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Arthur M. Horwitz
Publisher / Executive Editor
ahorwitz@renmedia.us

The Iran-U.S. Nuclear Deal: One Year Later

F. Kevin Browett
Chief Operating Officer
kbrowett@renmedia.us

I

n the pre-nuclear era, a coun-
ample stocks of deliverable
try’s size — as measured by
nuclear weapons but are not
area, population, resources
considered nuclear threats to the
and/or industrial capacity —
U.S. or Israel; they are not enemy
determined its relative power on
nations.
the international stage. A small
Iran is a self-declared bitter
nation would almost always defer
enemy to both Israel and the U.S.
to the wishes of its larger neigh-
Hence, a nuclear-armed Iran is
bor because the alternative, after Alvin M.
a grave threat to both countries.
some diplomacy, would be mili-
In some eyes, the threat is even
Saperstein
tary action followed by defeat and
greater because of a perceived
then acquiescence.
suicidal component in the thinking of the
In the nuclear era, a small nation pos-
current Iranian regime.
sessing nuclear weapons and the sure
We knew that Iran has the required
means to deliver them at a distance is
brain power to create nuclear arms and
capable of wreaking such destruction
was engaged in constructing the required
on its opponents — not just in its gov-
physical facilities, much of it underground
ernmental or military centers, but on its
to protect them from conventional
whole society — in retaliation for the
bombing. Hence the perceived need to
oppressive acts of its opponent that the
prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear
bigger “bully” will back off.
weapons, hopefully, for a period long
In this power sense, the U.S. and Israel
enough for the enmity to diminish
are “big” nations in their respective
sufficiently for “normal” international
neighborhoods. Britain and France have
relations to begin.

One way to prevent Iran’s acquisition
of nuclear weapons was for the U.S. and/
or Israel to destroy it — “nuke it” into
oblivion at a cost of many millions of lives
in Iran (and in nearby countries such as
Israel via the resultant fallout). Survivors,
if any, would hold long-term grudges and,
if they ever were able to again create a
viable society, would start their nuclear
acquisition process all over again — not a
pleasant prospect.
The knowledge of how to build nuclear
weapons and their delivery systems has
spread throughout the world in the last
70 years. There is no way to kill enough
brains, now and in the future, to prevent
Iran — or any other non-nuclear weapon
state — from acquiring these nuclear
threats. The only alternative is to prevent
the acquisition of the required raw
materials. Fortunately, these necessities
are very difficult to obtain, requiring vast
expenditures of energy and industrial
capacity. A confirmed blocking of these
continued on page 8

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Trouble In The Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel

I

n Trouble in the Tribe: The
organized Jewish community and
American Jewish Conflict
from Israel, he says, are “driven
Over Israel (Princeton
not only by changes in Israel and
University Press, 2016),
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Northeastern University’s
… but also by changes within
Professor Dov Waxman
the American Jewish community
argues that Israeli politics and
itself.”
policies are a growing source of
These forces include assimila-
tension and division within the
tion, secularism and an emphasis
Rabbi Robert
American Jewish community
on the Jewish prophetic tradition,
Orkmand
to the point that he questions
which is, for many, at odds with
whether there is still an identifiable
Israel’s occupation and settlement of the
Jewish voice on Israeli affairs.
West Bank.
Citing opinion polls, Waxman points
In short, many younger American
out a gap between older Jews (those over
Jews do not share their elders’ venera-
50) and younger Jews, with the latter
tion of the Jewish state and do not feel
being less supportive of Israeli policies.
as constrained to criticize Israeli policies
This is not a new phenomenon.
and actions. If the views of this younger
In 1990, the renowned histo-
generation are ignored and their voices
rian of Zionism, the late Rabbi Arthur
silenced, Waxman warns, they will simply
Hertzberg, observed that American Jewry walk away, as so many have already done.
could be divided into two basic groups
Jews who criticize Israel are routinely
along the Israel divide: an aging group
condemned by leaders of organizations
moving to the right and a younger, more
who believe that dissent demonstrates
liberal group, increasingly abandoning
disunity and a lack of resolve, empower-
Zionist organizations.
ing Israel’s enemies. Jews who do not fall
Waxman concludes, “The era of uncrit- in line with Israel lobby positions are
ical American Jewish support for Israel
essentially branded as disloyal. A case
— of Israel right or wrong — is now long in point: Back in the 1970s, a Zionist
past.”
peace group calling itself Breira (which
Younger, more liberal Jews who have
means “there is a choice” in Hebrew) was
become increasingly alienated from the
demonized by the Jewish establishment

for urging Israel to negotiate peace with
the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
As author Anne Roiphe observed, not
since Holland’s Jews excommunicated
Spinoza “have Jews so quickly drawn
lines of who is acceptable and who is
outside, and used those lines one against
another.”
J Street, the progressive alternative to
AIPAC in Washington, D.C., was barred
from membership in the Conference of
Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations
because of J Street’s opposition to
the policies of Israel’s right-wing
government. The group’s founder, Jeremy
Ben-Ami, has decried what he calls a
crackdown on Jewish dissidents: “All
across the country, rabbis, Hillel directors
and other organizational leaders are
forced to consider whether they can or
want to deal with the headaches, slander
and vitriol from conservative voices
in the community before they think of
giving a platform to views outside the
party line.”
Peter Beinart’s 2012 book The Crisis of
Zionism ignited a firestorm, in part for
asserting that the organized Jewish estab-
lishment appeared to be out of touch
with a younger generation of Jews. He
portrayed the American Jewish establish-
ment as being “merely a mouthpiece of

continued on page 8

6 September 1 • 2016

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