We Jews paid with the lives of six million of our brothers and sisters last time we waited for the world to step in and save us—this time that type of waiting is not an option
The Iranian nuclear threat is uppermost in the minds of many Israelis and Jews around the world who care for their coreligionists living in Israel. However, it seems that the case for a preemptive strike against Iran has not been properly made. Because of this many are afraid that Iran may become the next Iraq and a trigger happy United States president will again use military force unnecessarily.
The argument against attacking Iran is manifold. However the biggest misconception is the thinking that Iran is not a real threat to both Israel and the entire world. Since its founding as an Islamic republic Iran has clearly and consistently stated that its policy towards Israel is to destroy it and more recently it has called for the destruction of the United States as well.
Some argue that Iran does not mean that it would like to destroy and kill all the Jews in Israel and all it wants is to see "regime change" in Israel where the government ceases to be run only by Jews in a Jewish state. Indeed they say that they want the land of Israel to have a government which represents all its peoples Jews and Arab. Although this would mean the end of the Jewish state, who can argue with a country which proposes legitimate and peaceful political revolutions? In fact the west is encouraging just such a revolution in Iran itself. The USA helps fund Iranian opposition groups whose stated aim is the end of an Islamic republic in Iran and the creation of a secular democratic state with multi-religious governmental representation.
Furthermore since the first Gulf War the US policy towards Iraq, even under Bill Clinton, was "regime change." So why the double standards people ask? Iran has never attacked another nation in an act of aggression and they argue that Iran has a right to have a foreign policy which advocates regime change in another country especially one which it sees as a threat to it own security.
The problem, however, is in the small print. While technically Iran has not itself waged battle of aggression against another country it continues to send fighters to help the insurgency in Iraq and it funds terrorist operations against Israel that are targeted at innocent civilians. Iranian money supports Hezbollah and Hamas both of which have killed countless Israeli women and children. It should also be noted that the suggestion that Israel should be wiped off the map does not indicate a peaceful change of government.
In addition Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stated that Iran’s aim is world dominance. "The era of the Godless regimes, tyranny, and injustice has come to its end. The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the entire world" Ahmadinejad said soon after being elected president in 2005.
Furthermore the holocaust denial by the Iranian president and his government and the silence on the issue by the Mullahs is very significant. There is a twofold outcome to denying the holocaust: Israel as a state is delegitimized and Jews are made to appear as evil and manipulative. Could one think of anything more repugnant then a people making up a story of the death of millions in order to promote their own agenda and to coerce others to follow their wishes? By suggesting that the holocaust is a myth the Iranian regime is painting Jews as intolerably manipulative and evil. This is what the Nazis did in order to legitimize their systematic killing of Jews.
Anyone who thinks that the posturing and incendiary rhetoric of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian regime is benign is not listening carefully. Clearly they are in the process of dehumanizing, delegitimizing Israel in order to justify their intended death strike on Israel. Plainly, however, Israel is only their last stop; a nuclear Iran will be a threat to Israel first, then to the United States and then to the rest of the world.
In Jewish law it states that one must rise first and strike a person who clearly intends to deliver one a fatal blow. This applies on the world stage as well. If at this juncture the USA and the world community does not see Iran as an imminent threat to its own security and is therefore willing to ignore it then Israel has a moral obligation to try deal with it on its own. We Jews paid with the lives of six million of our brothers and sisters last time we waited for the world to step in and save us—this time that type of waiting is not an option.