More on Günter Grass

The invaluable website Sign and Sight, which is unfortunately closing down, has a very good survey of the various responses to Grass's revelation in 2006 that he had served in the Waffen-SS in 1944-45, when he was 17. One very interesting response is from Rudolf Ungvary in a Hungarian newspaper, who mentions Grass's lack of condemnation of Ahmadinejad's attacks upon Israel at that time:

Hungary - Elet es Irodalom. Rudolf Ungvary is critical of Günter Grass, who blinded out the every day persecution of Jews in the 1940s and refuses to condemn contemporary dictators today. "Before 1945, it was clear to all contemporaries of Grass – and not just the members of the SS – that there were Nuremberg Laws, that many Jews were disappearing. They heard clearly how Hitler hollered out his speeches. They knew that only representatives of one political camp were allowed to express their opinions. Was that not enough to wish for a defeat of fascism (independently of whether one had volunteered to be member of the party or a military organisation)?... Grass condemned America but had nothing to say to the threats of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Prior to 1945, he could know that something terrible was happening to the German Jews. And even now, he must be aware of what the Iranian president is demanding, namely that Israel be erased from the map of the world."

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CiF Watch has a good article about Grass, and they put up a incriminating document from 1945 - a registration form as a POW which testifies to his service in the Waffen-SS.

Under "branch of service" it lists W-SS (Waffen-SS), with the date 10-11-1944. Above that, as "unit," it lists SS-Pz-Div. Frundsberg - SS Tank Division Frundsberg.

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Tom Segev interviewed Grass and wrote an article about him in Haaretz in 2006 - "The German who needed a fig-leaf." In this interview Grass commits quite a howler:

"Also. But the madness and the crime were not expressed only in the Holocaust and did not stop at the end of the war. Of eight million German soldiers who were captured by the Russians, perhaps two million survived and all the rest were liquidated. There were about 14 million refugees in Germany; half the country went directly from Nazi tyranny to communist tyranny. I am not saying this to diminish the gravity of the crime against the Jews, but the Holocaust was not the only crime. We bear responsibility for the Nazis' crimes. But the crimes inflicted serious disasters on the Germans and thus they became victims."

As has been made clear by many writers, three million German soldiers were taken prisoner by the Russians, and about one million died. The Germans, on the other hand, murdered three million Russian prisoners of war. In this paragraph Grass is doing his best to present the Germans as equal victims with the Jews.

Segev was just interviewed by Der Spiegel, the German magazine, about Grass, and has some interesting things to say about him.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What was your first impression when you read Günter Grass's poem?
 

Segev: That Günter Grass is more concerned about his own silence than, as he claims, the future of humanity. He's acting as if he is saying something that nobody else has said. I find it a little pathetic when he writes "my silence." I believe he is still thinking about his SS silence.

 SPIEGEL ONLINE: You're referring to the fact that Grass first revealed the fact that he had been a member of the Waffen-SS in his 2006 autobiography "Peeling the Onion". But what he means this time is another silence: the silence about Israel's nuclear policy.

Segev: But this silence doesn't exist. The whole world is talking about it -- even in Israel. That's why my second reaction to the poem was that Günter Grass has no clue about Iran, nuclear weapons or strategy. He's acting as if he had a conversation yesterday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu -- or with both.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What is being discussed in Israel about the possibility of an attack on Iran?

Segev: Former Mossad director Meir Dagan, for example, shares the same opinion as Günter Grass. He is also opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran. He talks about it almost every day. There is a very lively discussion about this issue in Israel.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Grass also names a reason for his silence: the threat of being accused of anti-Semitism.

Segev: Meir Dagan has never been accused by anyone in Israel of being an anti-Semite. And it has been a long time since people in Germany were not able to criticize Israel -- even if some in the Israeli government might regret that fact. Grass's argumentation is very apolitical. If Dagan were to publish a poem, I would find it just as embarrassing as when Grass publishes a nuclear analysis. I don't think one can take it very seriously. I would have preferred it if he had saved his "last ink," as he puts it, for a beautiful novel.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Grass writes that the Iranian people are at risk of being annihilated by a nuclear strike.

Segev: I do not understand at all how he came up with this idea. He is placing Israel and Iran on the same level. But the difference is that Israel, in contrast to Iran, has never declared that it wants to wipe some country off the map, whereas Iran promises day in, day out, that it wants to eliminate Israel. So what is this stuff about the annihilation of the Iranian people supposed to mean?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you saying that Grass is twisting the facts?

Segev: So far, the talk has only been of targeted Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities -- not a nuclear attack against the entire country. 

 SPIEGEL ONLINE: It wasn't so long ago that you interviewed Günter Grass for an Israeli newspaper. You later defended him when he was accused of equating the dead German Wehrmacht soldiers with those killed in the Holocaust.

Segev: The whole scandal was based on a misunderstanding. Grass never compared the Nazi crimes to German suffering. He is truly a great writer, but being a great writer doesn't mean that he also understands nuclear strategy. Besides, the problem cannot just be limited to Israel: A nuclear Iran would be dangerous for the entire world. Incidentally, I personally believe that most Israelis would prefer to see the US, rather than Israel, take action against Iran. And it is not as if there is incitement against Iran in Israel. There is even a peace campaign on Facebook. President Shimon Peres even greeted the Iranian people on television on the occasion of the Persian new year. There is in no way enmity towards the Iranian people. Nevertheless, in Israel there is still a kind of fear of (another) Holocaust. That is all much more serious than the question of whether Günter Grass should remain silent or not.

Interview conducted by Sebastian Hammelehle.

Günter Grass's wretched poem

I'm now finally reading Günter Grass's wretched poem itself, in English translation, kindly provided by the Atlantic. This is what the translator wrote about it:

His poem, "What Must Be Said," is overtly and boldly political. It is not exactly the prettiest prose in its original German, and the English doesn't read much better. Translating it below, I've tried to untangle some of the needlessly Teutonic constructions where it doesn't undo the deliberately winding and parenthetical tone too much. Even more concise German can sound circuitous to an English ear, but Grass's writing here is an extreme example. The poem is, from a purely communicative standpoint, a relatively inefficient denunciation - akin to writing up a paragraph of solid reasoning and then cutting it up and sticking little bits in fortune cookies.

Following are my comments on some of the poem:

It is the alleged right to first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people--
Enslaved by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation--
Because in their territory,
It is suspected, a bomb is being built.

"The alleged right to first strike" - if Israel does in fact attack Iran (which I very much hope it does not!), it will not be attacking with nuclear weapons (which is what a "first strike" refers to) - it will be attacking the sites in Iran where the uranium is being enriched to weapons level (Natanz, Fordow) and where, according to some intelligence reports, a nuclear trigger was being tested (Parchin). It will not be bombing Iran with atomic bombs. Israel's goal is not to annihilate the Iranian people, it is to stop Iran's nuclear program.

