For all practical purposes, Israel’s “war with Iran has already begun,” said Yaakov Katz, military correspondent for the Jerusalem Post.
Speaking to an audience of about 70 at Congregation Shalom on Oct. 3, Katz contended that this war is “being fought by Israeli soldiers and Iran’s proxies.” These proxies are the Muslim fundamentalist and terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
This war has been small scale. Its engagements have not been big battles between armies, but missile launches and sniper attacks, said Katz.
But behind them stands Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear weapons. Katz said that Israeli intelligence believes that Iran currently has enough enriched nuclear material to make three nuclear bombs, and has missiles that could carry them.
So, Katz rhetorically asked, “What is Iran waiting for?” Why do its leaders not make such weapons and announce that Iran now has them?
Because these leaders want “to wait to produce an arsenal” of six or seven such weapons, Katz said. Moreover, Iran’s technicians haven’t solved all their problems yet, with the result that Iran is “one year from a testable nuclear device,” said Katz.
Nevertheless, that is close enough so that Israel’s government and people are now debating whether they “can or can’t live with” a nuclear Iran, Katz said.
Some, like Katz’s columnist colleague at the Post, Caroline Glick, say Israel can’t and are calling for Israel to attack. If Israel does, said Katz, Iran might do nothing in response, as Iraq and Syria did when Israel destroyed their nascent nuclear plants; or Iran may “unleash its full wrath” with long-range missiles. In either event, “nothing will be the same,” he said.
However, other Israelis say that “Iran is complicated; it is hard to tell who is in charge of what” in its government; that cooler heads than outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have the real power in Iran’s government; and that Iran is vulnerable to economic sanctions.
Katz said that Iran is the world’s fifth largest exporter of oil, and it exports because it can’t refine its own oil. It has to import about 50 percent of the oil it uses. Therefore, sanctions “can have an effect,” Katz said.
Moreover, Israel is not alone in feeling threatened by Iran. Arab and Sunni Muslim countries Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are all more afraid of the Persian and Shia Muslim Iran than they are of Israel, Katz said.
That means, however, that if Iran would become a nuclear power, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East likely would ensue, as Sunni and Arab countries would seek their own nuclear weapons to counter Iran.
Katz is a Chicago native who moved to Israel with his family when he was about 15. He was on a national speaking tour, and appeared in Milwaukee under the auspices of the Israel Center of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, co-sponsored by Congregation Shalom.
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