By Alan Caruba
In 1933,
approximately 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe, representing 1.7% of the total
European population which, in turn, was about 60% of the Jewish world
population, estimated to have been 15.2 million.
By 1945,
in the wake of the Holocaust, two out of every three Jews would be dead.
By 2012 the
global Jewish population had reached 13.75 million. That is less than 0.2 percent
of the world’s population.
The
Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported that 43% of the world’s Jewish
community lives in Israel. Sharing Israel as their home were 1,636,600 Arabs
and a diverse population of Christians and non-Jews, numbering around 318,000.
If the Iranians make good on their
threat to “wipe Israel off the map”, presumably with nuclear weapons they would
acquire by stealth and deception, the Jewish world population would be cut
nearly in half.
All of
this will be on Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind when, as the Prime Minister of Israel,
he addresses a joint meeting of Congress. It will be his third such speech. On
July 10, 1996, he said the world must act to prevent Iran’s nuclearization,
since “the deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close.”
In 2011 he
returned, saying “When I stood here, I spoke of the consequences of Iran
developing nuclear weapons. Now time is running out. The hinge of history may
soon turn, for the greatest danger of all could soon be upon us, a militant
Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons.”
So now it
is 2015 and the only thing Netanyahu knows for sure is that the Iranians remain
intent on being able to produce their own nuclear weapons.
The March
2nd edition of The Times of Israel reported that Yukiya Amano, the
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said “Iran has yet to provide
explanations that enable the agency to clarify two outstanding practical
measures”, a diplomatic way of referring to “alleged explosive tests and other
issues related to research that may also be useful for military uses of atomic
energy.” This is the same problem that the U.N. agency has with North Korea.
Netanyahu was
worried about Iran’s nuclear weapons program in 1996, in 2011, and now in 2015;
more than enough time for Iran to have made considerable progress toward their
goal. At the heart of this third address to Congress is the survival of nearly
half of all the Jews in the world because they live in Israel.
It’s no
secret there is no love-loss between Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Obama, but this
third effort to urge Congress to go on record supporting the survival of Israel
is necessary because, for the first time since 1948, there is some cause to
wonder whether a war-weary U.S. would come to Israel’s defense.
Obama has
said in no uncertain terms that he wants to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons. However, the world has learned that the gap between what he says and
what he does is often wide or non-existent. It must be said, however, that past
Presidents have decried North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, but that
has not translated into any direct action because China entered the Korean
conflict in the 1950s to defend it and no one wants a repeat of that.
Netanyahu
does not speak for “all Jews.” He speaks for Israel and other than national
survival the political divisions there are even more diverse than our own. The
fact that he is running for reelection there is not a factor for his speech to
Congress—timing is.
One
suspects that the best intelligence both Israel and the U.S. have been able to
secure suggests that, this time, Iran is very close to its goal of being able
to produce its own nuclear weapons despite the sanctions that have been
imposed.
Netanyahu
is understandably concerned about the negotiations that Obama has relentlessly
pursued with Iran, the result of which has alienated not only Israel, but Saudi
Arabia and all of the Gulf nations. The P5+1 parties to the negotiations
include Russia, China, France, United Kingdom and Germany. The negotiations
have deadlocked in the past and may do so again despite the fact that both
Russia and China have close ties to Iran.
Even if
Iran agrees to terms that would supposedly slow or stop its nuclear weapons
program, there is not a scintilla of evidence that they would fulfill their
promises. Iran, after all, is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism
worldwide.
The odds
are that Netanyahu knows that Iran, this time, is very close to becoming
militarily nuclear. Addressing Congress calls attention to the danger, not only
domestically, but worldwide.
What Netanyahu
also knows is that President Obama seems to have blind spot when it comes to
the growing anti-Semitism that resembles what existed in the 1930s in Europe.
When Jews in a French kosher supermarket were murdered, Obama referred to it as
an act of “violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch
of folks in a deli in Paris.”
Whoa! It
wasn’t “a bunch of folks.” They were Jews buying food for the Sabbath
meal. And those “violent, vicious
zealots” were Muslims, just like the ISIS Muslims beheading, crucifying, burning,
kidnapping, and enslaving those they don’t kill for being Christian, Jewish, Yazidis,
or just not Muslim enough!
Netanyahu’s
speech will, indeed, be historic. It may not be his last visit to the chambers
of Congress.
© Alan
Caruba, 2015
Alan, I wholeheartedly agree except for one statement, where I think you were just being diplomatic. You stated "... President Obama seems to have a blind spot when it comes to the growing anti-Semitism...". I don't believe it is a blind spot. I believe Obama is an anti-Semite, and his cold relationship with Netanyahu is but one manifestation.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was being diplomatic.
ReplyDeleteAnd the pitiful thing about this is that the American Jewish Liberals would vote for Obama again in a flash.
ReplyDeleteStupidity be thy name.
I anxiously await the post about Bibi's speech...
ReplyDelete@Rambo. From what I read and see these days, Obama has managed to alienate the Jewish Democrats to such a point many will either join the GOP or just not vote Democrat for some time to come.
ReplyDelete