The "loud mouth," I presume, is Ahmedinejad - but he is not the true leader of the country (although he is a loud mouth) - that honor goes to Khamenei, the supreme Ayatollah and heir to Khomeini.

It's true that a bomb is suspected of being built - and most intelligence services (including the US and Israel) don't think the Iranians have yet decided actually to build the bomb.

Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because no inspection is available?

Indeed, why is he forbidding himself to name that country? It's common knowledge (according to foreign sources) that Israel has nuclear weapons. Mordechai Vanunu spent eighteen years in prison for revealing secret information and photographs of the program for the Sunday Times newspaper in 1986. He was released from prison in 2004. Several books have been written on the Israeli nuclear program, including two by Avner Cohen - The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb (2012) and Israel and the Bomb (1999).

The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as incriminating lies
And force - the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.

Again, I don't understand why Grass refers to "universal concealment." There is no universal concealment of the existence of an Israeli nuclear program. The Israeli press writes about it, always preceding its reports with the phrase "according to foreign sources," since the Israeli government maintains a policy of "nuclear ambiguity," refusing to confirm that it has a program. There has been a lot of discussion about the existence of the program outside Israel as well, even by the Iranians!

This appears to be part of the false meme that somehow it is forbidden to criticize Israel out of fear of antisemitism, when there is widespread criticism of Israel in many countries from both the left and the right. In the US we find this criticism from people on the paleoconservative right (Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan) and the far left (Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, Alice Walker, etc.), and the criticism is far more extensive in European countries, like Britain and Germany itself.

Now, though, because in my country
Which from time to time has sought and confronted
Its very own crime
That is without compare
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But as a fear wishes to be conclusive,
I say what must be said.

I don't understand, again, why he is now upset about the fact that Germany is selling submarines to Israel - Israel already owns several of them. The first two were given to Israel by Germany after the Gulf War, the cost of the third one was split between Israel and Germany, two are currently being built, and Germany just agreed to sell Israel another submarine at a discounted price. A Deutsche Welle article of March 20, 2012 says that "Experts say the latest order from Israel is capable of carrying nuclear-capable, mid-range rockets, although this has not been confirmed." An article from the Jerusalem Post of December 19, 2011 reports about the submarines: "Widely believed to be Israel’s second-strike capability with their reported ability to launch cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, the Navy’s submarines are shrouded in an aura of mystery and prestige." If this is true, then nuclear missiles on the submarines are intended not for a first strike, but for a second strike, after Israel has been attacked by nuclear weapons - that is to say, the weapons on the submarines, if indeed they exist, are intended to retaliate against an attack by another country. Their purpose is, therefore, deterrent - to prevent another country from attacking Israel out of the knowledge that it would also suffer terrible losses.

Why though have I stayed silent until now?
Because I thought my origin,
Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged
Kept the state of Israel, to which I am bound

And wish to stay bound,

From accepting this fact as pronounced truth.

If he means by the "stain never to be expunged" his service in the Waffen-SS, he had the right impulse to keep silent! He's right, in my opinion, that he is the wrong person to hector Israel, in an inaccurate way, against attacking Iran, especially since he implies that an Israeli strike would annihilate Iran. If he had written a reasoned article on the dangers of Israel attacking Iran, the possibility of a terrible war breaking out as a result of the attack, his wish that Germany not supply submarines that might be used for nuclear missiles - then we wouldn't be having this conversation about him.

I'm glad that he feels "bound" to Israel and that he wishes to "stay bound" - and that "binding" certainly doesn't exclude thoughtful, even harsh criticism of Israel and its leadership - but this foolish poem is not that useful criticism.

Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
Could be the suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

So what he's worried about is that because Germany is selling this submarine to Israel, that could possibly carry nuclear missiles, which might be used during a second strike by Israel after the country has suffered a nuclear first strike (which would probably kill most Israelis) - that Germany would then be responsible for the deaths of the people who are killed in that second strike. His concern seems to be all for the country that might be hit by that second strike, after it has done its best to destroy Israel!

Why not be concerned for the survival of Israel? It seems to me that if he feels a moral commitment to Israel, which in the previous stanza he asserts that he feels, that commitment should be expressed here. His fear is all for what Israel might do in retaliation, not for what might first be done to Israel. Is he deliberately misunderstanding why Israel would want a second strike capability? In this section of the poem he is taking the side of Iran entirely, without acknowledging the threats emanating from its leaders.

And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
Of the West; in addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
That they may prompt the perpetrator of the recognized danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
By the governments of both countries.

"The perpetrator of the recognized danger" is apparently Israel - which has not yet done anything except issue verbal threats against Iran's nuclear program, and has possibly killed some Iranian scientists and launched the Stuxnet virus against Iranian computers. Iran, on the other hand, has supported both Hezbollah and Hamas which have already perpetrated attacks against Israelis and Jews in other countries, and Iran on its part threatens to launch hundreds of long-range missiles against Israeli targets in the event of an Israeli attack upon its nuclear program. Why shouldn't Iran "renounce violence" if Israel must do the same?

In this stanza he finally admits the existence of "Iranian nuclear sites" - good for recognizing reality.

Iran doesn't seem particularly interested in having its nuclear sites controlled or inspected by an international agency - it has most recently refused to let the IAEA inspect the Parchin military base, where the work on a nuclear trigger has been suspected to occur.

Again he talks about how his being "silent no longer" is supposed to "free many from silence" - where is this alleged silence occurring? Plenty of people over the years have criticized Israel for its (alleged) possession of nuclear weapons, and have also insisted that Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons. I do not hear this silence that he claims has existed until he decided to write this rather badly-written poem.

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
And also us, to be helped.

Why does he now mention "Israelis and Palestinians"? I thought this poem was about Iran and Israel! What has the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians have to do with the threat of an Israeli attack upon Iran, or the threat of an Iranian development of a nuclear bomb?

I occasionally write poems, and even more occasionally publish them on this blog. Even my poor efforts are better written that this piece of tendentious drivel! This is not a poem, it is a really bad example of agitprop.

Don't keep Günter Grass out of Israel

I'm no fan of Günter Grass, after his recent poem about Iran and Israel and nuclear weapons, but I think this is ridiculous -  Israel Interior Minister Yishai declares Grass persona non grata. For heaven's sake, he wrote a poem, he didn't launch a missile at Israel. I think it would actually be good for him to visit here and talk to some ordinary Israelis about their fears - he might come to have a better understanding of why some support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations.

