Changing History

History

Sometimes it is difficult to identify a historic moment. Napoleon Bonaparte’s initial rise to power seemed at the time like one more twist in the ever-shifting ground of the French Revolution era. It was not. 

Sometimes it is easy to identify a historic moment. Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, following a highly successful Israeli campaign over Iran’s skies, cries “history is  being made”

If you were following Middle East events of the past week without hearing the winds of history blowing with gusto, go check your ears. If you were following these events without a sense of awe, without missing a beat, go check your heart. 

History was made. History is being made. 

A time will come to return to the day-to-day business of talking about the personalities of Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu. A time will come to return to the day-to-day business of talking about Israel’s social upheaval, about populist bravura, about the many deficiencies of Israel’s current governing coalition, about Trump’s dismissive approach toward science, about all the justified and exaggerated complains one has as one considers the leadership of these two clearly flawed men.  

A time will come to return to the day-to-day business of talking about Trump and Netanyahu, Israel’s social upheaval, populist bravura, the deficiencies of Israel’s current governing coalition, and so on.  But now is not the time. Now, History is being made.

A time will come to return to all these things. But now is not the time. Now, History is being made.

Ending

Writing on Tuesday, a few hours after the ceasefire is announced, I can’t yet tell you how the story of Iran’s nuclear program ends, except that it probably ends with Iran not having a military nuclear capability. At least, not in the near future. Probably – but even that is still a work in progress. In the coming days, or weeks, or months, the international community, led by the U.S., is going to have to more than trust, but verify that Iran is truly devoid of this capability. All the facilities involved in the program must be found and dismantled, all the highly enriched uranium must be found and taken away. This might be a process that involves more violence or might be a process that involves negotiation and understandings.  

So, for now, a ceasefire is in place, but it is not over. “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” So said Winston Churchill, referring to the Allied victory at the second battle of El Alamein, another Middle Eastern battle, back in 1942. But it’s possible that this time it is the beginning of the end. 

The end of what? That’s a good question. Most likely: the end of Iran’s ability to be an immediate threat to its neighbors. The end of Iran’s rise as a regional menace. The end of the most tangible risk of a collapse of nonproliferation. Less likely, yet still possible: the end of Iran as a revolutionary, reactionary force. 

The beginning of what? That’s another good question. Most likely: the beginning of an era of eased tensions in the region. Less likely, yet still possible: the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Iran could become a leader in science, economic development, tourism. Iran could become a shining city upon a hill (Jewish and Shiite friends — please forgive the allusion to such Christian symbolism). 

Trump

Last week, one of Israel’s cable services was streaming “The Apprentice,” Ali Abbasi’s film, for free. So, three or four hours before the U.S. bombing of Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan, I was watching the fictional Roy Cohn explaining to the fictional young Trump his three principles of always winning – the first of which is “attack, attack, attack.” 

One of the great ironies concerning Trump is that he is both a shameless liar and a bold truth teller. When he says: I did not lose an election – he lies. No president before him dared to lie with such careless casualness. When he says: Iran cannot have nuclear weapons – he tells the truth. No president before him conveyed this message with such determined intentionality.

His international crowd often misreads him, because of this contradiction — because of his ability to be exceptional in both being deceitful and straightforward. The Iranians clearly erred by misreading him. They did not see the difference between him and his many predecessors who vowed to prevent Iran – and other countries – from having nuclear weapons. 

Case in point: open your books to page 625. The book is “My Life,” by Bill Clinton. A few days ago, Clinton claimed that “Mr. Netanyahu has long wanted to fight Iran because that way he can stay in office forever.” So open your books and read the following sentence: “Three successive administrations had tried to bring North Korea’s nuclear program under control.” They failed but, claims the author, the Clinton administration was successful because of “our clear determination not to allow North Korea to become a nuclear power, or a seller of nuclear weapons and materials.” 

Israel discovered long ago that a Clinton-type determination ends with a nuclear bomb. That’s why Netanyahu, as the PM, fought tooth and nail against the 2015 Obama nuclear accords. That’s why he decided to gamble on attacking Iran. More than a decade-and-a-half ago, when Israel was already hinting that an attack on Iran might be forthcoming, I wrote an article for The New Republic in which I tried to layout the rationale for attacking a nuclear program whose facilities Israel might not have the ability to destroy. 

