Foolish and dangerous threats

Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a decision in the form of a new threat.

“Iran will never have nukes”, he announced.”We will not allow it”. Foolish words and a dangerous threat, frightening the citizens of Israel.

Many countries, including ours, have developed and enriched material for nuclear missiles and weapons of mass destruction. We did not ask permission from the council of nations to develop our site at a place that bears my name, the Nahal Sorek Nuclear Facility. America did not ask permission to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Every developed nation has the right to produce weapons for its security. Building them does not mean automatically using them. That would be a disastrous war of the world’s people.

Iran has the skill to create and to produce its weapons. They do not have the right to threaten us or any other country.

Likewise, Netanyahu should cease his foolish threats. He has decided on his own opinion that Iran will never have nukes. Hopefully, they will not. But non-prophet Netanyahu cannot make predictions and our Israeli excellent intelligence services can only discover what can easily be discovered.

If a nuclear war should ever break out with an attack on Israel by the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, will Netanyahu lead our troops into battle? Will Yair wave our flag as he pulls the trigger?

Such foolish talk achieves nothing except to frighten our people. We do not need the fear of death from our prime minister. Many of us have internalized it long ago.

The United States made a serious mistake to back out of the initial agreement it had with Iran. Trump’s folly encouraged the Iranians to become more desperate in their efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

It has been an error on our part to paint a picture of Iran as an anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) country. Since the Biblical period during the reign of the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius, Jews have been well-treated by all Persian/Iranian governments.

There are several thousands of Jews presently living in Iran. There are several synagogues, well-attended by Jewish worshippers on shabbat and holidays. There are rabbis in Iran. There is a Jewish man who is a member of the Iranian parliament.

We need to be more clear in our use of words. Iran is anti-Zionist and anti-Israel’s government but it is NOT anti-Jewish people.

Only a few weeks ago, the Iranian government and military conducted an official memorial service for 13 Iranian Jewish soldiers who had been killed in the Iran-Iraq war. The services were conducted in Farsi and Hebrew by a rabbi in Teheran and the ceremony was attended by several government personnel and by the contingent of the Revolutionary Guards who saluted the dead Jewish soldiers in tribute to their patriotism to Iran.

I do not think that the Iranians feel threatened by an attack from Israel, especially at this troubled time.

We are presently a nation without a strong leader and without a government. We have not had peace or quiet with Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu is frightened to attack Gaza with full force. If we fear reprisals from Hamas how much more so should we be frightened of a response from the Iranians?

Every nation must be prepared for emergency situations. Every nation should be prepared a priori for a long time before a war breaks out. Our people should be advised and cautioned. They should be prepared to go into shelters when sirens are sounded. But they should not be terrified by the prime minister’s threat.

The Iranians are not frightened. Why should we be? Caution is best, of course. But making promises and threats to prevent another country from developing weapons is not the best thing to do.

Netanyahu should zip his lip and discuss his options with members of his Cabinet only. He need not publicly announce to us and to others actions which must, hopefully, never happen.

He should be reminded of the words of the Chofetz Chayim: “If you have nothing good to say, say nothing”.

Oseh shalom bimromav Hu yaaseh shalom aleinu v’al kol Yisrael. Amen.

May He who makes peace in the heavens above make peace for us and for all Israel.

Amen.