I do not think that Israel should attack Iran, because of the potentially terrible effects on Israeli and Iranian civilians if a full-scale war breaks out. I believe that there should be secret talks between Israel and Iran to address the threats that each utters towards the other in public, just as there were secret talks between the US and the USSR during the cold war. There should be a secret method of communication to prevent the verbal threats from turning into actual war - something that is not in the interest of either nation.

I'm now actually reading his wretched, ridiculous poem, and my next post will be my attempt at a fisking of it.

A nuclear duck!

Hussein Ibish just tweeted:

Hussein Ibish ‏ @Ibishblog

Well, we are well into Saturday afternoon and no one seems to have compared Iran or Israel to a duck yet. What gives?

I tweeted back:

Rebecca Lesses ‏ @argaman

@Ibishblog Did you see the @haaretzonline cartoon for the Friday paper?

He just tweeted back:

Hussein Ibish ‏ @Ibishblog

@argaman @haaretzonline No - URL? Please, please, please tell me it doesn't have a duck in it!!!!!

I tweeted back: 

Rebecca Lesses ‏ @argaman

@Ibishblog @haaretzonline Let me see if I can find it in the online edition. Yes, there was definitely a duck in it! (tongue in cheek).

And then I found the duck!:

In response he wrote these two tweets (quacks?):

Hussein Ibish ‏ @Ibishblog

@argaman OMG! Last straw. But will not run screaming naked down the street like that Koby2012 psycho Jason Russell - http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/21/10794669-kony-2012-filmmaker-jason-russell-diagnosed-with-psychosis-wife-says

Hussein Ibish ‏ @Ibishblog

I stand disgusted & corrected - Friday's Ha'aretz cartoon does indeed feature... A DUCK (kill me now!) - http://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/caricatures/1.1670379 via @argaman

I'm not sure what's driving him so nuts about ducks, but he's very funny about it!

Jerusalem Post article on the anti-war protest tonight in Tel Aviv

Around 1,000 march in TA anti-war with Iran rally

Protesters express opposition to strike on Iran, voicing anti-Netanyahu slogans and railing against AIPAC.

By BEN HARTMAN

24/03/2012

Photo by: Ben Hartman

In the first significant anti-war with Iran protest held yet in Israel, around a thousand Israelis marched through central Tel Aviv on Saturday evening to voice their opposition to those calling for a strike on Iran to stop the Islamic Republic’s quest for the nuclear bomb.

Titled “Israelis Against the War”, organizers said on the protest‘s Facebook page that “we will not agree to an irresponsible Israeli attack in Iran, leading to a war with an unknown end-date and casualty count…The billions that this war will cost will be paid by us – in health, education, housing - and in blood.”

One protester, 32-year-old Chen Sharabi-Cohen couched his opposition to the war in terms of how it will disproportionately affect weaker Israelis.

“I live in South Tel Aviv where we don’t have shelters or the protection we need. We have nowhere to go. If they want to attack Iran, they should first worry about preparing the home front.”

Israel’s first large anti-war rally was inspired by a campaign launched last week by an Israeli couple looking to reach out to their Iranian counterparts.

A little over a week ago Ronny Edri, 41, and his partner Michal Tamir, 35, both graduates of Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, uploaded pictures of themselves on Facebook which read “Iranians, we will never bomb your country. We love you.”

The anti-war meme quickly went viral, and within days there were dozens of such photos posted online by beaming, non-threatening Israelis. Soon after, the Iranians got into the mix, with several Iranians posting messages of love to Israelis, albeit most with their faces blurred or removed altogether from the posters. Within days the Israel and later the global media took notice, and a graphic artist’s whim became a major news item.

Saturday’s protest was not planned by Edri, but organizers said they saw it as a natural extension of the spirit of Edri’s online campaign.

In many ways the demonstration brought to mind the J14 “social justice” protests held over last Summer. Not only were there many familiar faces from the summer at Saturday’s rally, but the march began at Habima square, the same spot where the J14 protests started. In addition, the organizers of Saturday’s rally were all heavily-involved in the J14 movement, which, like Saturday’s protest, was started inadvertently by a young Tel Aviv woman who launched a Facebook initiative that caught the attention of the media and quickly soared to unforeseen heights.

The protesters also voiced many anti-Netanyahu slogans that were heard from time to time during the summer’s protests, including “Mubarak, Assad, Bibi Netanyahu” and “bring down the government”, among calls for peace and social justice. In addition, there were several placards voicing opposition to the American pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Overall it appeared to be a quintessentially Tel Aviv crowd, with many from the city’s protesting caste marching, a rather significant number with red flags and Hadash party posters.

Two protesters wearing posters with the slogan “Iranians we love you” from the Facebook campaign, Einav Raz and Shelly Nativ of Tel Aviv, said they were against not only a war with Iran, but also the very existence of nuclear weapons anywhere in the Middle East, including Israel.

“We must disarm all of the Middle East from nuclear weapons, Israel included,” Raz said. When asked how she would stop Iran from developing a nuclear program, she said “I would speak to them, invite them to sit at the table and talk to s. There are peace offers out there, but Israel just wants war.”

By the time the march made its way to Meir Park across from the Likud headquarters, the crowd had largely dwindled from its peak of around 1,000. They continued to chant at the park, with a small crowd moving from Israeli peace songs to the Beatles “all you need is love” and John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”.

A large counter-protest was expected, but in the end only around a dozen people came to voice their opposition. One of them, Eliyahu Nissim, 24 of Herzliya, carried a sign that read “the left embraces our enemies”.

Nissim said he came Saturday night to say “the Jewish people is eternal and all people who rise up to destroy us are legitimate targets for attack.”

He added “all of the people [of Israel] are with us on this.”

First Israeli demonstration against war with Iran

Tonight in Tel Aviv there is the first demonstration in Israel against an attack on Iran. I had hoped to go but wasn't able to find a ride there (because of Shabbat, there weren't buses leaving for Tel Aviv in time for me to get to the march, but friends of mine went).

This is the report on Ynet: 1,000 march against Iran strike.

Virtual campaign takes to streets as protesters rally against bombing Iran's nuclear facilities
Shahar Chai

"Social justice does not equal war with Iran" and "Bibi and Barak - war is not a game!"

Some 1,000 protesters marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday night in a show of opposition to the possibility of an Israeli strike in Iran. Over 2,300 citizens confirmed their attendance on Facebook. The march, titled "Israelis against a war with Iran," began at Habima Square and was expected to conclude with a rally at Meir Park.

"Together, we will inform Netanyahu and the world that there is no mandate to drive us into war with Iran," a spokesperson for the protest movement said prior to the event.

Some protesters wielded posters bearing the slogan "When the government is against the people, the people are against the government," and called on the country's leaders to resign.

"Talks, not bombs"

"The next war would take a very heavy toll," one protester said. "Thousands of rockets will explode every day, and there are no gas masks."

