Jewish Advocates of Pre-Emptive War with Iran Come Under Increasing Criticism [View All]

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An array of Jewish organizations are in the forefront of promoting pre-emptive action against Iran and are coming under increasing criticism by other voices in the Jewish community.

A fund-raising letter from the World Jewish Congress declares that, “Iran poses the greatest danger to the Jewish people since the Nazis came to power in the 1930s.” An Anti-Defamation League appeal declares that, “ADL has taken a tough and principled stand against those who deal with demagogues like (Iran president) Ahmadinejad ... We’ve put it to the world that Ahmadinejad must be isolated.” A letter from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reads: “Today the threats to Israel have never been greater ... Iran is speeding up its nuclear weapons program. Now that the Iranians have the capability to enrich uranium, they have constructed more than 2,000 centrifuges and plan to have more than 8,000 centrifuges in operation by the end of this year ... Do your part to stop Iran’s rapidly accelerating nuclear weapons program ...”

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Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is critical of those who urge a pre-emptive attack upon Iran and who, in his view, overestimate its potential danger. He writes in The Forward (Sept. 28, 2007), “Though rich in oil, Iran is a Third World country with a population of 80 million and a per capita income of $2,440 ... Its annual defense budget stands at about $6.3 billion — a little more than half of Israel’s and a little less than 2 percent of America’s. Iran, in fact, spends a smaller percentage of its resources on defense than any of its neighbors except the United Arab Emirates.”

Van Creveld notes that, “Iran may have some Shihab III missiles with the range to hit Israel, but their number is limited and their reliability uncertain. Should the missiles carry conventional warheads, then militarily speaking the effect will probably be close to zero. Should they carry unconventional ones, then Iran — to quote former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, speaking not long before the first Gulf War — will open itself to ‘awesome and terrible retaliation.’ ... General John Abizaid, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, is only the latest in a long list of experts to argue that the world can live with a nuclear Iran. Their views deserve to be carefully considered, lest Ahmadinejad’s fear-driven posturing cause anybody to do something stupid.”

http://www.acjna.org/acjna/articles_detail.aspx?id=469#