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Tzvi Fishman
Torah Commentator, Novelist, and Film Director

One Bullet is All that Israel Needs

Let’s face it. Logistically, taking out Iran’s nuclear sites is a problem for Israel. Sure, Israel can bomb them, but they are spread far apart, located in different areas of the country, and their cores are deep in the ground. Israel itself admits that it could damage them severely, but not put them out of service completely. It’s also a logistical headache to neutralize Iran’s missile capability. Their long-range rockets are also spread out over the country, and any Israeli strike on the reactors would have to include attacks on their missiles sites as well. As we learned from the most recent war in Lebanon, knocking out enemy missiles sites can take months, and in the meantime Israel is certain to be attacked in return. Israeli casualties, G-d forbid, could be considerable. That’s why Israel has hesitated until now, hoping to find another solution. Of course, Israel could drop an A-bomb on Teheran, and take care of the problem with the press of a bottom, but a lot of countries would be upset with such a bold action, and none of Israel’s present leaders are prepared to deal with the consequences.

Therefore, in my opinion, the smartest thing for Israel to do is simply to assassinate the Iran madman, Ahmadinejad. A single bullet is all it would take. If Israel can blow up top Iranian scientists on their way to work in Teheran, they certainly can do mankind a big favor by neutralizing the world’s new Hitler on one of his trips to the United Nations and Columbia University in New York.

That’s the way Rabbi Avraham Yitzhal HaKohen Kook advised dealing with the evil despots of the world. In his commentary on the prayer book, regarding the verse, “Who smote great nations and slew mighty kings” (Psalms, 135:10), he said that while countries set on evil need to be given harsh blows to bring them back to paths of morality and justice, the only cure for their crazed and rabid leaders, who possess the power to unite the masses for the purpose of terrible evil, is annihilation:

“The leaders, those mighty individuals who harbor the power of wickedness within them, pillars of impurity, fountains of darkness, spreaders of insolence, and defenders of injustice -.these monsters, with their egotistical, arrogant personalities, who can turn world history backwards by mounting an attack backed by many nations, who have incorporated in their general culture the stain of evil in all its impurity, for them, there is no rectification but to kill them, to blot out their names, to eradicate them from the world. Such retributions are among the wonders of the L-rd of the Universe, who causes the lights of holiness to shine forth, and who shall cause supreme justice to ultimately appear in His world, despite all those forces of darkness that delay its pure and radiant appearance” (Rabbi Kook, Olat HaRi’ya, Vol.2, pg. 82).

What is Israel waiting for?

 

About the Author
Before making Aliyah in 1984, Tzvi Fishman taught Creative Writing at the NYU School of the Arts. He has published nearly twenty novels and books on a wide range of Jewish themes, available at Amazon Books and the tzvifishmanbooks.com website. He is the recipient of the Israel Ministry of Education Award for Creativity and Jewish Culture. Recently, he produced and directed the feature film, “Stories of Rebbe Nachman” starring Israel’s popular actor, Yehuda Barkan. Presently, he is working on Volume Four of the Tevye in the Promised Land Series.