The global media and social networks have been abuzz in recent days over an Israeli couple's virtual message of peace and love to the Iranian people. The message, penned by graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir, was simple: "Iranians, we love you. We will never bomb your country." A poster bearing the slogan was posted on Facebook and quickly went viral, prompting thousands to share it, comment on it and make their own versions.

Officials and pundits have been increasingly speculating in recent months that Israel is preparing to strike Iran's nuclear facilities in order to stunt the Islamic Republic's reported atom weapon development.

Israel loves Iran

If you don't live in Israel (or Iran, I guess), then you don't know how bad it has gotten. Israeli politicians are broadcasting the message loud and clear that it's only a matter of time before Israeli attacks Iran. It's frightening. I have had quite a few conversations with my Israeli friends about this - and while they are generally the type to hide their fears, they are talking about the risks of war. None of them want war, regardless of their political opinions (pretty right wing to ultra-left-wing). But there hasn't been any antiwar movement at all, on the popular level. Haaretz has editorialized against war, and some high officials (like Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad) has strongly campaigned against war with Iran. There haven't been any demonstrations, even from the far left (unless I haven't heard about them).

Ronny Edri and Michal Tamir are two Israeli graphic artists who have started a Facebook campaign with the message "Israel Loves Iran." They posted photographs of themselves and their family with the wording "Iranians: We will never bomb your country. We ♥ you." See their FB page for lots of posters -

At first, they only heard from fellow Israelis, who sent them posters with their photos on them. Then they started to get responses from Iranians, who take a real risk when they communicate with Israelis in any way.

Here are some of the posters they have received from both Israelis and Iranians. 

An Iranian Happy Nowruz (New Year) poster - Nowruz is happening right now.

From the Israeli satire show, Eretz Nehederet - these two guys appear on the show as workers in an Iranian atomic plant.

And here's the message that Ronny sent out with the first posters:

To the Iranian people
To all the fathers, mothers, children, brothers and sisters

For there to be a war between us, first we must be afraid of each other, we must hate.
I'm not afraid of you, I don't hate you.
I don t even know you. No Iranian ever did me no harm. I never even met an Iranian...Just one in Paris in a museum. Nice dude.

I see sometime here, on the TV, an Iranian. He is talking about war.
I'm sure he does not represent all the people of Iran.
If you see someone on your TV talking about bombing you ...be sure he does not represent all of us.

I'm not an official representative of my country. but I know the streets of my town, I talk with my neighbors, my familys, my friends and in the name of all these people ...we love you.
We mean you no harm.
On the contrary, we want to meet, have some coffee and talk about sports.

To all those who feel the same, share this message and help it reach the Iranian people

ronny

http://israelovesiran.telavivnet.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pushpin

I hope that this Facebook campaign turns into a real political movement against war with Iran.

Israel: strikes, Palestinians, and Iranians

More Israel news.

We're not just sitting around and waiting for Bibi to decide to bomb the Iranians.

We're also waiting around to see if there will be a general strike on Wednesday. The Histadrut is negotiating with the Treasury about improving the working conditions of contract workers (for example, people who clean buildings but are not employed by the building owners, or the businesses in it, but by a cleaning contractor, or security guards who work for a contractor and not for the place they're guarding). If the strike happens on Wednesday, then all government offices will close, hospitals will run on a Shabbat schedule, administrative staff at all the universities will strike, the airport will be closed from 6:00 a.m. to noon, the ports will strike, the water authority will strike, museums will close, the banks will be closed, plus the post office, the Tel Aviv stock exchange, the national lottery - you get the idea. The buses will run on the usual schedule, however.

It would be interesting to experience a general strike in the US, the bastion of capitalism.

And what's happening with the Palestinians? The PA and Hamas have ostensibly come to a unity agreement, in which Abu Mazen will be the caretaker prime minister. Let's see - the last time they announced it, nothing happened. I don't see this as making it any more likely that Israel will negotiate with the Palestinians - but then, Bibi doesn't want to negotiate with them anyway, so this will just provide him an easy excuse.

Oh, and back to the Iranians. Niall Ferguson, who is a professor of history at Harvard, is leading the cheerleading for an Israeli attack on Iran. He writes:

It probably felt a bit like this in the months before the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel launched its hugely successful preemptive strike against Egypt and its allies. Forty-five years later, the little country that is the most easterly outpost of Western civilization has Iran in its sights.

Really? You mean after Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, and built up its army in Sinai near the Israeli border, and it didn't seem like anyone else was interested in saving Israel from its enemies?

He seems to think that the US would immediately jump up (upon news of an Israeli strike on Iran) and join in with its bunker busters.

What is the most disgusting part of the essay is the last sentence: "It feels like the eve of some creative destruction." How can he rejoice in what would almost certainly be the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Iranians? He's living a comfortable life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which will not be bombed if Israel attacks Iran. He won't have to suffer the consequences. My friends here in Israel will have to dodge Iranian, Hezbollah, and Hamas rockets and missiles, on the other hand.

Oh, enough gloom and doom. Time to go watch Eretz Nehederet, the Israeli political satire TV show.

UPDATE: Religion Dispatches has a good article on Ferguson's  immoral proposal, by Haroon Moghul. He talks about the possible results for Iranians (for example, if the current government collapses in the face of an attack and nothing replaces it) and for the Middle East as a whole.

How Israel would attack Iran

Another scary article, this time from NBC news, on the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran this year - it even goes into the details of which missiles Israel would use to attack Iranian nuclear sites.

Why is this information being passed on to journalists? Is it just part of a giant propaganda campaign to get the Iranians to take the threat of attack seriously (and thus give up the nuclear program without a fight), or is this telling the world that Israeli will, in fact, be attacking Iran this year?

Panetta’s reported view has been echoed in recent interviews by NBC News with current and former U.S. and Israeli officials who have access to their countries’ intelligence. Those officials, all of whom spoke to NBC News on background, estimated the odds of an Israeli attack on Iran as better than 50-50....

Officials agree the chances for an Israeli attack on Iran are at least 50-50, maybe higher. More than one former official has suggested the possibility is as high as 70 percent, but events can move that higher or lower. One said he is “worried sick” about it....

Many of those interviewed claim Israel would launch a multi-pronged attack, using its fighter bombers as well as its Jericho missile force.

Israel has both medium and intermediate range Jerichos. The medium-range Jericho I would not have the range to reach many Iranian targets but the intermediate-range Jericho II’s, capable of hitting targets 1,500 miles away, would have no problem. The Jerichos would be equipped with high explosives, not nuclear warheads. Asked if the Jericho would have the accuracy and the explosive power to take out a hardened bunker of the sort believed to be protecting Iran’s most-sensitive underground nuclear facilities, one official replied, “You would be surprised at their accuracy” and that the high explosives involved is a special mix of chemical explosives that could conceivably penetrate the Iranian fortifications.

