What They Are Saying

Journalist Shmuel Rosner writes in The New Republic (www.tnr.com) on July 24 about Israel's choices in dealing with Iran:

"Today, Israelis are convinced that the world is preparing to live with a nuclear Iran. Everyone, from the prime minister on down, agrees that Iran has not been made to feel the bite of real sanctions -- at least not to an extent that would change its behavior. Israelis listened carefully to the words of President Bush on his June European tour when he said that he expected to 'leave behind a multilateral framework to work on this issue.'

"Israelis hear 'framework' and run to their shelters. Faced with an existential threat, they need prevention, not a framework. Moreover, as the world learned in 1981 when Israel's attack on Osirak (the Iraqi nuclear reactor) generated howls of disapproval from the Reagan administration, Israel does not always abide by an American desire for restraint.

"The lesson of 1981 is relevant for another reason: While that attack is seen in Israel as an unqualified success, there is evidence that it convinced Saddam Hussein to redouble his efforts to build nuclear weapons. That is why, in a new paper about the possible consequences of an attack on Iran, Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy treat the bombing of Osirak more critically. The point they are making: Postponing Iran's achievements might not be enough. The most important measure of success for any military strike is 'whether or not Iran decides to rebuild.' This will be determined not by the results of the military act alone, but by what comes after the attack -- the regional power struggle, the reaction of the international community, and perhaps even the talks that could lead to eventual compromise.

"If that is the case -- if the follow-up will determine the outcome more than the level of destruction that a strike can achieve -- then Israel might not feel so constrained by the relative size of its air force (compared with America's) and the relative complexity of the target (compared with Osirak). According to this line of thinking, which has adherents among some high-ranking officials and former officials in the Israeli defense establishment, focusing on the tactical questions surrounding such an operation -- How much of Iran's nuclear program can Israel destroy? How many years can a bombing campaign set the program back? -- is a mistake.

"The main goal of a hit would not be to destroy the program completely, but rather to awaken the international community from its slumber and force it to finally engineer a solution to the crisis. As one former Israeli official put it, any attack on Iran's reactors -- as long as it is not perceived as a military failure -- can serve as a means of 'stirring the pot' of international geopolitics. Israel, in other words, wouldn't be resorting to military action because it is convinced that diplomacy by the international community cannot stop Iran; it would be resorting to military action because only diplomacy by the international community can stop Iran.

"As far as Israel is concerned, it is running out of time -- and options -- to stop Iran from getting the bomb. And letting Iran acquire nuclear capability would, at this point, be a double disaster for Israel. Not only would Iran have a new and terrible weapon, but Israel's pledges to stop the country from going nuclear would have been proven hollow. This could embolden the Iranians even more.

"Thus, the more Israel pledges to stop Iran, the more it becomes necessary to deliver."

The World Should Remember: There's More Than One Refugee Story

Columnist Richard Z. Chesnoffwrites on www. JewishWorldReview.com July 24 about the fate of two refugee populations:

"Israel's birth 60 years ago produced two refugee problems that still haunt us. One we all know about: the flight of some 650,000 Palestinian Arabs from what is now the Jewish state. Most fled out of fear of war, others because they were urged to make way for 'victorious' Arab armies, and some -- but certainly, not most -- because Israeli troops drove them out in the heat of battle.

"Most other mid-20th century refugee problems were quickly settled (the millions who simultaneously fled Pakistan and India, for example). But the Arab refugee problem has merely festered. Eager to maintain the Jewish character of its sliver of Mideast land, Israel allowed only a handful to repatriate. No Arab state has ever granted them a permanent home, let alone citizenship. Instead, masses of Palestinian refugees have been kept permanently penned up inside overcrowded refugee camps, living off massive international-welfare doles, playing the political pawn and waiting for Israel to die so they can invoke their 'right of return'. According to U.N. sources, Palestinian refugees now number more than 4 million.

"Compare that to the other, lesser-known refugee crisis that coincided with Israel's birth -- the forced exodus of some 900,000 Jews from their centuries old homes in the Arab world; from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Aden, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

"These were communities rich in culture, with their own Judeo dialects and traditions, their own rich religious literature, thought and scholars.

"To be sure, Jews in the Arab world were occasionally subject to outbreaks of violence, forced conversion and never accepted as anything but dhimmi -- protected second-class citizens. Still, this vast Jewish community flourished, most especially in the late 15th century, when thousands of Sephardic Jews fled the persecutions of Spain and the rest of southern Europe for the relative peace of the Islamic world.

"The historic decision to establish Israel changed all that. Outraged by the idea of a Jewish state in their midst, the Arab world turned against its Jews, targeting them with legislated discrimination, government sponsored anti-Semitic riots and murderous pogroms. Faced with growing threats, outright violence and government moves to disenfranchise them, close to 900,000 Jews were forced to abandon their ancient homes.

"Almost all were allowed to leave on condition they signed agreements never to return ... and to leave their property and belongings behind. Recently uncovered documents indicate that much of this massive theft was a coordinated scheme by Arab governments to grab Jewish property worth as much as $100 billion.

"Today, with the exception of small communal pockets in Morocco and Tunisia, the Arab world is effectively Judenrein. Egypt, which once had 180,000 Jews, now has only a handful of mostly aged Jews living in Cairo and Alexandria; Iraq, which had 160,000 Jews, now has 20; Libya and most other Arab states have none.

"But here comes the difference between the fates of Arab and Jewish refugees. While the corrupt Arab world condemned Palestinian Arabs to statelessness, squandered chance after chance to make peace with Israel and stole mega-millions in welfare funds, the Jewish state and the world Jewish community worked tirelessly to resettle its fellow Jews from Arab lands.

"Most important, not a single Jew from the Arab world remains a 'refugee' -- not one lives in a squalid camp or demands a 'right of return' to the Arab world. Above all, not one angry Arab Jewish terrorist has ever strapped a suicide bomb to his or her waist, and climbed aboard an Arab bus to murder dozens of innocents."