Strange, the turn of history. Before the Six Day War in 1967, it was France that supplied most of Israel’s arms, including, reportedly, its nuclear capacity. After the Six Day War, France turned into one of Israel’s enemies. No more arms from France to Israel, nor any diplomatic support at the UN. At the time, Charles DeGaulle famously and figuratively patted Israeli spokesman Abba Eban on the head, telling him his French and persuasive powers were superb — but, forget about any more help from France.
Now, in 2013, as the US is about to be taken in by Iran, about to sign a deal that would ease sanctions against Iran in exchange for mere promises that it would scale back its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, France — governed at this time by a socialist — cried foul. France saw through the charade.
It is little comfort that the negotiations with Iran will start up again in a week or so. With even Bill Clinton calling President Obama on the carpet for misleading millions of people that, under Obamacare, they could keep their current insurance if they so chose, it is hardly comforting when Obama and his negotiators assure us that any deal with Iran will leave it without the capacity to reach nuclear status. France, which suffered from multiple assassinations on its soil by Iranians a couple of decades ago, and which is a lot closer to Iran and rightly frightened over the prospect of a nuclear Iran, said: No!
Friends pop up in unexpected places at unpredictable times — sort of like the determination of President Richard Nixon to override his Jewish Secretary of State at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War and insist that Israel get weapons, get the best weapons, and get them fast. Nixon, who is recorded as having made blatantly anti-Semitic remarks, saved Israel. Go figure.
France cried foul at this “deal”: Iran gets billions of dollars in oil revenue unfrozen, and also, for all intents and purposes, gets to keep enriching uranium and manufacturing centrifuges. Iran would not be required to submit to short-notice inspections that would verify its stoppage of these pursuits. All it needed to do was to promise that it would stop. As Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu colorfully, baldly, angrily and exasperatingly put it: Iran, under the “deal,” was not required to show that it had given up a single centrifuge. “Not one!” he roared.
Also this: Iran would only need to promise that it would not build a plutonium reactor.
An Israeli prime minister who goes public against the leader of the US is a prime minister feeling that the window of opportunity for his country’s existential security is closing. A deal that forces Israel to act militarily is no good, no favor to anyone. The best hope now — besides France — is for Congress to speak up. Where is all of that vaunted bipartisan support for Israel that AIPAC is always talking about?
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
