SAM LIPSKI
LET’S restate an axiom for Israel’s political and military leaders. A nuclear-armed Iran, something that could happen within one to two years, poses an existential threat to Israel. Despite the upheavals in Teheran’s streets since the Iranian presidential election, the nuclear threat will remain. All the key players in the Iranian “opposition” are just as committed to a nuclear future as the “establishment”.
Before the Teheran events, historian Michael Oren, the newly appointed Israel ambassador to Washington, had recently argued that the Iranian threat was only one of “at least” seven existential threats that endangered Israel’s survival. Indeed, Oren noted, there was no other example of a sovereign state that faced such “a multiplicity and variety of concurrent existentialist threats”. Oren, a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Centre in Jerusalem, is a widely known media commentator, an articulate Israel advocate, and the best-selling author of Six Days of War among other works on the Middle East. Some AJN readers will recall his lectures during his brief visit to Melbourne and Sydney in 2007.
As Oren sees it, a nuclear-armed Iran could be a threat without even launching a direct attack: Teheran could transfer nuclear weapons to terrorist groups it could declare a nuclear alert creating panic and economic collapse in Israel. And it could trigger a nuclear arms race among “moderate” Arab states. But, Oren believes that Iran is only one, and not the most serious threat Israel faces. He outlined his provocative views in the May 2009 Commentary (www.commentarymagazine.com), just before Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu appointed him to represent Israel to the Obama Administration. Clearly, as an Israeli diplomat, he wouldn’t have been as free to write so frankly. However, he has written out of a deep Zionist commitment and offered solutions and hope to overcome the threats.
Oren’s list of the six other existential threats are as follows:
1. The loss of Jerusalem: Of the city’s 800,000 people, there are 272,000 Arabs and 200,000 Charedim – ultra-Orthodox Jews – and no longer a Zionist majority. There has been a flight of secular Jews, the tax base has eroded, and the lack of industry and jobs has made it Israel’s poorest city. These developments threaten the country’s political and spiritual capital and Israel’s very “soul”.
2. The Arab demographic threat: If Israel’s Jewish majority drops below 70 per cent -– it is currently 80 per cent -– the country will need to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. A realistic two-state paradigm, Oren writes, is the only remedy. But the basic conditions for it aren’t currently available.
3. Delegitimisation: The increasingly successful campaign to depict Israel as a racist, apartheid and colonialist state threatens to provoke boycotts and economic sanctions similar to those that brought down the South African regime.
4. Terrorism: The Israel Defence Forces has developed effective counter-terrorism measures against the suicide bomber threat. But it hasn’t yet devised long-term strategies to counter the Hezbollah and Hamas arsenals that can now hit every Israeli city, airport and supply centre. Invading Lebanon and Gaza again, Oren believes, will not work.
5. The loss of sovereignty: Israel doesn’t assert the rule of law -– building codes, tax collection, illegal outposts or criminal behaviour -– over large numbers of its Arab and Jewish citizens.
6. Corruption -– political and private: For Oren, the indictment of political and even military leaders on serious crimes reflects a serious breakdown of public morality.
Each of us can argue with Oren, Iran aside, whether the dangers are all in the “existential threat” category. I, for one, was surprised that he didn’t mention the wider religious-secular divisions ahead of Jerusalem’s admittedly serious problems. But it’s hard to argue with Oren that although Israel needs a restoration of Zionist and Jewish values – and while we mustn’t underestimate the severity of the external dangers that threaten it – we shouldn’t underestimate its great achievements.
It is a country that has survived many wars. It has developed a robust economy, leading universities, a citizens’ defence force, a high level of patriotism and a strong resilience and national will. Clearly, in Oren’s view, Israel will need to call on all of these strengths in the years ahead.
Sam Lipski is chief executive of the Pratt Foundation and a former editor-in-chief of the AJN.