The follow-up – I argued back then — “will determine the outcome more than the level of destruction that a strike can achieve.” According to this line of thinking, I explained, “which has adherents among some high-ranking officials and former officials in the Israeli defense establishment, focusing on the tactical questions surrounding such an operation – How much of Iran’s nuclear program can Israel destroy? How many years can a bombing campaign set the program back? – is a mistake. The main goal of a hit would not be to destroy the program completely, but rather to awaken the international community from its slumber and force it to finally engineer a solution to the crisis.” The headline for that long-forgotten article was “stirring the pot.” And what Israel did in the days prior to the U.S. attack was exactly that — stirring the pot. 

Israel could have “stirred” at any point in time since I wrote that article, back in 2008. But to make the stew edible, it was forced to wait for a pot that could stand the hit.

Alarm

“Yitzhak Rabin clearly recognized this threat in its early stages.” 

That’s a quote. 

The speaker, surprisingly, is Netanyahu. 

In January 1993, the late Rabin, then Prime Minister of Israel, declared in the Knesset that “Iran is in the early stages of an effort to acquire unconventional capabilities in general and nuclear capabilities in particular.” In 2012, at Rabin’s annual memorial, Netanyahu gave Rabin credit for the early warning. More than 30 years had passed since the early warning. More than a decade since the generous credit. 

Israel had lived with the threat of a nuclear Iran since, well, forever. All my children were born when Iran was already rushing to get a bomb. Most of Israel’s population can barely remember a time when Iran wasn’t a grave threat on the horizon. Rabin warned about Iran, followed by Netanyahu in his first term. In 2002, PM Ariel Sharon argued that after Iraq, Iran ought to be the next target of international attention. In 2007, PM Ehud Olmert declared that if the world is going to “turn a blind eye now, while ignoring reality, dragging one’s feet and attempting to reach dangerous compromises while avoiding taking clear steps,” then “those of us who wish to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power will, down the road, not be left with any choice but to take much more severe steps in the future.”

Israel had lived with the threat of a nuclear Iran since, well, forever. Most of Israel’s population can barely remember a time when Iran wasn’t a grave threat on the horizon.

In all those years, Israel had many other enemies, some permanent, some periodical, some very dangerous, some more of a nuisance: Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the PLO, Syria, Iraq, the Houthis, ISIS … the list goes on. But Iran always occupied a special place among Israel’s enemies. The only body with both the declared intention and the possible capability to end the Zionist dream. 

It was called “an existential threat.” It was often compared to Nazi Germany. In 2006, speaking in Los Angeles, Netanyahu argued that “it is 1938. … Iran is Germany, and it is about to arm itself with nuclear weapons.” And it wasn’t only him. Olmert, in a speech dedicated to Iran, reminded his audience that “the Jewish people, on whom the scars of the Holocaust are deeply etched, cannot allow itself to again face a threat against its very existence.” And here’s Netanyahu, again, in 2012 dismissing those who “prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat” and “do not like it when I speak such uncomfortable truths.”

Some Israelis did argue that Netanyahu is going overboard. Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister said that Israelis “are not in the ghetto, and there is no place for Holocaust comparisons.”

Writing for The New York Times about this debate more than a decade ago, I confessed that “on the one hand, there’s the unease that comes from considering that a second Holocaust might happen. And so even the wee bit skeptical dismiss the politicians’ alarmism and recoil at their warmongering. On the other hand, there’s good reason to be uneasy with that very unease. What if – what if – Netanyahu is right? Wasn’t disbelief part of the problem the first time around?”

Psychology

Most Israelis thought Iran is as dangerous as Netanyahu claimed. Most Israeli leaders thought it was very dangerous, even when they felt this above-mentioned unease with the language he tended to use. But at some point, some of them no longer believed that Israel could deal with the threat efficiently or concluded that Israel is going to have to learn to live with it. 