Missile attacks would be coordinated with fighter-bomber attacks (presumably the Israelis’ extended-range F-15I Strike Eaglet) as well as drone strikes. The fighter bombers would use what one official described as “high-low, low-high” flight paths -- high first to increase fuel efficiency, then low for most of the trip to evade radar, then climbing high again as the weapons are released in what is known as a “flip toss” on the target. The Israelis would be prepared to lose aircraft if necessary, the officials said.

The Israelis are not planning to use submarine-launched cruise missile force -- “not enough of them,” one official said of the subs. (The Israelis have long had nuclear tipped sub-launched cruise missiles as part of their deterrent force.)....

As the New York Times reported Friday, the Israeli military intelligence assessment is that Iran’s military response to such an attack would be muted, in part because of its limited capability and in part because of it understands a massive attack would be met with massive response. Not everyone agrees with that assessment, noting that Iran has had years to plan out their response. The biggest fear is that Iran would unleash Hezbollah, which has between 42,000 and 48,000 missiles and rockets in southern Lebanon aimed at Israel. Even before any attack, officials in both Thailand and Azerbaijan say they have recently thwarted Hezbollah plots against Israeli facilities.

Israel understands that Hezbollah may respond on behalf of Iran following an attack and is prepared to go after Hezbollah “and not stop at the Litani River (the northern limit of most previous Israeli attacks) this time nor limit its force to a brigade or two” as one U.S. official put it. Another added that Israeli officials understand that “Israeli blood, Jewish blood will certainly be spilled” in attacks around the world in the event of an attack. And the response might not be immediate. One official noted that the Saudi Hezbollah attacks on Khobar Towers in 1996 took place months after the U.S. passed tighter sanctions against Iran.

Note: Yediot Aharonoth also has an article based upon the NBC article - Officials discuss Israel-Iran showdown.

What will happen in Israel if there is an attack on Iran this spring?

I tried to blog on this yesterday, but Blogger ate my post. The Forward today has an editorial, The Days After, on the question of what will happen after (if) Israel or the US attack Iran. This is a question which I think has been addressed far too little in the public debate. The discussion has mostly been about whether Iran is actually on its way to make nuclear weapons, and if so, how far along it is, and then whether a strike on Iran would actually much of an effect on their nuclear program. I haven't seen much discussion of what might be the consequences for Israel of such an attack.

David Ignatius wrote yesterday in the Washington Post that he was told by US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that he thinks that Israel will attack Iran in April, May, or June of this year. Panetta did not deny the report.

And yesterday, at the Herzliya Conference, various Israeli leaders, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, talked about how the time is growing short to stop the Iranian nuclear program, especially because Iran will soon be moving critical components of the program into mountain bunkers, making them almost impossible to attack successfully. (There was a recent article in Haaretz that admitted that the US military doesn't have bombs that would successfully destroy all of the underground bunkers the Iranians are using).

(For a counter to all of the doom and gloom about a possible Israeli strike on Iran, see an article in today's Los Angeles Times - Will Israel Attack Iran? It's been asked before. The article goes back to August, 2004 - "Will Sharon Attack Iran?")

So what would happen in Israel if it attacked Iran? Chuck Freilich of the Los Angeles Times writes:

Moreover, according to Israeli estimates, Iran has hundreds of Shahab missiles capable of striking Israel. And along with Syria, Iran has provided Hezbollah with an almost unfathomable arsenal of more than 50,000 rockets, designed precisely for this scenario, which can blanket all of Israel from Lebanon.

There is no reason to believe that Hezbollah will not use this arsenal. During the 2006 Lebanon war, Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets at Israel, about one-third of its 13,000-missile arsenal at the time; if it were to employ a similar ratio today — and it could be far larger — the results would cause a level of destruction Israel has never before experienced. Hamas too has a large rocket arsenal in waiting, but "just" thousands.

So if Israel attacked Iran, there would be extensive Iranian retaliation, in the form of missiles directly sent from Iran itself, a vast barrage of missiles from Lebanon, and a smaller one from Gaza. This could lead to many Israeli dead and injured, and a lot of property damage.

How seriously are Israeli leaders taking this? When they talk about the possibility of a war with Iran, they mention how Israel has been preparing for possible Iranian retaliation by conducting drills, improving bomb shelters, and distributing gas masks. Well, there is no bomb shelter in my apartment building - the closest one is across the street, and it's been turned into a sports club. A good friend of mine lives in this building, and she knows nothing of any efforts to turn the club back into a bomb shelter.

Last year, when I was here in the summer, there was a nationwide drill, Turning Point 5, designed among other things to test people's responses to the news of an incoming missile attack. (I wrote about it here). At the time when the sirens went off at 11:00 a.m. I was at the National Library in Jerusalem - which I might point out is a few minutes walk away from the Knesset, the Prime Minister's Office, the Bank of Israel, the Foreign Ministry, and other government ministries - thus a prime target. All of us in the reading rooms went down to the basement floor, as we had been told, and stood around. Apparently in the event of an actual attack we would have been taken into the stacks, which is where the bomb shelter for the building is. No one around me was taking the drill particularly seriously.

When I got back home in the evening I told my friend about it and asked her what she did during the drill. I believe she was home at the time, and she didn't do anything - as she said, she couldn't be bothered. And if she had wanted to do something, what should she have done? Well, go shelter in the stairwell of the building. I don't really understand how that could protect people if the building was hit by a missile.

And as for gas masks, in the case of chemical warheads? Well, a recent article in the Israeli press reported that due to a shortage, about half the Israeli population will not be receiving gas masks. They've been distributed in the last couple of years, but only 400,000 kits remain - and they will be distributed in the next couple of months. Why the Home Front Command only decided to produce 50% of the gas masks intended to protect to the population, only they know.

So are Israeli leaders really thinking about what could happen in Israel this year if the airforce strikes Iranian nuclear sites? Not what could happen in a few years if Iran decides to go ahead and create a nuclear weapon, but this year. Perhaps I'm too fixated on the short term consequences, and should worry more about Iran actually getting the bomb. But being in Israel, and facing the question of what will happen if Israel attacks Iran while I'm here, has concentrated my mind on the immediate question, not the farther off one.

If Israel does in fact attack Iran this spring, they're not going to issue a warning or a declaration of war beforehand, to let the Israeli population know that it's time to seek out the nearest bomb shelter (or to warn the Iranians) It will happen suddenly, without any warning - and presumably the counter-attack would happen pretty quickly also. There will a period of some time before effective protection against the Iranian/Hezbollah missiles will be in place, when many Israelis could die, or be injured. During the 2006 Lebanon War, it was clear that Israel was not prepared for such a large barrage of missiles from Lebanon, and there was much property damage, and hundreds of thousands people fled the north of Israel and went to stay with friends and relatives further south. There weren't enough shelters, or the shelters were filthy and lacked supplies. I understand that since then there has been a lot of work to refurbish shelters and prepare the population, but has there been enough?

