Israel and Iran: A bridge too far?
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
"A nation has no permanent enemies and no permanent friends, only permanent
interests."
- British statesman Winston Churchill
Iran is gripped by heated controversy over a public statement by a close aide
to President Mahmud Ahmadinejad expressing affection toward the Israeli people.
The comments by Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, vice president in charge of tourism,
have been widely criticized by, among others, Ali Laijani, the speaker of
parliament (Majlis), who stated that "we are not friends with the Israeli
people".
The chief prosecutor, Hojatol Eslam Dari Najaf Abadi, stepped in
by questioning the term "nation" for "an occupying population" and Mashaie has
now been summoned to parliament.
This controversy coincides with the Hamas-Israel truce in Palestine, the
breakthrough in Lebanon's political crisis and the latest Tehran visit by
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is in the midst of his own quiet
diplomacy with the Israelis with the help of "trusted third party" Turkey and
who is about to play host to Ahmadinejad. It also intersects with the theory
and practice of Iran's foreign policy and is intimately connected to the
standoff over Iran's nuclear program and blatant Israeli military threats
against Iran.
Considered an "out of area" issue by various Iranian policy analysts, who argue
that Iran's foreign policy is geared first and foremost toward addressing the
issues and concerns in its vicinity, Israel represents a "sub-imperialism" in
the region. In this, it is seen as performing critical functions for the US
superpower and, thus, enters into the Iran-US "games of strategy" and Iran's
national security calculus indirectly.
In light of its electoral system, the Israeli government is a mirror of Israeli
society and its policies bear the stamp of "popular approval", such as when the
majority of Israeli citizens approved of Israel's intense bombardment of
Lebanon two summers ago, even though the United Nations in particular condemned
Israel's "disproportionate response".
Also, various polls indicate that the vast majority of Israelis are in favor of
the "apartheid wall" that has been erected for supposedly security reasons and
yet not only imposes severe hardship on ordinary Palestinians, it also drives
into Palestinian lands and is yet another violation of Palestinian rights,
augmented by Israeli expansion of illegal settlements irrespective of any
international outcry.
There is a widespread feeling in Iran that the Israeli people bear a collective
responsibility for the daily violence visited on the Palestinian people, many
of whom are in ghetto-like refugee camps, and should not expect sympathy from
the Iranians as long as there is no perceptible change of their government's
policy toward the Palestinian people.
Still, the historical bond between Iran and Israel's Jews, dating to Cyrus the
Great's famous edict in 538 BC, liberating the Jews from their bondage and
allowing them to return to their homeland and to build the Temple in Jerusalem,
is so strong and, indeed, so fresh in the minds of Iranian people, that it has
definite policy connotations. That is, it militates against any extremist, let
alone exterminist, action against the Israeli people. Like Mashaie, most
Iranians are proud of Iran's history and what is commonly referred to in Iran
as the world's first human-rights declaration in Cyrus's edict. [1]
"Iran cannot attack Israel because of the weight of history that puts Iran on
the side of defenders of Jewish rights to a homeland and by the same token
Israel cannot attack Iran because, first, it would be acting against its own
conscience and, second, it would be making a strategic error by weakening the
non-Arab bloc in the Middle East," said a prominent Tehran political scientist.
"The Iran-Contra affair, when Israel replenished Iran's inventory of arms
during the Iran-Iraq War [in the 1980s], happened for a reason. It showed
realpolitik instead of ideological noise ruling the policy-makers in Tehran and
Tel Aviv, and the logic of limited cooperation - call it a temporary marriage
of convenience back then - is not entirely absent today with the threats of
terrorism, etc," added the Tehran political scientist.
Not everyone in Tehran shares such sentiments and the issue of Israel has been
subjected to the exigencies of factional politics, like so many other (foreign
policy) issues. Unfortunately, some Iran experts in the West have made a
serious error of speaking of a "strategic alliance" between Israel and Iran
during the Iran-Iraq War.
