ANDREW LEVINE
Now that American and European saber rattling has quieted down, Iran’s (aspirational) nuclear weapon no longer seems quite the “existential threat” it used to be. For this, we have Russian and Iranian diplomacy to thank.
Of course, Israeli saber rattling continues unabated. Existential threats keep Israel’s Jewish citizens more or less united and its international supporters on board. The Iranian bomb is especially useful because, being spectral, it is safe as well as effective.
Existential threats to Israel work magic on public opinion throughout the global West. This makes it easier for Western governments, the American government especially, to provide Israel with diplomatic, military and economic support.
They are inclined to do this anyway of course, for both domestic political and geostrategic reasons. But the aid is indispensible, and the Israelis take no chances.
Existential threats also keep “charitable” donations flowing in from private Jewish and evangelical Christian sources.
Indeed, the great fear in Zionist quarters is that without the specter of an Iranian bomb or its functional equivalent, “diaspora” Jews will drift away and dispensationalist Protestants will be less eager than they now are to squander their time and money hastening the end days — when Jews who do not accept Christ will be cast into Hell for all eternity.
The diminution of the Iranian threat is not the only matter of concern to Israel’s leaders. There is also the no longer deniable fact that the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is gaining strength in the United States. It still has a long way to go, but it has already gone far enough to cause concern.
All is not lost, however. Congress is still in Israel’s pocket and the President is still spineless. The tail still wags the dog.
Moreover, Iran’s nuclear program was frozen, not stopped. It could always bounce back and be of service again. Many of Israel’s most servile Congressional pawns are working diligently to make this happens.
But the prospect is chancy, and Tel Aviv is disinclined just to wait and hope. Without letting up on Iran, they have therefore deployed Plan B. Predictably, it has been taken up with gusto by all who follow Israel’s lead.
Plan B is a hybrid strategy; it joins existential threat fabrication with an even hoarier and more familiar ruse – vilifying Israel’s critics.
Calling them anti-Semites, when they plainly are not, has been effective in the past, and no doubt still is. But the ploy suffers from overuse.
In his suburban Philadelphia high school, Binyamin Netanyahu must have heard from his history teacher that America’s greatest President thought that you can indeed fool some of the people all of the time. But Honest Abe forgot to point out that if you keep going about it the same way over and over again, the supply of susceptible people eventually declines.
Netanyahu and his co-thinkers are now discovering that on their own.
It is the same with their blather about “self-hating Jews.” What could be more tired than that; or, in nearly all cases, more obviously false?
This is especially relevant now that the BDS movement is gathering steam. In the United States and elsewhere, progressive, self-loving Jews are leading the way.
And so the word has gone out that vilification is not enough; Israel’s critics must be made out to be existential threats too, functional equivalents of the imaginary Iranian bomb.
To drive the point home, it is important to say it effectively — in other words, to get the language right.
This is why the party line now has it that some of Israel’s critics, the ones in the BDS movement for example, are out to “delegitimate” Israel.
They may not realize it – some of them may even think of themselves as Israel’s friends — but “objectively,” as Stalinists used to say, they are mortal enemies of the Jewish state.
This is not an impossible sell — notwithstanding the fact that, taken at its word, the claim is conceptually confused and highly misleading. That, indeed, is its point.
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Zionists do have reason to fear an Iranian bomb, but not the reason they claim. Were it real, what it would put in jeopardy is not the survival of the Israeli population, but the ability of the Israeli state to bully and oppress as it pleases.
Their reasons to fear BDS and other solidarity movements are more complex.
Before the November 24 interim agreement that brought Iran’s nuclear program to a temporary — or possibly permanent — standstill, Iran probably could have developed a nuclear weapons capability over the next several years. Then, if the Iranian government chose, Iran really would be able to concoct a nuclear weapon.
Nuclear proliferation is always a worrisome development, but this case is less scary than most – except to hardcore Zionists. For the rest of us, an Iranian bomb might not be such a bad thing.
If nothing else, it would deter Israel from having its way with its neighbors and with the Palestinians. It would function in much the way that Soviet nuclear power helped restrain the United States from trying too overtly to take over Eastern Europe.
Since a nuclear war between Israel and Iran would result in the annihilation of both, an Iranian bomb would serve no other, more worrisome or nefarious, purpose.
It would certainly not threaten the physical existence of people now living in Israel. Iran may be ruled by theocrats, but they are not suicidal; neither are the Iranian people.
In that regard, there is more reason to worry about Israel exercising its so-called Samson option — where it rains down death and destruction on both itself and its enemies if it finds itself, like the Biblical Samson, with no alternative other than surrender.
BDS, on the other hand, actually could lead to changes that threaten the Israeli state — not by delegitimating it, but by changing its nature profoundly.
However, at this point, it would be premature to claim that anything like this is in the offing. BDS proponents, like Israel’s critics generally, are a mixed bunch. Their goals are far from settled.
Some only want Israel’s decades long occupation of the tiny portion of Mandate Palestine that is still officially Palestinian to end. Others want Israel to be a state of its people, not a confessional or ethnic state. Some support a two state solution; others favor a bi- or multi-national unitary state.
The common denominator is moral: everyone involved is moved by the realization that Palestinians suffer a grave injustice. BDS is a solidarity movement, aligned with the Palestinian cause.
Does this — indeed, can this – imply “delegitimating” Israel? The short answer is: No. Delegitimation is not what solidarity movements are about.
What solidarity movements do is boost morale and influence world opinion; anything more falls beyond their ken. BDS is no different.
Solidarity movements in themselves are not all that threatening anyway. Even when their objectives are clear and their extent rivals or surpasses anything the world has yet to see, their efficacy is limited.
This is why in Palestine, if a new deal comes about, it will be mainly through the efforts of the Palestinians themselves. It was this way for blacks and coloreds in South Africa; it is always this way. Solidarity movements can help – but, in the end, what they offer is moral support.
To be sure, the U.S. role in maintaining Israeli dominance, and therefore Palestinian subordination, is historically unprecedented. Moving American public opinion in a less one-sided direction can therefore be more than usually helpful.
But the fact remains: BDS and movements like it can only do so much. Only Palestinians can make the situation for Palestinians more just.
Should they succeed, their efforts may indeed lead to regime change in Israel. But nothing that they or anyone else will or can do will delegitimate the Israeli state.
This may seem like a distinction without a difference, but it is not.