And then there's the personal question - how would I react if Israel were attacked? Should I leave immediately? Or stay here with my friends? How much risk would there be for people living in Jerusalem? In the 1991 Gulf War, Jerusalem was not hit by Scud missiles from Iraq. In the 2006 Lebanon War, the Hezbollah missiles could not reach as far south as Jerusalem. Hamas or Islamic Jihad missiles from Gaza do not have a long enough range to hit Jerusalem. One presumption has been that Arab-Muslim attacks would not be aimed at Jerusalem, because of the religious importance of the city for Muslims and the presence of a large Palestinian population in the city. Does this still hold true?

Violence and sex, money, and war

Some random thoughts, in no particular order -

The scandal at Penn State is really unbelievable. When I read the story yesterday about how graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary had caught assistant coach Jerry Sandusky in the act of anally raping a 10 year old boy in the locker room, I was appalled - and then even more appalled to learn that McQueary did nothing to stop the rape, left, called his father, then reported it to Joe Paterno, the head coach, who sent the report up the line, with no one calling the police, or apparently even learning the name of the young victim. Today, the university's president, Graham Spanier, stepped down from his job, and Joe Paterno was fired by the Board of Trustees of the university.

Students at the university have been holding large rallies at Paterno's home, in support of him. Why? Apparently, football, the American religion, can't be questioned, even if the sainted head coach covers up the grotesque crime of child rape.

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Is the world economy about to go into freefall again? Now it's Italy's turn to totter at the abyss. And maybe France's.... When will the EU leaders get their act together?

Italy, a central member of the euro zone and its third-largest economy, struggled to find a new government as anxious investors drove Italian bond rates well above 7 percent and the markets tumbled worldwide. And although critics have warned of just such an escalation for months, European leaders again were caught without a convincing response....

And of course the fear in Paris is that France will be next. Mr. Sarkozy’s government just announced another set of budget cuts and tax increases in the face of lower growth, to keep to its promises to cut its own budget deficit. But on Wednesday, the spread of 10-year French government bonds over their German equivalent rose to a euro area high of around 140 basis points. “Contagion” is not just a movie.

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Iran apparently is much closer to getting a nuclear weapon. Should we do anything about it? Should Israel do something about it? An Israeli attack on Iran would very probably lead to a regional war, with thousands of missiles being launched from Lebanon and Gaza at Israel. I hope there's not a war - I'm going to Israel in January for seven months (I'm on sabbatical), and I'd rather not spend the time in a bomb shelter!

Representative Peter King, Hypocrite

Rep. Peter King of New York, who is hosting the bogus series of hearings this week on radicalization of American Muslims, has an awkward past - he was a passionate supporter of the IRA.

Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.

“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry,” Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”...

A judge in Belfast threw him out of an I.R.A. murder trial, calling him an “obvious collaborator,” said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist and author of “A Secret History of the I.R.A.” In 1984, Mr. King complained that the Secret Service had investigated him as a “security risk,” Mr. Moloney said.

In later years, by all accounts, Mr. King became an important go-between in talks that led to peace in Northern Ireland, drawing on his personal contacts with leaders of I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and winning plaudits from both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the former president and the British prime minister.

But as Mr. King, 66, prepares to preside Thursday as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee at the first of a series of hearings on Muslim radicalization, his pro-I.R.A. past gives his many critics an obvious opening. The congressman’s assertions that 85 percent of leaders of American mosques hold extremist views and that Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement have alarmed Muslim groups, some counterterrorism experts and even a few former allies in Irish-American causes.

Mr. King, son of a New York City police officer and grand-nephew of an I.R.A. member, offers no apologies for his past, which he has celebrated in novels that feature a Irish-American congressman with I.R.A. ties who bears a striking resemblance to the author.

Of comparisons between the terrorism of the I.R.A. and that of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Mr. King said: “I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the I.R.A. never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.”

But the IRA did attack one of our closest allies, Britain. And in fact, his loyalty was not to the United States, but to the terrorist IRA.

He said he does not regret his past pro-I.R.A. statements. The Irish group, he said, was “a legitimate force” battling British repression — analogous to the African National Congress in South Africa or the Zionist Irgun paramilitary in British-ruled Palestine. “It was a dirty war on both sides,” he said of I.R.A. resistance to British rule....

The I.R.A. was responsible for 1,826 of 3,528 deaths during the Northern Irish conflict between 1969 and 2001, including those of several hundred civilians, said the historian Malcolm Sutton

I grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston a number of times when I was a teenager, in the 1970s. One year I saw a contingent from Noraid - Northern Irish Aid, which raised money for arms for the IRA. I didn't go back to the parade again.

Even paranoids have enemies....

Wikileaks has posted a July, 2009 cable from the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi to the State Department, which doesn't have the "Ahmedinejad is Hitler" quote but does have many interesting statements by and about Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ in the cable). This cable refers to a dinner meeting held on July 15, 2009 between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan (ABZ). [I am starting to wonder if there was an editing error in the Times' story on the July, 2009 cables about meetings with Mohammed bin Zayed - it will be interesting to see if some corroboration appears for the quote].

Some of the more interesting details:

From the summary: "He [MBZ] painted to a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to the UAE and invoked the well being of his grandchildren while urging the U.S. to act quickly. MBZ asked for close coordination between the U.S. and UAE to deal with the Iranian threat."

On the Iranian threat: "MBZ described a nuclear armed Iran as absolutely untenable. He pointed to Iran's relentless ambitions to restore regional hegemony as evidenced by destabilizing interference in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Palestine. He believes that 'all hell will break loose' if Iran attains the bomb, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey developing their own nuclear weapons capability and Iran instigating Sunni - Shia conflict throughout the world. He said Iran is surrounding Israel - driven by ideological conviction - and will threaten Israel's existence should it go nuclear. At the same time, he described Iran's ambitions as reflecting a desire to restore Persia's great-power status, rather than driven by religious convictions." [Emphasis mine - RL]

On war with Iran: "While careful not to suQY.JQoWoRth [word is garbled on Wikileaks site] Iran, MBZ described a near term conventional war with Iran as clearly preferable to the long term consequences of a nuclear armed Iran. Without timely and decisive action by the United States, MBZ believes that Israel will strike Iran, causing Iran to launch missile attacks - including hits on the UAE - and to unleash terror attacks worldwide. In his view, 'the map of the Middle East' would change. He expects widespread civilian conflict to erupt as Iran sparks Sunni - Shia violence worldwide (including the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia which he sees as the greatest vulnerability, along with Iraq, in the Arab world). He speculated that such an event could unfold within six months time and resolved that the UAE is prepared to defend itself. He believes that an Israeli strike will not be successful in stopping Iran's nuclear program, and therefore we need to plan."

