Even if the rest of the world isn’t taking the Iranian nuclear weapons program seriously, Israel most certainly is:
JERUSALEM — Iran’s reported drive to make an atomic bomb has become an existential threat to Israel that some Israelis are likening to the Holocaust — especially with the United States appearing to back away from confrontation with Tehran.
The alarmists include Aharon Appelfeld, a leading Israeli author who as a child survived the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews.
“For the first time since I’m in the country, I feel that we face a real existential danger,” Mr. Appelfeld said.
The memory of the Holocaust is a central element in Israel’s collective consciousness, a memory made more acute by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial that the Holocaust happened.
“It’s 1938,” said former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “and Iran is Germany, racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.”
And if the rest of the world is unwilling to act, Israel is preparing to take matters into its own hands:
Israel has apparently long been preparing such a strike. It acquired a large fleet of F-16 and F-15 warplanes and held intensive training exercises in anticipation of a confrontation with Iran.
The appointment last year of former air force commander Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was widely seen as preparing for that confrontation in which the air force would play a central role.It has become increasingly clear in recent years, however, that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be infinitely more difficult than the successful attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor by Israeli planes in 1981.
Unlike the attack on Iraq, however, an Israeli attack on Iran is likely to set off the Middle East in a way that we haven’t seen since the 1970s.
