Op-ed: Churchill wasn’t looking for popularity, but for a solution to an existential problem. PM Netanyahu, on the other hand, is missing an opportunity to create a regional alliance with moderate Arab states in his attempt to serve his personal and political needs by warning people of a supposed modern holocaust planned by Iran.

No, Netanyahu, you aren’t Churchill. No, Netanyahu, Ahmadinejad or Khamenei are not Hitler. No, Netanyahu, Iran isn’t Germany. And Israel of 2018, the strongest power in the Middle East, is not the Jewish people of 1938, who were scattered in the Diaspora, with no power to resist attempts to annihilate them.

Egypt enslaved us, Assyria (Syria) destroyed Israel and Babylon (Iraq) destroyed Judea. In 1967, we defeated all three of them together. We are militarily strong. The Greeks conquered us and the Romans destroyed Jerusalem because of the split between the Pharisees, Essenes and Sadducees. And now look at their failed economies and look at ours. No, Netanyahu, you’re not saving us from a holocaust and will not divide our society once again.

Churchill, who you admire, was a public servant who said that, “The price of greatness is responsibility” and didn’t ask for admiration in return for his service. Churchill, who was unsure of his path, went down to the London Underground to talk to the people.

Unlike Churchill, Netanyahu doesn't have the people's best interest in mind (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
Unlike Churchill, Netanyahu doesn’t have the people’s best interest in mind (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

 

You, on the other hand, don’t have the people’s best interest in mind. You’re just looking for the manipulation that will serve you personally, as you once told Moshe Kahlon, “I’m the only one who knows how to gain Mizrahi votes. I know who they hate.”

Churchill wasn’t looking for popularity but for a solution to an existential problem, when he secured the British nation’s survival while turning the difficulties of the Dunkirk evacuation into a sweeping popular victory by enlisting the civilian fleet for the evacuation. Netanyahu is missing the opportunity to create a regional alliance with the moderate Arab states in his attempt to warn the people of a modern holocaust planned by Iran.

There is nothing more dangerous for Israel’s future than the generalization being made by Netanyahu between the delusional existential threat of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel and the tactical danger of a continued Iranian entrenchment in Syria as part of its ambition to reach regional control. The Iranian regional aspiration is real and serves as a strategic and tactical challenge that needs to be addressed and prevented. The nuclear threat, on the other hand, is a fantasy aimed at serving Netanyahu’s narrow political and personal needs.

A nuclear policy isn’t a religious doctrine. Before setting in motion a critical and irreversible move like a nuclear attack, two conditions have to take place. First, victory over the attacked nation must contain a significant advantage. Second, there has to be a clear estimate that the attacked nation’s response won’t be strong enough to cancel the achievement of the attack.

Winston Churchill didn’t ask for admiration in return for his service
Winston Churchill didn’t ask for admiration in return for his service

 

Such conditions may exist in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf states, whose energetic supremacy may be coveted by Iran, as long as they aren’t nuclear themselves. But only an ignorant or delusional person would imagine such a situation in Iran’s eyes concerning Israel, which doesn’t hold any strategic assets that Iran is interested in and whose possible response to an attack is perceived as comprehensive, according to foreign sources.

Should we try to stop the Iranian nuclearization, or at least slow it down? Of course. Is flexing our muscles and threatening to strike in Iran helpful? Absolutely not.

The Middle East will be nuclearized one day, and no one, including the United States, will likely be able to stop it. All they can do is slow the process down. On the day Iran is nuclearized, it will be followed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. That day, our situation will be improved only if we are part of an American-Egyptian-Turkish-Saudi alliance against a shared Iranian enemy. But our chances of being part of such an alliance depend on finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Iran is using to threaten us as part of its Shiite hegemony ambition.

Churchill was envied by his rivals for the victory he achieved. Part of Netanyahu’s growing popularity in the polls, however, is driven by pity towards a person perceived as a victim. When I was a child, my father said to me, “You can choose to succeed and be envied, or to fail and be pitied.” He also recommended which option I should choose.

As reported by Ynetnews