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March 7, 2015

THE SPEECH

by Uri Avnery

SUDDENLY IT reminded me of something.

I was watching The Speech by Binyamin Netanyahu before the Congress of the United
States. Row upon row of men in suits (and the occasional woman), jumping up and
down, up and down, applauding wildly, shouting approval.

It was the shouting that did it. Where had I heard that before?

And then it came back to me. It was another parliament in the mid-1930s. The Leader
was speaking. Rows upon rows of Reichstag members were listening raptly. Every few
minutes they jumped up and shouted their approval.

Of course, the Congress of the United States of America is no Reichstag. Members
wear dark suits, not brown shirts. They do not shout "Heil" but something
unintelligible. Yet the sound of the shouting had the same effect. Rather shocking.

But then I returned to the present. The sight was not frightening, but ridiculous. Here
were the members of the most powerful parliament in the world behaving like a bunch
of nincompoops.

Nothing like this could have happened in the Knesset. I do not have a very high
opinion of our parliament, despite having been a member, but compared to this
assembly, the Knesset is the fulfillment of Plato's dream.

ABBA EBAN once compared a speech by Menachem Begin to a French souffle cake:
a lot of air and very little dough.

The same could be said about The Speech.

What did it contain? The Holocaust, of course, with that moral impostor, Elie Wiesel,
sitting in the gallery right next to the beaming Sarah'le, who visibly relished her
husband's triumph. (A few days before, she had shouted at the wife of a mayor in
Israel: "Your man does not reach the ankles of my man!")

The Speech mentioned the Book of Esther, about the salvation of the Persian Jews
from the evil Persian minister Haman, who intended to wipe them out. No one knows
how this dubious composition came to be included in the Bible. God is not mentioned
in it, it has nothing to do with the Holy Land, and Esther herself is more of a prostitute
than a heroine. The book ends with the mass murder committed by the Jews against
the Persians.

The Speech, like all speeches by Netanyahu, contained much about the suffering of
the Jews throughout the ages, and the intentions of the evil Iranians, the New Nazis, to
annihilate us. But this will not happen, because this time we have Binyamin Netanyahu
to protect us. And the US Republicans, of course.

It was a good speech. One cannot make a bad speech when hundreds of admirers
hang on every word and applaud every second. But it will not make an anthology of
the world's Greatest Speeches.

Netanyahu considers himself a second Churchill. And indeed, Churchill was the only
foreign leader before Netanyahu to speak to both houses of Congress a third time.
But Churchill came to cement his alliance with the President of the United States,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who played a big part in the British war effort, while
Netanyahu has come to spit in the face of the present president.

WHAT DID the speech not contain?

Not a word about Palestine and the Palestinians. Not a word about peace, the two-
state solution, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem. Not a word about apartheid,
the occupation, the settlements. Not a word about Israel's own nuclear capabilities.

Not a word, of course, about the idea of a nuclear-weapon–free region, with mutual
inspection.

Indeed, there was no concrete proposal at all. After denouncing the bad deal in the
making, and hinting that Barack Obama and John Kerry are dupes and idiots, he
offered no alternative.

Why? I assume that the original text of The Speech contained a lot. Devastating new
sanctions against Iran. A demand for the total demolition of all Iranian nuclear
installations. And in the inevitable end: a US-Israeli military attack.

All this was left out. He was warned by the Obama people in no uncertain terms that
disclosure of details of the negotiations would be considered as a betrayal of
confidence. He was warned by his Republican hosts that the American public was in
no mood to hear about yet another war.

What was left? A dreary recounting of the well-known facts about the negotiations. It
was the only tedious part of the speech. For minutes no one jumped up, nobody
shouted approval. Elie Wiesel was shown sleeping. The most important person in the
hall, Sheldon Adelson, the owner of the Congress republicans and of Netanyahu, was
not shown at all. But he was there, keeping close watch on his servants.

BY THE way, whatever happened to Netanyahu's war?

