2008 Woodie Awards
Quid rides? De te fabula narratur. (What are you laughing at? The joke's on you.)
Eating Your Enemy?
ANTHONY ASCHETTINO,OBSERVER STAFF WRITER
Issue date: 10/13/08 Section: Observations
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was at pains last week to correct a comment that was mis-attributed to him by the Israeli Daily Haaretz.
It seems that during a conversation with the paper the minister, speaking in English, said "I honestly don't believe (a nuclear weapon) will give any immunity to Iran. First, because you will eat them before. And this is the danger." One can see how, speaking in English with a French accent, one could mistake "eat" and "hit," although the reporter should have asked the minister to clarify his comments when presented with such a seemingly odd statement. Still, whatever word you choose to insert, the comment deserves some analysis.
It has long been one of the great open secrets of the Middle East that Israel has nuclear weapons, and further that most experts concede it is the only state in the region possessing them. Israel's having nuclear arms is understandable to many: surrounded by states with whom it has either uneasy peace treaties or is still technically at war, a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate deterrent to the possibility, slim as it may be (though thirty years ago it was much greater) of several of these states teaming up to attack her.
Today most experts, if pressed, would pretty much agree that Israel could engage in a war against almost all of her neighbors and be finished by lunch, so greatly has the gap between Israeli and Arab military abilities grown since the last major war in 1973.
In a conventional war, there is nobody in the region that poses a significant threat. Nuclear weapons, however, do tend to change the equation since they have the ability to cause such massive destruction with the application of relatively few strikes.
Couple this with Israel's size and one can see how her leadership is loathe to allow any hostile powers in the region to gain access to such weaponry, for unlike larger states it would not take all that many strikes to reduce Israel to a radioactive wasteland.
It seems that during a conversation with the paper the minister, speaking in English, said "I honestly don't believe (a nuclear weapon) will give any immunity to Iran. First, because you will eat them before. And this is the danger." One can see how, speaking in English with a French accent, one could mistake "eat" and "hit," although the reporter should have asked the minister to clarify his comments when presented with such a seemingly odd statement. Still, whatever word you choose to insert, the comment deserves some analysis.
It has long been one of the great open secrets of the Middle East that Israel has nuclear weapons, and further that most experts concede it is the only state in the region possessing them. Israel's having nuclear arms is understandable to many: surrounded by states with whom it has either uneasy peace treaties or is still technically at war, a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate deterrent to the possibility, slim as it may be (though thirty years ago it was much greater) of several of these states teaming up to attack her.
Today most experts, if pressed, would pretty much agree that Israel could engage in a war against almost all of her neighbors and be finished by lunch, so greatly has the gap between Israeli and Arab military abilities grown since the last major war in 1973.
In a conventional war, there is nobody in the region that poses a significant threat. Nuclear weapons, however, do tend to change the equation since they have the ability to cause such massive destruction with the application of relatively few strikes.
Couple this with Israel's size and one can see how her leadership is loathe to allow any hostile powers in the region to gain access to such weaponry, for unlike larger states it would not take all that many strikes to reduce Israel to a radioactive wasteland.
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