The real threat to Israel is Netanyahu

By Walt Zlotow

Steven Katz misunderstands the real existential fight occurring in Israel and its performance in its unprovoked attack on Iran.

In his Chicago Tribune op-ed, ‘Israel’s war against Iran is just’ Katz begins with; “Israel is waging an existential fight for its survival as a Jewish state. And it is winning and fighting well.”

While Israel is waging an existential fight for its survival as a Jewish state, it’s not from Iran. Iran never was, is not now and won’t in the future be an existential threat to Israel. It has neither the will nor the means to do that.

Israeli leadership under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his even more extreme cabinet are doing that quite well without any help from Iran or any of its other neighbors. Netanyahu’s genocidal campaign of ethnically cleansing all 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza has made Israel a pariah state being shunned by much of the world.

Tourism is down 90%, inflicting a $3.4 billion drop in tourist revenue. Almost 470,000 Israelis have emigrated since the genocide began October 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas attack. Israel’s economy has been battered. Bank of Israel estimates war costs since October, 2023 will amount to $55.6 billion costing Israel 10% of its economy. Israeli GDP dropped to 2% since the Gaza genocide from 6.5% before. Consumer spending declined 27%, imports dropped 42% and exports fell 18%.

Instead of ending the bleeding in Gaza and the Israeli economy, Netanyahu launched another murderous misadventure sure to make all these demographic and economic declines worse. The existential threat to Israel lies not in Tehran but in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office

Regarding Katz’s take on Israel’s war performance, it’s neither winning nor fighting well. Israel cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear capability by itself nor topple the Iranian regime. Only massive US military involvement can possibly do that and with no certainty of success.

Israel knows this which is why it has goaded the US to attack Iran for decades, beginning with their cheering on America’s illegal, immoral, criminal war on Iraq 22 years ago. That war was designed then to end up toppling the Iranian regime in Tehran. Instead it backfired and didn’t.

Israel’s sneak attack enabled by duplicitous US diplomacy to lull Iran into complacency, has caused retaliatory strikes never before experienced in Israel’s 77 year existence. And they will get worse as Israel runs out of weapons to shoot down incoming missiles.

Steven Katz certainly knows all of this. But in the service of US and Israeli exceptionalism promoting world/regional dominance, he turns a blind eye. The Tribune’s readership deserves better.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

 

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