Bibi, Amalek and Jewish History

"Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal"
WK14, Sunday 5/17/09,
By Op-Ed Contributor, Jeffrey Goldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg offers an interesting background on both Jewish views of "Amalek" (an existential threat successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront), and on the scholarship of Benjamin Netanyahu's father, a pre-eminent historian on Spanish Jewry. Both coincide to form an entry point into Netanyahu's thinking on Iran. Most important, Goldberg paints a more sober and thoughtful portrait of Netanyahum, departing from past Times coverage.

Iran as the new Ameluk perhaps helps explain Jewish history, its patterns, ironies and traditions, but may actually mislead those who seek a realpolitik explanation of why Israel may preemptively strike Iran. For instance, Goldberg writes that "if Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think." (my emphasis)

Goldberg subsequently writes that, in their conversation, "Netanyahu avoided metaphysics and biblical exegesis, but said that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons represented a 'hinge of history.'" However, some readers may be left with the impression that abstract considerations like Jewish history and tradition, not clear-eyed self-defense and self-preservation, are what influences an Israeli prime minister.

Although not the focus of this piece, Goldberg offers a snapshot on Netanyahu's and Israel's options for peace with the Palestinians. It's a somewhat disappointing one.

"(Netanyahu) believes the Palestinians, divided and dysfunctional, their extremists firmly in the Iranian camp, are unready for compromise." While this is true, it omits a far more fundamental truth about Palestinian society and politics: if there were no Iranian camp, division nor dysfunction, the long and deep-rooted tradition of Palestinian rejectionism would still preclude compromise. This is a point too important not to make, lest readers conclude the problem is one of Palestinian unity or "extremists".

Goldberg treats Iran and the peace process as distinct, and while in reality they are, Obama is using Palestinian statehood as a political fig leaf in crafting his Iran policy. Thus, the realities of actually achieving a Palestinian state should've been given a bit more thorough attention.

Nevertheless, some myths were importantly confronted head-on by Goldberg: notably the myth of a "hard-line" Netanyahu. Goldberg notes Netanyahu "betrayed the principles of the Greater Israel movement by relinquishing part of Judaism’s second-holiest city, Hebron, to the control of Yasir Arafat."

Also noted is Israel's concern not that Iran will necessarily launch a nuclear weapon at Israel, but, as he paraphrases Netanyahu, "Iran could bring about the eventual end of Israel simply by possessing such weaponry," and terrorist groups on Israel's northern and southern borders would enjoy a "nuclear umbrella". Islamic militants around the world "would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph.”

Goldberg importantly quotes Netanyahu's lament that Iran's threats are a "monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion." Apart from "perfunctory condemnations...there’s no shock."

Goldberg also writes that to garner the major players (Europe, China, Russia) necessary to halt Iran's nuclear program, they need to be convinced that at stake is not only Middle East stability, but welfare of their own economies.

Goldberg should be commended for his admonitions of Netanyahu's critics. He writes, to see Netanyahu as, "at bottom, a cynic who will bluff vigorously but bend whenever he thinks it expedient or unavoidable...is to misread both the prime minister and this moment in Jewish history.