Immediately after returning from Washington, Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu suddenly began to speak in moderate tone. He said he would still give international sanctions a chance and, therefore, would not be attacking Iran “in the nearest days or weeks.” Incidentally, just a day before, he had categorically refused to discuss any delay or even wait for a go-ahead from its time-tested protector. Just on the eve of the visit, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said: “An elephant and an ant will meet in Washington on Monday for a critical summit. But wait, who here is the elephant and who the ant? Who is the superpower and who the patronage state? A new chapter is being written in the history of nations. Never before has a small country dictated to a superpower; never has the elephant resembled the ant – and vice versa. No Roman province dared tell Julius Caesar what to do, no tribe ever dreamed of forcing Genghis Khan to act in accordance with its own tribal interests. Only Israel does this.”
There were the most favorable conditions for Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Firstly, it is the presidential campaign in which the pro-Israeli lobby’s money and preferences are an indispensable condition for success. Secondly, it is the annual congress of this lobby – American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), – where the topmost officials, including the US president, report on what they have done in the past year and make new daring commitments, where the current government’s election rivals claim that they will be more active in pursuing the interests of Israel, and where the vast majority of Congressmen come to in order to carve out a long political career.
Netanyahu himself had every reason to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his discovery of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Very few remember now that he, a young deputy foreign minister at the time, announced in 1992 that Teheran would have the nuclear bomb by 1999.
Some former Republican and Democratic officials sparred, much to the delight of the audience, at the AIPAC policy conference over President Obama’s commitment to protecting Israel. Liz Cheney, the daughter of the Republican vice-president, chided Obama for being “more focused on containing Israeli actions than… on containing Iran,” while ex-Congresswoman Jane Harman defended Obama, citing his unprecedented military aid to Israel.
It is no secret that Obama remains opposed to attacking Iran, and he managed – in his AIPAC speech and at pre- and post-negotiations press conferences – to come through unscathed and, what is more, to spell out a few interesting messages. Well before those events, Obama told The Atlantic magazine that it was not desirable to attack Iran: “…do we want a distraction in which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim?” The president in fact admitted by this that there was still no irrefutable evidence of Teheran’s intention to develop nuclear weapons, which could be a pretext for the attack. Being aware of the extremely low public support for this attack, Obama said, to the applause of pro-Israeli lobbyists, that Tel Aviv itself has the right to decide what to do to guarantee its security (read: not to ask Washington’s permission for the attack). He also mentioned inevitable sacrifices for the American people. “When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war. I’m reminded of the decision that I have to make, in terms of sending our young men and women into battle,” he said the next day, harping on the well-known “Iraq syndrome.” Yet it still remains a puzzle what Obama told (promised) Netanyahu behind the closed door to persuade him to wait a little.
Netanyahu in turn used all his available propagandistic arsenal and favorite historical parallels: he recalled in his speech that the US government had not wanted to bomb Nazi concentration camps in World War Two, and, during the negotiations, he presented Obama with a gift edition of the Scroll of Esther which contains the legend of a Persian plan to exterminate the Hebrews. As for historical parallels, an inquiring researcher can find a lot of interesting not necessarily in the Biblical times – particularly, about the well-known accusation that Iran is planning “to wipe Israel off the map of the world” (as is known, it is an invention of the US lobbyist Alan Dershowitz who was, incidentally, hired as defense lawyer for ex-president Kuchma in the Gongadze case). In 1957 the Soviet Ambassador to Israel, Aleksandr Abramov, expressed his indignation to Eshel, Director of the Eastern Europe Department at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, over Premier Ben-Gurion’s comment that “the Soviet Union intends to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.” “Who, when, and where said something of the kind?” the ambassador inquired in a telegram to Moscow. The latter answered that the Soviet press and some officials occasionally said that the policy of Israel would lead to its demise. “It is a caution, not a threat. It is a show of good will, after all,” Abramov said to the Israeli officials.
In the same year the Soviet Embassy in Israel reported to Moscow on the arrival of about 8,000 Polish repatriates: “There are among them some former officers of the Polish interior ministry, security service and military intelligence, outstanding scientists, including, nuclear physicists and well-known bacteriologists.” By that time, Israel had already signed an agreement with France on the transfer of a nuclear reactor and an agreement on cooperation with the US. Still more interesting events occurred in May 1963. The USSR Charge d’Affaires in Israel, Likhachov, reports that he was approached by Foreign Minister Golda Meir at a presidential reception, who assured him of Israel’s peaceful intentions: “We are for peace, and we are prepared to sign an agreement on comprehensive disarmament at any time and to sink all kinds of armaments in the sea.” Clearly hinting at the Soviet government’s note on proclaiming the Mediterranean a nuclear-free zone, Meir said Israel was worried not so much about the nuclear weapons, which none of the Mediterranean states (in addition to France) had or was going to have in the near future, as about the conventional weapons by means of which “the Arab states can destroy Israel right now.” Meir’s assurances of the readiness to sink all the arms in the sea coincided in time with a tough letter from US President John Kennedy to Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion: it said that if the latter did not allow US inspectors to examine the Dimon nuclear installation, “our support for Israel would be seriously undermined.” Later he wrote a similar letter to the new premier Levi Eshkol. The assassination of Kennedy relieves Tel Aviv of the necessity to respond. And as soon as 1965 the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports to the CPSU Central Committee: “One of the leaders of the Israeli Communist Party, Comrade Sne, has informed the ambassador in Tel Aviv about his conversation with the premier’s advisor Gariel who said Israel was planning to make its own nuclear bomb.”
As we can see, even this brief historical inquiry into not so Biblical times does not evidence the sincerity of Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has unexpectedly answered a letter from Saeed Jalil, Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council. It was not just a reply: she proposed a new round of talks and was ready to fix the time immediately. Probably, this readiness follows from the fact that Teheran has stopped supplying oil to Europe, which caused prices to shoot up. It would be wrong to accuse Teheran of blackmail – it has just decided not to wait for July, the time by which the EU intended to impose an embargo on Iranian oil after finding alternative sources of supply. Turkey is already offering its territory as a venue for talks in the 5+1 format: the US, the UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany. The presence of Berlin in this company cannot but evoke an ironic smile, taking into account the breakneck speed at which a state-of-the-art attack submarine capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles is being finished in the port of Kiel. It is going to be transferred to Israel in the near future. The wonder submarine costs 700 million dollars, a third of which being allotted by the German government itself.