Remember when the Israel Defense Forces were about to bomb Iran to smithereens?
When the US military might was about to "take out" all Iranian nuclear installations?

Readers of this column might also remember that years ago I assured them that there
would be no war. No ifs, no buts. No half-open back door for a retreat. I asserted that
there would be no war, period.

Much later, all Israeli former military and intelligence chiefs spoke out against the war.
The army Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, who finished his term this week, has disclosed
that no draft operation order for attacking Iran's nuclear capabilities was ever drawn
up.

Why? Because such an operation could lead to a world-wide catastrophe. Iran would
immediately close the Strait of Hormuz, just a few dozen miles wide, through which
some 35% of the world's sea-borne oil must pass. It would mean an immediate world-
wide economic breakdown.

To open the Strait and keep it open, a large part of Iran would have to be occupied in
a land war, boots on the ground. Even Republicans shiver at the thought.

Israeli military capabilities fall far short of such an adventure. And, of course, Israel
cannot dream of starting a war without express American consent.

That is reality. Not speechifying. Even American senators are capable of seeing the
difference.

THE CENTERPIECE of The Speech was the demonization of Iran. Iran is evil
incarnate. It leaders are subhuman monsters. All over the world, Iranian terrorists are
at work planning monstrous outrages. They are building intercontinental ballistic
missiles to destroy the US. Immediately after obtaining nuclear warheads – now or in
ten years - they will annihilate Israel.

In reality, Israel's second-strike capability, based on the submarines supplied by
Germany, would annihilate Iran within minutes. One of the most ancient civilizations in
world history would come to an abrupt end. The ayatollahs would have to been
clinically insane to do such a thing.

Netanyahu pretends to believe they are. Yet for years now, Israel has been
conducting an amiable arbitration with the Iranian government about the Eilat-
Ashkelon oil pipeline across Israel built by an Iranian-Israeli consortium. Before the
Islamic revolution, Iran was Israel's stoutest ally in the region. Well after the revolution,
Israel supplied Iran with arms in order to fight against Saddam Hussein's Iraq (the
famous Irangate affair). And if one goes back to Esther and her sexual effort to save
the Jews, why not mention Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Judean captives to return
to Jerusalem?

Judging by its behavior, the present Iranian leadership has lost some of its initial
religious fervor. It is behaving (not always speaking) in a very rational way, conducting
tough negotiations as one would expect from Persians, aware of their immense
cultural heritage, even more ancient than Judaism. Netanyahu is right in saying that
one should not trust them with closed eyes, but his demonization is ridiculous.

Within the wider context, Israel and Iran are already indirect allies. For both, the
Islamic State (ISIS) is the mortal enemy. To my mind, ISIS is far more dangerous to
Israel, in the long run, than Iran. I imagine that for Tehran, ISIS is a far more
dangerous enemy than Israel.

(The only memorable sentence in The Speech was "the enemy of my enemy is my
enemy".)

If the worst comes to the worst, Iran will have its bomb in the end. So what?

I may be an arrogant Israeli, but I refuse to be afraid. I live a mile from the Israeli army
high command in the center of Tel Aviv, and in a nuclear exchange I would evaporate.
Yet I feel quite safe.

The United States has been exposed for decades (and still is) to thousands of
Russian nuclear bombs, which could eradicate millions within minutes. They feel safe
under the umbrella of the "balance of terror". Between us and Iran, in the worst
situation, the same balance would come into effect.

WHAT IS Netanyahu's alternative to Obama's policy? As Obama was quick to point
out, he offered none.

The best possible deal will be struck. The danger will be postponed for ten years or
more. And, as Chaim Weizmann once said: "The future will come and take care of the
future."

Within these ten years, many things will happen. Regimes will change, enmities will
turn into alliances and vice versa. Anything is possible.

Even - God and the Israeli voters willing - peace between Israel and Palestine, which
would take the sting out of Israeli-Muslim relations.