Such analyses take for alliance what was in fact a passing moment of policy
synergy culminating in Iran taking advantage of Israel's fear of Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein for purely defensive purposes. In fact, the facility with which
the US during the Ronald Reagan administration expelled the Israeli go-betweens
in the Iran arms transactions is alone a reminder of the ad hoc, transient and
extremely limited nature of Iran-Israel relations during the Iran-Iraq war,
dictated by the survival prerogatives of both governments. [2]
Still, irrespective of the fact that Israel consistently ranks low in the net
of foreign policy priorities of Iran, preoccupied with multiple crises beyond
its borders, the Israeli government has escalated its rhetoric against Iran, by
depicting Tehran as a mortal enemy out to destroy Israel.
This the Israelis have managed by a deft political reductionism, one that makes
a caricature of Iran's complex political system by constantly depicting the
Iranian leadership as irrational, apocalyptic fundamentalists who have no fear
of Israel's nuclear arsenal and would be willing to sacrifice the lives of
millions of ordinary Iranians for the sake of "wiping out" Israel.
It is right-wing Jewish "apocalypticism in reverse" fomenting fear of Jews'
destruction at the hands of enemies that fuels much of today's fear of Iran in
Israel, in turn calling for a reconstruction of the mass psychology of Zionism.
The frenzy, paranoia, of an Iranian bomb about to be assembled and dropped on
the heads of Israeli citizens has now become so powerful, so cemented in the
minds of Israeli public, that is difficult for any Israeli politician to
resist.
Consequently, the misplaced fear of an Iran-origin nuclear holocaust awaiting
Israel, unless pre-emptive action is unleashed to destroy Iran's nuclear
facilities, has now reached such a disproportionate height as to trigger
another major crisis in the Middle East.
Again, how can the Iranian people consider as friends an Israeli population
that, per Israeli polls, is largely in favor of a nuclear assault on Iran as a
"last resort", and when even Israeli moderates and peace activists have chosen
to remain silent over the warmongering statements and actions of the Israeli
government?
In today's Iran there is a greater divergence of opinions about Israel than is
the case in "pluralistic" Israel, so dominated and consumed by its Iran fear,
as if the entire Israeli population has fallen prey to a darkly Orwellian
nightmare of reason, by targeting Iran as the "hostile other" that needs to be
put out of action. And this even if that means disproportionate civilian
"collateral damage" as a result of an unprovoked military campaign to destroy
Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities.
Iran's president is conveniently depicted as today's Adolf Hitler, whose regime
of unreason needs to be eradicated soon since anything short of that would mean
"appeasement".
Given such reliance on dubious analogies, overlooking the fact that Iran has
not invaded any country during the past two-and-a-half centuries and has no
plan to invade Israel directly or indirectly, nor has Iran any nuclear weapons
program that would threaten Israel in the future, the Israeli saber-rattling
against Iran is simply a tissue of misperceived threats that, simultaneously,
serves Israel's regional power projection.
In other words, Israel's (re) actions are "rational" only when seen through the
strict prism of Israel's offensive purposes, instead of as a pre-emptive
defensive measure.
As in Israel's participation in the recent French-led Mediterranean initiative,
the Iran nuclear crisis is also a crisis of opportunity. Dialogue and better
understanding of each nation's intentions and priorities on a long-term basis,
warranting war-avoidance confidence-building measures, would put to rest each
side's anxieties.
Israel cannot expect its nuclear weapons monopoly in the Middle East to remain
unchallenged forever, and must take steps to bring its nuclear program in line
with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), perhaps following the steps of
India, which has begun incremental cooperation with the NPT's implementation
arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This, together with an Israeli pledge of no first use of nuclear bombs in a
conventional theater, would go a long way in furthering the non-proliferation
cause in the volatile Middle East and serve as a stepping stone in improving
Israel's relations with Iran and the rest of the Muslim world.
Notes
1. See Edict of Cyrus (2
Chronicles 36: 22-23)
2. For more on this, see Afrasiabi, Nir/North: A Cinematic Story About the
Iran-Contra Affair (NEPCO Publications, 1995).
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