that part of the world may entail. We need
only to look at Iraq, Libya and Syria, all three subjected to outside
military intervention, and at the subsequent emergence of Daesh, to
understand that destabilizing a country or region has far-reaching
sinister consequences. Israel’s Prime minister invokes the alleged
Iranian threat in order to slow down or reverse Iran’s policies of
modernization. The forced demodernization of Iraq, Syria and Libya, the
most secular and educated countries in the Arab world, has certainly
benefited Israel’s strategic position in the area. Mr. Netanyahu must
now explain how exactly demodernization of Iran will benefit the United
States.

Yakov Rabkin is Professor of History and
associate of CERIUM, Centre for International Studies at the University
of Montreal; he is the author of A Threat from Within: A Century of
Jewish Opposition to Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan/Zed Books) and
Comprendre l’Etat d’Israel (Ecosociete). Some of the material used in
this article previously appeared in Revue internationale et stratégique
2/2008 (No 70), p. 195-208 in Paris.