AUGUST 11 • 2022 | 9

America has become obvi-
ously a dividing line. And it 
doesn’t seem to have gotten 
any better.”
Although few, if any, 
members of Gen Z were 
taking part in the convening, 
the group born after 1995 
seemed to be on a lot of 
people’s minds. That’s partly 
because of Haidt’s framing 
of the issue; in his book, he 
dates strict campus speech 
codes and polarizing identity 
politics to the arrival of Gen 
Z on college campuses.
A leader of a secular Jewish 
group that works with young 
people said she is often under 
pressure from Gen Zers to 
take an organizational stand 
on hot-button issues, when 
her mission is to encourage 
participation from a political-
ly diverse population. 
On the flip side, a lead-
er working with the same 
cohort said Gen Zers com-
plain that they were “lied to” 
about Israel by their Jewish 
elders and that their own 
ambivalent or anti-Zionist 
viewpoints are shunned in 
Jewish spaces.
Indeed, a few participants 
defended “red lines,” saying 
viewpoint diversity does not 
mean “anything goes.” As one 
fundraising executive told 
the room, “When it comes to 
Israel, the last thing I want is 
nuance.”
When I brought this up 
with Charendoff, he said, 
“One-hundred percent I 
want to hear from young 
people who are uncomfort-
able with Zionism because I 
want to understand why, and 
I think our young people are 
smart and passionate. That 
doesn’t mean … that we have 
to be completely neutral to 
who the convener of a dis-
cussion is and what their 

motivations are.”
At times, I lost track of 
who is to blame for con-
stricted speech and cancel 
culture, especially on college 
campuses. Is it the student 
governments at liberal uni-
versities that block campus 
Jewish clubs from organizing 
because their support for 
Israel made other students 
uncomfortable? Or is it the 
Jewish groups that insist 
campuses that allow harsh 
criticism of Israel are making 
Jewish students feel unsafe?
I also thought about the 
value of “viewpoint diversi-
ty” if one side or the other 
is playing fast and loose 
with the facts or refusing to 
argue in good faith. Haidt 
warns against the tendency 
to “inflate the horrors of a 
speaker’s words far beyond 
what the speaker might actu-
ally say” — he calls this “cat-
astrophizing” — but how do 
we respond to actual catastro-
phes? Viewpoint diversity 
may seem a luxury in debat-
ing, say, the climate crisis or 
threats to democracy. 
Still, the general thrust 
of the day was encouraging 
people to do their part in 
lowering the temperature in 
Jewish circles: to urge ideo-
logical opposites to listen to 
one another with more gen-
erosity of spirit, to assume 
the best of others and to con-
sider the possibility that they 
may actually be wrong about 
a given issue.
Because when it all comes 
down to it, we’re all in the 
same boat. 

Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor in 

chief of the New York Jewish Week 

and senior editor of the Jewish 

Telegraphic Agency. He previously 

served as JTA’s editor in chief and as 

editor in chief and CEO of the New 

Jersey Jewish News. @SilowCarroll.

unless its leaders believe 
Israel is only posturing and 
will not dare attack. Tehran 
might also think that as long 
as Iran avoids crossing the 
nuclear threshold, an Israeli 
attack is unlikely. Finally, 
the Iranians might dismiss 
the Israeli warnings if they 
believe that, due to their 
elaborate passive and active 
defenses, their nuclear sites 
can withstand an Israeli 
attack.
Tehran could thus opt for 
a “second-strike posture,” 
choosing to absorb an Israeli 
offensive while fully expecting 
that its nuclear installations — 
and its sizable if well-hidden 
missile force — will survive 
intact. Iran could then justify 
devastating counterattacks and 
even gain international sup-
port for them.
Yet if Iran adopts a worst-
case scenario, which is 
common practice in intel-
ligence assessments, Israel’s 
stern warnings might push 
it to embrace a first-strike 
recourse.

PROXY ATTACK?
Moreover, the belief that 
Iran will forgo the preemp-
tive option is based on the 
false belief that an attack on 
Israel would be launched 
from Iranian territory. This 
assumption completely 
ignores the role Iran’s faithful 
proxy, the Lebanese terrorist 
organization Hezbollah, plays 
in Tehran’s strategy.
Over the years, Iran com-
bined its nuclear progress 
with building up Hezbollah’s 
long-range capabilities. Iran 
armed the terror organization 
with or financed the acquisi-
tion of tens of thousands of 
rockets and missiles; some 
with the range, payload and 
accuracy to hit key Israeli 

strategic targets, including 
the Dimona nuclear reactor 
in the south of the country. It 
also trained Hezbollah oper-
atives in the use of the weap-
ons systems it supplied.
By keeping these Israeli 
assets hostage, Iran sought to 
use Hezbollah as a stopgap 
strategic deterrent to block 
a possible Israeli preemptive 
strike on its nuclear facilities 
similar to the ones Israel car-
ried out in Iraq in 1981 and 
Syria in 2007.
Still, it is entirely possi-
ble, perhaps even probable, 
that Tehran will change its 
deterrent policy and press 
Hezbollah to switch to pre-
emption once it becomes con-
vinced Israel is about to go 
on the offensive. Iran would 
want Hezbollah to degrade 
the IDF’s ability to launch an 
effective preemptive attack, 
so as to make an Israeli strike 
impractical.
This scenario could unfold 
even if the Iranians are 
decidedly wrong in terms of 
Hezbollah’s actual ability to 
defang the IDF. Whether or 
not it will happen rests pri-
marily on Iran’s proven pref-
erence for operating through 
proxies coupled by new alarm 
over Israel’s recent threats and 
accelerated military prepara-
tions. Perhaps paradoxically, 
the lower Iran’s estimate of its 
own vulnerability, the higher 
its propensity to orchestrate a 
preemptive attack.
It would be, therefore, 
highly advisable for Israeli 
leaders to adopt Teddy 
Roosevelt’s old mantra of 
“speak softly and carry a big 
stick” instead of their current 
adherence to its opposite. 

Dr. Avigdor Haselkorn is a strategic 

analyst and the author of books, arti-

cles and op-eds on national security 

issues.

WHAT IF IRAN, NOT ISRAEL continued from page 6

