MJ Rosenberg's analysis of Benny Morris's column is, as always, quite sound. But this excerpt from Morris seemed a bit weird to me:
"One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead.
"The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel's half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases….
"With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 20,000 square kilometers), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel. “
Morris takes that as proof that Israel, or America, or Moses, or someone needs to invade, strike, or otherwise neutralize Iran. But isn't the actual point somewhat different? The vulnerability Morris is pointing out is that an extremely large number of Jews are clustered in an extremely small stretch of land is an extremely hostile part of the world. In other words, the very existence of Israel, its placement, and its geographic realities have served to do nothing but heavily concentrate Jews in a vulnerable spot surrounded by enemies. You're never, of course, going to move the entire Arab world to somewhere in Idaho, so it would seem, given Morris's concerns, that the best thing for conscientious Jews to do would be move away. Abandon Israel. Pack up their things and disperse into safer, larger, friendlier lands.
Now, I don't think jews should do that because I don't think anyone is going to nuke Israel. But if hold Morris's opinions, it's clear that Israel's vulnerability is not particularly related to the current situation in Iran, and is instead an enduring product of its placement and neighbors. Thus, if you care about lives, or Jewish safety, you should oppose Israel's existence because it's downright bad for the Jews. Again, I don't hold these opinions, but they are the logical end points of Morris's beliefs.
