Israeli Government: Iran Not A Threat (and my comments)

By M.J. Rosenberg

Huffington Post
September 17, 2009

The AIPAC crowd is going to have a hard time with this. Israel's uber-hawk Defense Minister (and the most highly decorated soldier in its history), Ehud Barak, says that an Iranian nuclear weapon would not pose an existential threat to Israel.

Today's New York Times reports that Barak told Israel's largest paper Yedioth Ahronoth that "Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel." Asked specifically about a nuclear armed Iran, Barak said, "I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel."

Barak concluded: "Israel is strong, I don't see anyone who could pose an existential threat."

The threat, of course, is not to Israel's existence but to Israel's status as the region's only superpower, able to do whatever it wants whenever it wants to.

But don't expect this to mean that the "Bomb Iran" crowd here — which is the lobby and its cutouts — is going to shut up.

Contrary to what many believe, the lobby does not always follow the Israel line.

That is why Prime Minister Rabin tried so hard (unsuccessfully) to curb AIPAC. Upon his election as prime minister in 1992, he met with its leadership to tell AIPAC to butt the hell out. He intended to come to terms with the Palestinians and did not want AIPAC to get in his way. He also insisted on dealing with the US government directly and not through a surly intermediary. (His top aides specifically told AIPAC to fire Steve Rosen who, he knew, would use his dark powers to kill any Israeli-Palestinian agreement).

AIPAC ignored Rabin and continued its sabotage efforts.

In fact, a few years ago the Israeli government worked with the Palestinian Authority to devise an aid package for the Palestinian Authority that would help it withstand the threat from Hamas. This was before Hamas took over Gaza and the package was designed to gird the PA against the threat.

The Bush administration supported the package and thought it was urgent to keep Gaza under PA (not Hamas) control.

AIPAC, on the other hand, did not like the idea and its lobbyists went directly to the House Appropriations Commitee and demanded it be cut in half. The Israelis also went to the Hill to tell the same appropriators that Israel's own security needs dictated that the full package be delivered quickly to check Hamas. Of course AIPAC prevailed. And AIPAC celebrated that it could beat the White House, the Palestinian Authority and even the Israeli government. Kings of the Hill!

Only to a degree does the lobby operate in support of Israel. Mostly it is about preserving and extending its own power.

The Iran issue is its latest ticket. It will use it to raise money — it just built an eight story building in Washington complete with a gym and catering facilities — and, best of all, to make the United States government do what it wants.

As someone who worked at AIPAC for four years (before I came to my senses), I can personally attest to the fact that the organization is most decidely not about Israel. It is about AIPAC.
I wonder if Barak will back down after AIPAC calls to chew him out. Regardless, Barak's statement is now on the record.

Iran is not an existential threat to Israel. But the lobby might be.

M.J. Rosenberg is Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. Previously, he worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPAC's weekly newsletter Near East Report. From 1998-2009, he was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum.

Mark says:

Well, I get the point that Rosenberg has an ax to grind about AIPAC, which may account for the over-the-top language that AIPAC might be an "existential threat" to Israel. I don't think that's going to win him friends and influence people among most of the people he's ostensibly trying to convince. Even if true, most people do not like to admit that they've been wrong about something about which they feel deeply and to which they've contributed blood, sweat, tears, and money. In any case, saying that AIPAC "is most decidedly not about Israel. It is about AIPAC" could be said about many other lobbying organizations in Washington if you just change the name and the cause. Pardon my cynicism, but that's business as usual in Washington, regardless of political affiliation or passion.

The more interesting issue, in my humble view, is the discussion about Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak's statement that Iran didn't pose an existential threat to Israel, even if it possessed a nuclear weapons. This raises some "interesting" questions: If, according to the Israel defense minister and the Israel prime minister (who later backed up Barak's statement), a nuclear-armed Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel, then does that mean that a conventionally-armed Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel? And if Iran, with a population of 66 million people and a large conventional military does not pose an existential threat to Israel then how would an effectively demilitarized tiny Palestinian state with a population of five or even six million pose an existential threat to Israel?

Now, I realize that just because the Israeli defense minister and prime minister say something does not make it correct. See, for example, the hubristic statements made by Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan and Israeli prime minister Golda Meir about the political situation in the Middle East just a week before the October 1973 Yom Kippur War broke out. But if they are correct, what does that say about the current and future situation, particularly when discussing the possibility of Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities?

I am not saying that a nuclear-armed Iran is a good thing or that the United States shouldn't be very concerned about Iran getting the bomb. And if there's anyone reading this who thinks that Iranian president Ahmedinajad is being truthful when he says that Iran's nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes then I have some prime swampland in Florida I'd like to sell you.

The real issue about Iran is that, as someone suggested recently, the Iranian leadership has not decided yet whether they want Iran to be a nation or a cause. So far they appear to lean towards wanting to be a cause (when the leaders aren't busy with their nepotistic money-skimming and money-laundering business activities). Add to that notion the fact that Iran — or at least the Iranian leadership — has at least one and probably two big chips on its shoulder and we have a less than promising horizon to contemplate.

What are those chips? Well, aside from the usual conspiracy theories, they're wounded pride and humiliation because the land now known as Iran, formerly Persia, already contained great and gifted civilizations when Europeans went around in animal skins and Mecca and Medina in Arabia were backwater oasis towns. How did mighty and civilized Persia come to be conquered by the uncivilized Arabs and fall behind the West?

In addition, given its existing record of supporting the adventures of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip for Iranian purposes and not out of altruistic concern for the Lebanese or the Palestinians, the thought of the Iranian leadership having nuclear weapons does not give me warm and fuzzy feelings.