Dear Roger Cohen,
I just read your column, Israel, Iran and Fear. Instead of minimizing the threat Iran poses to Israel, you instead minimize legitimate Jewish fears, then turn the tables to blame Israel:
Far from Iran, and the tired Nazi analogies misleadingly attached to it, there is another threat. As Gary Sick, the prominent Middle East scholar and author, suggested to me recently: “The biggest risk to Israel is Israel.”
A core contradiction inhabits Israeli policy. While talking about a two-state solution — at least until Netanyahu redux — Israel has gone on building the West Bank settlements that render a peace agreement impossible by atomizing the 23 percent of the land theoretically destined for Palestine.
Israel negotiated with Arafat and got nothing but years of intifada. Israel disengaged from Gaza and got nothing but Hamastan on its doorstep, hundreds of rockets and another kidnapped soldier. Israel talks with Abbas, but Fatah-Hamas infighting points to a three-state-solution.
So if the possibility of Israeli Jews perishing in a Iranian nuclear attack doesn't move you, then consider the strike's other consequences on the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean:
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The Palestinian casualties would give new meaning to naqba, an otherwise grossly abused Arabic word.
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The Holy Land would also be uninhabitable to any survivors, Jewish or Palestinian.
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The Gulf states the West relies on for oil would be cowed by Tehran.
Am I to understand that you're prepared to live with a zero-state solution from the relative safety of New York City?
Respectfully yours,
Pesach Benson