A decade ago, Olmert said that “the Iranian threat is serious, but the way to deal with Iran is by settling with the Palestinians.” A motion that would seem quite bizarre today. Three years ago, former PM Ehud Barak wrote that “the effort to block Iran from turning into a nuclear power is at its lowest ebb ever, apparently headed for failure.” 

Now – there’s suddenly a hope that the effort is not headed for a failure, but rather for a resounding success. Now – there’s suddenly a possibility that Israelis are going to have to learn to live without the threat of Iran.

When this happens, if this happens, Israel will dramatically change. Just imagine an existential threat hanging over your head – hanging over your children’s heads – for 30 years – then imagine it suddenly disappears. Imagine the shock, the need to readjust, the weirdness of the threat’s absence, the sense of relief. 

Power

A few hours after the U.S. attack on Saturday, Netanyahu released a videotaped message to the nation in which his almost 30 years in power were encapsulated. “First comes power,” he said, “then peace.” 

When Netanyahu entered the political scene, he was making a similar argument against Rabin and his government and against Bill Clinton and his administration following the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. He then made the same argument against the 2000 pullout from Lebanon. Then the same argument against the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. In 2022, he opposed the maritime border and gas field agreement between Israel and Lebanon using the same argument. Netanyahu is a highly suspicious man. He does not believe in good intentions, he does not believe that all people want peace, he does not believe in international laws or understandings.  

Netanyahu believes in power as the only trustworthy stabilizer. In Trump he found a kindred spirit. A leader – to once more quote from “The Apprentice”– who believes that men, and countries, are either sharks or losers.

Netanyahu believes in power as the only trustworthy stabilizer. In Trump he found a kindred spirit. A leader – to once more quote from “The Apprentice”– who believes that men, and countries, are either sharks or losers.

Netanyahu

This is not a good time to talk about politics, and yet, one can recognize that such talk is available in a constant stream of messages from all political camps. On one side – expressions of euphoria. On the other side – slight anxiety and attempts at containment. 

This is not a good time for politics, and even less so for drawing hasty conclusions about what will happen in the political arena if and when the current phase of the war comes to an end, since there is no telling what the end result will be. And yet we ought to write a few words about politics. Maybe three.

First – Netanyahu and his government have gained quite a few political points in the last two weeks. In fact, it is mainly Netanyahu, personally. It is possible that morale in his camp is a bit too high, because the points that have been accumulated are not currently translating into an abundance of new expected seats if an election were to take place. But the rate of trust in the PM has increased. If the PM’s supporters believe that this newly found trust will lead the entire nation to the understanding that he is an irreplaceable leader, they may find evidence in the data. But it is also possible that the sudden increase in trust is a one-off increase: it relates to the conduct of war and nothing more. 

Second – in the past, great achievements did not change Netanyahu’s political situation much when elections were held. Case on point: the outbreak of COVID. During that time, Netanyahu was at his best, at his peak. He made Israel an exemplary nation, effectively coping with the pandemic. And what were the political implications of his model leadership? He lost the 2021 election. Having brought the world’s first doses of vaccines to Israel, having effectively implemented a policy of lockdowns and releases, having been an exemplary world leader – the Israeli public sent him home. Excellence did not beget victory.

Third – a successful war is no guarantee of success at the ballot box. Netanyahu’s fans like to compare him to Winston Churchill – well, Churchill is a good example. In May 1953, an American student asked Churchill how one could prepare to face the challenges of leadership. “Study history. Study history,” was Churchill’s emphatic reply. “History contains all the secrets of statesmanship.” The story of his dismissal is well known: on the verge of victory, riding waves of admiration, Churchill received what he himself called “the Order of the Boot.”

Why? Because the British decided to look to the future rather than the past. The war was over, Churchill had completed his historic role. Now it was time to look inward, to deal with the mundane tasks of economy, society, everyday hardships, the things in which Churchill – at least that’s what the British thought at the time – was less outstanding. 

Will Netanyahu face a similar fate? Can he entertain such a scenario in this historic week of victorious achievements? Here’s a proposed line for his future concession speech, one that we should all hope he could make in short order: “It is no longer 1938, Iran as Nazi Germany is no more. It’s finally 1945, and it’s time to look inward and rebuild Israel.” 

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.