Former Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg has written an assessment in The Atlantic on the odds of Israel or the US bombing Iran. The most interesting part is the discussion about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father and the influence that the old man has over the son.
To understand why Netanyahu possesses this deep sense—and why his understanding of Jewish history might lead him to attack Iran, even over Obama’s objections—it is necessary to understand Ben-Zion Netanyahu, his 100-year-old father.
“Our party this evening compels me to speak of recent comments made about the continued existence of the nation of Israel and the new threats by its enemies depicting its upcoming destruction,” Ben-Zion began. “From the Iranian side, we hear pledges that soon—in a matter of days, even—the Zionist movement will be put to an end and there will be no more Zionists in the world. One is supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America, whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being told in a hinted fashion that the annihilation of the Jews will not include them.”
Of course, many of us are frightened when we hear that Muslims see geo-politics from a religious perspective, and rightfully so. Israel, on the other hand, is presented to us as a secular, modern state which only desires peace. The more one reads about it, the more we see that this is not the case.
