By J. Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida — I received a letter from a young Israeli who says she met me in Israel two years ago. I have no memory of her, which is a sign of old age.
The key paragraphs in her long letter are as follows: “I am an Israeli but like many of my friends I have another nationality and another passport through my parents who were born abroad.
“I am disgusted, disheartened and fearful of the Likud government’s drive toward war with Iran.
“The Likud has a short memory. They forget the disastrous results of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
“President Obama’s Herculean efforts to extract American soldiers from Iraq has no effect on them.
“Some of my friends have already left for the country where their parents were born.
“I am expecting my first child in a few months. The doctors tell me it will be a boy. In 18 years he will go into the army, where I and my husband have served with distinction.
“Will Israel be worth defending? Will it ever return to the secular Zionist ideals for which my parents made aliya? Or will there still be an occupation of the Arab territories? And what will happen in Iran?
Should we get out now?”
I wrote back:
“Stick it out for another four years. When Obama is re-elected for his last term he need not worry about the pro-Likud Jewish lobby and the bought Congress. He has a roadmap for peace adopted by George W. Bush which was sabotaged by Israel with Bush’s permission. Obama can and will implement it.
“As for Iran I think severe sanctions will work as they would have worked in Iraq if Bush had not been gung-ho for war.”
I hope my optimistic reply has assuaged her fears.
Three years ago, I wrote on these pages that we will have peace before the end of Obama’s second term. I have no reason to change my prediction.
On Iran, as Obama told the AIPAC meeting, Israel has the sovereign right to strike at Iran’s nuclear factories and start devastating war. Obama’s declaration was received with loud cheers by AIPAC delegates, as was his statements that he will not tolerate another nuclear power in the Middle East and he would use force if necessary.
All of this was widely cheered, but his modification that diplomacy can prevent the bomb and preserve peace was met with almost complete silence.
The Republicans with single syllable names who are vying for the nomination, Mitt and Rick, attacked the diplomacy angle. They said that Obama was a weak president. They angered Obama and he called a press conference. He said that if the Republicans want to go to war they should say so. He was the commander in chief and the casualties would be on his conscience.
Sure, Israel has the soverign right to start a devastating war by itself. But my young Israeli correspondent need not fear that her Likud/Orthodox government will do so.
As a result of Obama’s unprecedented training of Israeli soldiers in the most advanced hardware, I aam only slightly exaggerating when I say that Obama is the commander in chief of both armies.
Tom Friedman was not exaggerating when he wrote in the Times last week that Obama was the most pro-Israel of all recent presidents.
A strike against Iran’s nuclear plants, many of which are deep underground, would depend on the efficacy of American bunker-busting bombs, which penetrate deeply before exploding.
They won’t be used if diplomacy and sanctions work as I am convinced they will. As I wrote at the time, they would have worked against Iraq but George W. Bush was gung ho for war.
Previous presidents would not give or sell Israel the top of the line.
I remember when Prime Minister Golda Meir was campaigning for F-4 fighter planes with vociferous assistance by AIPAC and Congress. President Lyndon Johnson, a good friend of Israel, invited Golda to his Texas ranch. Golda was accompanied by a bevy of reporters. I was included as the correspondent of the Jerusalem Post.
Upon our arrival in Austin, Golda was whisked to the ranch scores of miles distant while we reporters were housed in an Austin hotel under the watchful eyes of the Secret Service. We never saw Golda. We were dependent on the White House spokesman as we would have been had we stayed in Washington.
The conversation at the ranch was later published in an Israeli newspaper. It went something like this.
Johnson: This is a working ranch. I have a lot to show you. We can leave the plane negotiations to the technical people.
Golda: No, Mr. President. I didn’t travel from Jerusalem to Texas to enjoy myself. I want your decision that you will sell us twenty F-4’s. And she got it.
Obama has changed the rules. Israel no longer has to campaign for top-of-the-line arms. The United Sates provides them as a matter of course. Obama is the best president Israel has had. His crowning aschievement will be peace between two peoples in two states.
P.S. The Secret Service collected our baggage on the tarmmac. We identified it and boarded the plane for Washington. Somehow my bag was left on the tarmac.
I was approached on the plane by a Secret Service man. “I regret to inform you that your bag was left behind and there is a peculiar buzzing coming from it. You weren’t planning to bring a bomb on board.”
“The buzzing is my electric shaver going off.” I replied.
The bag was delivered to my home two days later by the efficient Secret Service.
*
Lurie is a freelance writer based in Delray Beach, Florida. He may be contacted at jzel.lurie@sdewishworld.com