Israel Matzav

What the American election is about

Wednesday morning's 7:00 AM Israel Radio news opened with a clip from Tuesday night's Presidential debate in the US. It was McCain and Obama on Iran. John Sidney McCain asked bluntly what the US would do if it were in Israel's position - being threatened with annihilation by another country who refers to it as a 'stinking corpse.' He accused his opponent of wanting to talk, talk, talk to Iran. And he said that at the end of the day, we cannot allow a second Holocaust. Democrat Barack Hussein Obama said that we cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and that he would never take the military option off the table. But he never said he would use it. He said that we can't give the UN a veto, but that we have to do more diplomatically. We have to 'talk, talk, talk.' A more 'nuanced' version of what he said before. As you might imagine, Israelis hang on every word in this discussion. Let's go to the videotape.



On Tuesday night, Charles posted an article by Anne Bayefsky that talks about what's at stake in this election. Here's the excerpt Charles posted:

Since the time of Hitler, civilization has never been so close to the brink of total catastrophe. This American election will decide whether civilization as we know it will survive. As much as economic questions are currently front and center, with blame to go all round, this is not an election primarily about corporate greed, or individuals living beyond their means, or government neglect of economic oversight. Nor is it about whether we should have gone into Iraq where, like it or not, American boots on the ground have begun to create an emerging democracy. This election is about whether there will be a nuclear holocaust.

Alarmist? I sure hope so. Isn’t it about time that we got to the point about the stakes in this election? How many more pundits do we have to watch talking about the minutae — a candidate’s look, an accent, a stumble, a slogan? We have four weeks to talk about the thing that matters most: a nuclear-armed Iran, and which candidate will prevent it.

I thought that looked pretty good and that I'd get around to reading it - eventually. I was busy. I didn't read it.

Fortunately, this morning, NY Nana sent me the entire article. It's really worth reading and I urge you all to do so. Here's more of it.

The question that must be put point-blank to both presidential and vice-presidential candidates is: “Will you authorize the use of force in time to stop Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons — yes or no?”

Wouldn’t your beliefs for and against abortion fade if you thought nobody would be born into a world fit for living things? Wouldn’t your worries about health care pale if you thought the mutilation, cancer, and death of millions upon millions, sure to follow nuclear war, would occur in your lifetime? Wouldn’t your concerns about affording a college education fade if you thought your children will have the grim task of fighting a war of horrifying devastation instead of going to school?

Wake up. There is a genocidal maniac on the verge of reaching the point of no return in his ability to make a nuclear weapon. A fanatic with the stated ambition to murder five million Jews living in Israel — to start. A villain who has already funded and armed a terrorist war against the Jewish state that in 2006 forced one-third of Israel’s population to live underground for almost a month. In other words, an individual who is ready, willing, and able to give the nuclear trigger to a terrorist group — to terrorists who cannot be bargained with because they prefer their death to your freedom. As for the suggestion that the Mullahs are more powerful and nicer guys, the millions brutalized and subjugated in Iran tell a different story.

I don’t know why it is possible after the Holocaust, to have such widespread denial of man’s capacity for evil. Nor do I understand why Ahmadinejad’s virulent anti-semitism and call for the destruction of Israel are dismissed as irrelevant factoids when calculating the Iranian threat. Time has a story about “experts” who believe that Iran seeks an atomic bomb not because they have any interest in using it or passing it to others who will, but to deter, to ensure its security. According to Thomas Fringar, chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council: “Iran’s biggest strategic concern is obtaining security assurances and accords,” and it is the United States “which the Iranians consider a mortal threat.” These “experts” have it exactly backwards. If Iran were really driven by such security concerns, these concerns could be alleviated without spending a nickel — by stopping its nuclear-weapons campaign and its funding of terrorists.

No amount of ignorance, stupidity, or wishful thinking will change the reality that there are people who are prepared to kill you and your family for no good reason at all. Not because of poverty, or envy, or discrimination or because of anything you’ve done. But because they hate you — whether you live in Jerusalem, Washington, London, or Paris. They hate everything you stand for — liberty, tolerance, equality. And their minds are made up. Closed — period — to the entreaties of naïve foreign diplomats or would-be presidents and vice presidents.

...

First Presidential Debate

Senator Obama [on preventing a nuclear Iran]: “Now here’s what we need to do. We do need tougher sanctions. I do not agree…that we’re going to be able to execute the kind of sanctions we need without some cooperation with…Russia and China…[W]e are also going to have to…engage in tough direct diplomacy with Iran and this is a major difference I have with Senator McCain.”

News flash: Russia and China have told us to take a hike on tough sanctions, Barack. Any other ideas?

Obama Website:

If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation.

“If” it continues? Anybody in Iran trembling?

Here's her bottom line:

So when you cast your ballot this election, make no mistake: you are voting for or against a nuclear holocaust. Not because Barack Obama wants such a horror, but because he will not prevent it. He will still be talking when the point of no return in Iran’s nuclear program is reached. And the balance of power in the world will — with terrible consequences — have changed forever.

Read the whole thing. And then go to synagogue and pray hard tonight.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:10 AM