The well-documented pattern of Israel’s policy of targeted killings shows that the assassination of Iranian scientists is neither the first nor the last of Israel’s acts of terrorism. It also shows that the claim that Iran’s nuclear program presents an “existential” threat to Israel is no more than a harebrained excuse to deflect attention from the real threat to Israel: hardline Zionism, or the ideology of colonization and occupation by military force.
As long as this poisonous ideology (which is dangerous not only to the Palestinian people but also, ultimately, to the Jewish people) persists, so would resistance and opposition to it—hence, eternal “existential” threats to Israel. Today that threat is said to come from Iran and Hezbollah, yesterday it came from Nasser’s Egypt and the PLO, tomorrow it would be from other sources of anti-occupation in the region … and the day after it would be from anti-apartheid forces worldwide, including many among Jewish people, just as it happened in South Africa.
Many well-intentioned critics, including a large number of far-sighted Jews, have long warned against the inherent limits and dangers of occupation and rule by military force. Such concerns are perhaps best expressed by these sage yet simple words of Albert Einstein: “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” Radical Zionist leaders have responded, in a patronizing fashion, that while Einstein was a good s… >>>