On why Israeli-Palestinian agreement is important in this context: "MBZ suggested that the key to containing Iran revolves around progress in the Israel/Palestine issue. He argued that it will be essential to bring Arab public opinion on board in any conflict with Iran and roughly 80% of the public is amenable to persuasion. To win them over, the U.S. should quickly bring about a two state solution over the objections of the Netanyahu government. He suggested working with moderate Palestinians that support the road map, and forget about the others as there is no time to waste." This is interesting to me - what he is suggesting is that when it comes to Iran, the I/P conflict isn't important in and of itself, but rather for the purpose of gaining the support of Arab public opinion in any action against Iran. As long as the I/P conflict exists, Iran can exploit it in order to gain the support of Arab public opinion.

Another July, 2009 cable, recounts the 7/19/09 Gulf Security Dialogue working dinner hosted by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. More relevant remarks on Iran:

"MbZ reiterated his belief that an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran was increasingly likely, saying he was convinced the Netanyahu government was prepared to act against Iran, and that he agreed with Israeli intelligence assessments regarding how close Tehran is to achieving its nuclear ambitions. The Iranian response to a pre-emptive strike, predicted MbZ, would be attacks on U.S. allies in the region, foremost among them the UAE; Iran may also unleash terrorist cells against western interests around the world. ASD Vershbow explained that the USG assessment differed in timeframe -- we do not anticipate military confrontation with Iran before the end of 2009 -- stressing, however, that denying Iran's nuclear ambitions and stemming its efforts to achieve regional hegemony were foremost among U.S. international security concerns." We have now arrived almost at the end of 2010, and there still has been no military confrontation with Iran.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from a Jewish family?

This is a fascinating story, if true - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past.

A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots. A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver. The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.

The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's birthplace, and the name derives from "weaver of the Sabour", the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia. The name is even on the list of reserved names for Iranian Jews compiled by Iran's Ministry of the Interior....

A London-based expert on Iranian Jewry said that "jian" ending to the name specifically showed the family had been practising Jews. "He has changed his name for religious reasons, or at least his parents had," said the Iranian-born Jew living in London. "Sabourjian is well known Jewish name in Iran."

An article from 2005 in the Guardian also talks about the name change, but without mentioning that the family was Jewish previously.

The Saborjhian family rented the two-storey house before leaving their impoverished environment in the late 1950s in search of prosperity in Tehran. Mr Ahmadinejad was little more than one year old when they went to the city.

It was a move that coincided with changing the family name, a step taken for a mixture of religious and economic reasons, relatives say.

The name change provides an insight into the devoutly Islamic working-class roots of Mr Ahmadinejad's brand of populist politics. The name Saborjhian derives from thread painter - sabor in Farsi -a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated.

Ahmad, by contrast, is a name also used for the prophet Muhammad and means virtuous; nejad means race in Farsi, so Ahmadinejad can mean Muhammad's race or virtuous race.
"Moving from a village to big cities was so common and widespread at that time that perhaps people, not wanting to show their roots, would change their names," said Mehdi Shahhosseini, 31, son of one of Mr Ahmadinejad's cousins, still living in Aradan.

A skeptical take from Evan Hill, a blogger on a site called The Majlis, points out that the Telegraph and Guardian articles contradict themselves on the meaning of the name Sabourjian. Another thing that strikes me as possibly fishy about the Telegraph article is that it quotes an unnamed "London-based expert on Iranian Jewry." Who is he? Why didn't the article name him?

An article on the Radio Free Europe website from January of this year says that:

Mehdi Khazali, the son of the conservative Ayatollah Khazali, has written on his personal website that he recently learned that President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots. Khazali notes that Ahmadinejad changed his family name from Saburjian, and says that the origins of the Saburjian family in the town of Aradan should be investigated.

Is Khazali likely to be a reputable source? Or could he have written this simply to smear Ahmedinejad? A follow-up on this story comes from the Jewish Chronicle:

Dr Mehdi Khazali was reportedly detained after writing on his website earlier this year that the president had changed his family name from Saburjian — thought to be Jewish in origin. And during the election campaign, reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi also challenged Ahmadinejad in a live TV debate to give his full name. The “Jewish Ahmadinejad” dispute has even spread beyond Iran. A Bahrain newspaper, Akhbar al-Khaleej, published an article on the claim.

More on Mr. Khazali's arrest comes from an article this summer (July 5, 2009) in the Jerusalem Post. (The link appears to be broken - I have the text from the International Free Press Society).

The Iranian blogger who claimed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots is being detained by the authorities after he was arrested along with 150 university students earlier this week, according to sources in Teheran.

Dr. Mehdi Khazali, who reportedly participated in several recent opposition demonstrations, was reportedly summoned to a special court convened for religious figures, detained and transferred to an unknown location. The son of a prominent, conservative pro-Ahmadinejad ayatollah, Khazali wrote on his Web site earlier this year that the president – a Holocaust denier and relentless critic of Israel – was of partially Jewish origin, asserting that Ahmadinejad had changed his family name from Saburjian, and calling for the origins of the Saburjian family in the town of Aradan to be investigated.

The assertion featured in the bitter presidential election campaign, when rival reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi challenged Ahmadinejad in a live TV debate, reportedly stating: “My full name is Mehdi Karroubi. What is your full name?” Ahmadinejad gave his full name, according to an Al-Arabiya TV report, but left out one surname which is said to indicate Jewish ancestry.

The “Jewish Ahmadinejad” dispute even spread beyond Iran, when Bahrain’s oldest newspaper, Akhbar al-Khaleej, was briefly shut down by the governing authorities two weeks ago after it published an article recycling the claim.

It will be interesting to see if this report is borne out by further investigations.

Nuke agency says Iran can make bomb

The AP is reporting something very alarming about Iran's nuclear capability: Nuke agency says Iran can make bomb.

VIENNA — Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.

The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency's leaders share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities.

It appears to be the so-called "secret annex" on Iran's nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA's chief.

The document says Iran has "sufficient information" to build a bomb. It says Iran is likely to "overcome problems" on developing a delivery system.

Why is this report being withheld? Isn't this vital information that should be publicized? Why is the IAEA protecting Iran?

I don't want the Israelis to attack Iran's nuclear program. Pretending that Iran doesn't yet have the ability to produce a nuclear weapon is unlikely to prevent Israel from acting, since it makes it seem that the IAEA is deliberately lying instead of taking Israel's concern seriously.

