January
27, 2014
Is
Israel’s Netanyahu certifiable?
Editor
By
Alan
Hart
The
expanded and most explicit form of my headline question is this: Is
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of sound mind and knowingly
talking propaganda nonsense about threats to Israel’s security in
order to fool the world, including most of its Jews, or is he
unbalanced, mentally disturbed, even clinically insane?
I
ask because his rubbishing in Davos of the most important speech any
Iranian leader has made since the revolution which brought the
mullahs to power 35 years ago sent me to bed recalling something my
father said to me when I was a very young boy: “There are none so
blind as those who don’t want to see.”
What
was there in President Rouhani’s address to the World Economic
Forum’s Annual Meeting for Netanyahu to see if he was of sound
mind?
What
Rouhani said
Rouhani’s
main message to the region, and probably Saudi Arabia in particular,
was that his government is fully prepared “to engage with all
neighbouring countries to achieve shared practical solutions on a
range of issues”.
His
main message to the world, and probably President Barack Obama in
particular, was this:
In
recent years a dominant voice has been repeatedly heard. “The
military option is on the table.” Against the backdrop of this
illegal and ineffective contention, let me say loud and clear that
peace is within reach. So, in the name of the Islamic Republic of
Iran, I propose, as a starting step, consideration by the United
Nations of the project the World Against Violence and Extremism,
WAVE. Let us all join in this WAVE. I invite all states,
international organizations and civil institutions to undertake a new
effort to guide the world in this direction… We should start
thinking about a coalition for enduring peace across the globe
instead of the ineffective coalitions for war in various parts of the
world.
Of
course, he was on a charm offensive and taking full advantage of
being at the Davos meeting to appeal to the major investors present,
but in my view that did not dilute the integrity of his vision of the
new politics needed to create a better world. He was surely speaking
for most citizens everywhere when he said: “People all over the
world are tired of war, violence and extremism. They hope for change
in the status
quo.”
His
message on nuclear matters was unambiguous.
The
Iranian people, in a judiciously sober choice in the recent
elections, voted for the discourse of hope, foresight and prudent
moderation – both at home and abroad. In foreign policy, the
combination of these elements means that the Islamic Republic of
Iran, as a regional power, will act responsibly with regard to
regional and international security, and is willing and prepared to
cooperate in these fields, bilaterally as well as multilaterally,
with other responsible actors… Iran’s nuclear programme – and
for that matter, that of all other countries – must pursue
exclusively peaceful purposes. I declare here, openly and
unambiguously, that, notwithstanding the positions of others, this
has been, and will always be, the objective of the Islamic Republic
of Iran. Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction have
no place in Iran’s security and defence doctrine, and contradict
our fundamental religious and ethical convictions. Our national
interests make it imperative that we remove any and all reasonable
concerns about Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme.
Netanyahu’s
delusions
What
was Netanyahu’s response?
President
Rouhani’s speech was, he said, “A change of words without a
change of deeds… Rouhani is continuing with the Iranian show of
deception.” With an engaging smile and giving the impression that
he was authorized to speak for the rest of the world, Zionism’s
Grand Master of Deception added, “We all know that.”
… the
real madness of Netanyahu’s assertion is that even if Iran did
posses a few nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them, it would
not launch a first strike on Israel because to do so would guarantee
its own complete destruction.
So,
as Netanyahu says he sees it, Iran is hell bent on developing nuclear
weapons for the purpose of wiping the Zionist (not Jewish) state off
the face of the earth. As I have pointed out in the past, the real
madness of Netanyahu’s assertion is that even if Iran did posses a
few nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them, it would not
launch a first strike on Israel because to do so would guarantee its
own complete destruction. All Iranians know that.
If
Netanyahu was of sound mind he would not only have given Rouhani’s
Davos speech the consideration it deserved, he would take full
account of Israel’s growing isolation in the world and, also, the
fact that an increasing number of American Jews are no longer
sympathetic to what one Jewish-American has called “the
blood-and-soil nationalism of Zionism”. The conclusion such
introspection would invite in a sound Netanyahu mind is that if he
doesn’t want to go down in history as the leader who approved
Israel’s suicide plan and confirmed that Zionism is (as the title
of my book
asserts) the real enemy of the Jews, he had better be serious about
peace on terms the vast majority of Palestinians could accept.
As
to Netanyahu’s actual state of mind, he is obviously deluded (my
dictionary tells me that means he is “holding or acting under false
beliefs”), but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is certifiable.
What it does most probably mean is contained in a truth revealed to
me way back in 1980 by then retired Major-General Shlomo Gazit, the
best and the brightest of Israel’s directors of military
intelligence. I put it to him that Israel’s existence had never,
ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab military force.
Through a sad smile he replied, “The trouble with us Israelis is
that we have become the victims of our own propaganda.”
Though
I am not an expert on the subject, it seems to me that what Netanyahu
needs most of all is some psychiatric help.
President
Obama recently said in an interview with the New
Yorker that
the chances of getting a real Israel-Palestine peace process going
were “less than 50-50”. Perhaps he should take Secretary of State
John Kerry off the case a put a leading psychiatrist on it.
