When Will Israel Lose Its Reason For Existence?

Many reasons can be adduced for the existence of the Jewish state.  Likewise many accomplishments can be credited to Israel's existence from the revivification of Hebrew to the impressively dynamic cultural, scientific, and other intellectual products which have emerged from this small segment of the Mideast.  But, despite the other reasons and regardless of the many accomplishments, the core reason for Israel's establishment and its continued existence is that of providing a safe haven and guardian for Jews worldwide.

The horrors of the Holocaust, the realization that even a state and a people of the demonstrated cultural maturity of the Germans could engage in a coldly planned and executed mass butchery so shocked the infant conscience of the West that a Jewish "homeland" was seen as an absolute necessity.  Not even the intransigence of the Arab majorities of the Mideast and the Arab tilt of the British government could do other than marginally slow the process of recreating a reasonable approximation of the Israel which had existed two thousand years earlier.

It is important to keep in mind that no effort was spared in the attempt to create the old/new Israel by means purely peaceful.  Negotiations, mediations, compromises were all for naught in the face of an implacable Arab/Muslim animus to both the proposed state and the Jews generally.  All of the efforts to bring Israel into existence without the trauma and bloodshed of war collapsed before the Islam intoxicated armies of the surrounding Arab states.

The armed resistance of the Arab states was not unexpected.  The historical record was littered by attempts at compromise, exercises in diplomatic negotiation scuppered by the Arabs.  Even the most generous of agreements which would have left Arabs in control of the vast majority of the old League of Nations Mandate of Palestine were rejected--often to the accompaniment of violent street protests.

At the same time the Mandatory Power, Great Britain, showed continued partiality to the Arab cause which was wrapped in the most thinly disguised antisemitism.  The British were loath to see the new state come into existence, a loathing which was enhanced by the excesses of Zionist terror groups such as the Stern Gang.  In the end, the resistance of the British was undercut not by sentiment but by the harsh dictates of economic reality.

Even in the US there was no great consensus on the need for or desirability of an Israel.  Even though Americans were vastly disturbed by the revelations of the "Final Solution" and the ruthless means by which it was carried out, the odor of antisemitism hung heavily in the political air.  This reality coupled with the first realizations that the US and the West needed the oil found under Arab sand made more than a few senior diplomatic and political personalities reluctant to put American weight behind the proposal to create a Jewish "homeland."

To his everlasting credit, President Harry Truman recognized that facilitating the birth of Israel was the right thing to do.  It was the right thing because there could be no more assurance in the future than there had been in the past that antisemitism would not spring back in full, highly lethal form.  The presence of an identifiably Jewish state would provide an ultimate lifeboat should the seas of human hatred raise waves against the Jews of the world again.

Later American administrations as well as We the People supported the existence of Israel.  While the Jewish state has often been an annoying ally or client (take your pick), it has been recognized generally that the need for Israel has been and continues to be very real.  The base hatred expressed in the word "antisemitism" has not evaporated over the decades since the full picture of the "Final Solution" emerged.  Quite the contrary, it has grown.  Most recently, the growth of lethal hatred for Jews not only in Israel but around the globe has been propelled by Islam.

That is a harsh statement.  Its harshness is fully justified not only by words and deeds recorded in the Koran, the Haddith, and the Sunnah or in the actions and rhetoric of Islam's "golden age," but are contained in the rhetoric and behaviors of leaders, both clerical and secular, in Muslim majority societies today.  It is not that every Muslim is antisemitic, eager  to kill or even inconvenience Jews, but rather that enough highly placed, quite influential Muslim figures, including the heads of states and governments, are of such a mind.

Even if by some miracle the current peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel result in a real, viable agreement over the next year, Israel and the Jews of the world will not be appreciably safer.  The Iranian proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, like the puppet master in Tehran, will not embrace any accord.  None of these will join in a chorus of "Give Peace A Chance."  All will remain armed, hostile, and quite eager to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

Even if Bashir al-Assad suddenly decides that Washington has offered the better deal and Israel relinquishes its hold on the Golan, the basics will not change.  Sure, it would be nice if Syria switched sides, but even this highly unlikely eventuality will not address the basic contextual reality.

The unaddressed but absolutely fundamental reality is Iran.  More specifically, it is an Iran with a nuclear capability.  Should Iran achieve its long sought goal of nuclear weapons, the Jews of Israel will be not one wit safer than those of their religion living in Germany or Middle Europe in the Thirties.  The Iranian leadership is and will continue to be (absent a dramatic regime change) implacably antisemitic and anti-Israel.

Given a nuclear capacity, the Mullahocracy will have a vastly increased diplomatic influence in the region and throughout the globe.  A nuclear Iran linked with the current nuclear power, Pakistan, will be the first among equals in a community of nations profound in their hatred of Jews generally and Israel in particular.  This is not an exercise in alarmism but rather a sober reading of the trajectories currently at work not only in Iran and Pakistan but in most of the majority Muslim states of the world.

No faith can be placed in deterrence.  In principle either or both the Israeli and US nuclear capacities should be enough to give even the most zealous fanatic pause for thought.  In reality, the game is not so simple and straightforward.

In the real world the most potent nuclear weapons are those which remain unused, the ones which constitute the ultimate force in being.  These unused weapons assure not only greater diplomatic status and influence but also give a measure of safety for employment of asymmetrical means.  One of the most under appreciated features of the Cold War nuclear balance of terror is the freedom with which both major contestants waged indirect, proxy, or minor wars under the shield of the nuclear umbrella.

Beyond this ground truth, it is important to ask, is the American deterrent credible?  Would an American president, any American president, risk the consequences of authorizing retaliation for an attack on Israel?  Even if the adversary lacked the means of delivering a heartland strike, would not the other potentials exercise profound inhibitions on the person in the Oval?

The Israeli "Samson Option" is real.  It is real in the sense that the Israelis have the hardware to retaliate.  But, is retaliation enough after even a small number of nuclear weapons have hit Israeli targets?  Or is it simply the hand from the grave?  Israel is a small place filled with six plus million Jews.  A bomb or two hitting almost anywhere in the country would inflict a massive number of casualties.  In a real sense Israel would be dead as a functioning polity and society.  The retaliation might kill a larger number of Iranians or whoever else is down range, but to no useful avail.

To answer the question posed in the title of this post: Israel will lose its reason for existence the day Iran gets a nuclear capacity.  At that point it, can no longer be the credible protector let alone lifeboat for Jews everywhere in the world.  At that point, Israel will no longer be what it was meant to be by the farsighted statesmen who shepherded it into existence.

At that point, on the day Iran gets the bomb, the faith and commitment, the work and effort of generations, will be rendered pointless.  It will be the blackest of black days in human history.

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