Later: the IAEA denies the report (Reuters).

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Thursday it had no proof that Iran has or once had a covert atomic bomb program, dismissing a news report that it had concluded Iran was on its way to producing nuclear weapons.

In a statement, the International Atomic Energy Agency reaffirmed IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's September 9 warning that allegations the agency was sitting on undeniable evidence of Iranian bomb work were "politically motivated and baseless."

"With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapons program in Iran," the statement said.

"I never thought I'd be rooting for Iran"

Finally, it appears that Haaretz has decided to give what's going on in Iran the coverage it deserves - right now all of the major stories on the online edition are about Iran, including an interesting commentary by Bradley Burston. He writes:

I never thought I'd be rooting for Iran

I am in awe of the courage of the people of Iran.

They are giving the world hope. They are teaching a shocking lesson about truth. They embody freedom. And, perhaps hardest to grasp, for those of us who live in the Middle East, they are putting their very lives on the line not for the sake of some ferociously sectarian End of Days, but for the most profoundly radical notion of all - a better life.

Every person who has taken to the streets to demand what their government promised them, free and fair elections, did so knowing that police or secret police could arrest them, act to cripple their careers, or outright gun them down.

When the national soccer team, the sporting love of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's life, took the field in Seoul, and when Iranian state television showed the team captain and most of the squad wearing wrist and arm bands in the green of the reformists, the players knew that there was much more at stake - at risk - for them personally, than whether they would defeat South Korea and advance to a place in the World Cup. The game ended in a 1-1 tie. Iran's fervent hopes of appearing in the quadrennial tournament were all but dashed. But the team had already clinched a victory of momentous proportion. They are quiet lions. They are, in every sense of the word, champions.

I never thought I'd be rooting for Iran. But I'm pulling for them now, hard as I can.

Don't get me wrong. I never swallowed the neo-con view of Tehran as the Great Satan. I didn't take Ahmadinejad's cataclysm threats at face value. I never even quite trusted the sincerity of his anti-Semitism. It seemed, in his hands, like just one more rabble-pandering tool in the kit.

This is, after all, the Middle East, where straight truth is routinely bent around corners to fit, mask, or skirt inconvenient realities.

Still, I have to get used to this. For years I watched the Islamic Republic in the stern public face that the ayatollahs themselves carefully nurtured. It was said that the founding Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni, never allowed himself to be photographed while smiling. More recently, vexed by the ease and the smugness of Ahmadinejad's Jew-hate, I came to view them as a brilliantly well-adapted enemy. While it seemed to me that the odds were against a down spiral and an Israeli-Iranian exchange of ballistic missiles, the word "erase," when used publicly against another country, becomes hard for the mind located in that country to, well, erase.

In trying to view the Israel-Iran stand-off with equanimity, an official policy of Holocaust denial was little help. Every time I opened the door of the bomb shelter in our basement, I could see Ahmadinejad's grin in the darkness.

Now, though, the people in Tehran's streets have made it possible to begin to see past Ahmadinejad. I have to get used to Iran not as a cartoon bully, but as my neighbor. Not because they will go nuclear - though nuclear they may well go. But because it is a nation of people, as we are, not pawns in an increasingly obsolete revolution.

It often seems that fundamentalism is the curse of the Middle East. In Israel, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Iraq and Iran, it appears at first glance that it is fundamentalism that keeps peace at bay, that it has cursed Israel with settlements and faith-based racism, that it has cursed the Palestinians with anti-Jewish incitement and dated ideology which has kept statehood a practical impossibility, that it makes Hezbollah worship weaponry over all else, and has spurred brother Muslims, Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq, to suicide bomb each other's mosques, and each other.

But this view is too simple. It fails to take into account the fact that it is not religion per se, but its unholy marriage with politics, that yields the excesses that rob people of their freedom, dignity, and a future of peace. When fundamentalism becomes revolution, the truth that is in religion, becomes the first casualty.

And make no mistake. We are all revolutionaries here. And when everyone is a member of one revolution or another, the struggles are bound to collide. In Israel alone, the founding rival revolutions (socialist Zionism versus right-wing Revisionism) which have succumbed to age and irrelevance, have been replaced by the deadlock between the settler/no compromise revolution on the one hand, and the software/global-outlook two-state revolutionaries of the new center. The Palestinians have a similar dichotomy, with the aging onetime-Marxists of Fatah battling the middle-aging Armani Islamists of Hamas.

In the wider Middle Eastern theater, the fundamentalist revolution of neo-conservatism clashed with - and thus fueled - the various rival revolutions of Islamism.

The saving grace, for this reason, may be the circumstance that for all their talk of permanency and messianic solutions, revolutions, like the people who run them, age. At some point, when they no longer serve their stated goals, or their people, they begin to die.

Enter, at this point, the world revolutionary named Barack Obama. The revolution he has declared is one that has resonated here with telling effect. Perhaps because it explicitly values quality of life over confrontation, peoplehood over dogma.

When Obama ran a campaign on a platform of change, few expected that, after carrying 28 states and the District of Columbia, he would carry Lebanon as well. Iran may be next. Where do we fit in? Israel and Palestine may take time. They are tough territory for moderates. And revolutionaries do not relinquish their struggles easily. But if recent events are any measure, Obama is not just any moderate.

In the meanwhile, let us return the favor of the people of Iran, and offer our hopes.

It is time for us to wear the green.

A few years ago, when I began to read a few Iranian blogs (Kamangir, for example), I started to get the feeling of Iranians as real people, not just as stick figures in a morality play - the evil figures of the Iranian revolution who kept Americans hostage (remember the Nightline show - "America Held Hostage" - for 444 days before Reagan became president), or Iran as member of the "Axis of Evil." What has been happening since the election last week only confirms this realization. I am rooting for the people of Iran. I hope they win, although I fear that they won't. I hope this will not be like Tianenmen Square, but more like the slow breaking in of glasnost in the Soviet Union. This is why I'm so depressed when I read defeatist articles by people who, it seems to me, don't want the Iranians to succeed. (Like Meir Dagan). As Andrew Sullivan has been saying obsessively, this matters - a lot.

When I decided to come to Israel this summer, one of the things I worried about is whether a war could break out - with Hezbollah, with Iran. Would Israel decide to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations to forestall the creation of an Iranian bomb? Hezbollah losing the Lebanese elections lowered the threat of war on the northern front, it seems to me. And if these protests in Iran are not crushed by the power of the state, if there is a way for this new opening of the people actually to affect the actions of the Iranian state - then that lowers the threat of war between Israel and Iran, a war which would be disastrous for both nations.

I think we should primarily hope that the people of Iran win for their sake - for the sake of a better life and a better future for them. This isn't about us. But if they win, it may lead to a better future for all of us.