Lying at death’s door

The Iran deal puts Jews at risk for a second genocide and there is no doubt that Israel will find a way to secure the Jewish future. The West, however, is a different matter.

By JEROME VITENBERG
Benjamin Netanyahu (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Benjamin Netanyahu
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The Iran deal is saturated with the poisonous stench of the impending death of the West.
In exchange for potential financial largesse, that same “West,” led by Barack Obama’s White House, has gambled with our security and put at risk our most cherished values, such as liberty and democracy.
Worse yet, the vile emanations from this deal include more than a whiff of anti-Semitism. As history has proven, the smell of anti-Semitism is just the gateway to ethical indifference and moral relativism in international affairs, qualities which have already deformed much of the domestic agenda of the Obama White House.
It wasn’t long ago that America’s foreign policy was guided by high principles of dignity and morality, driven by ideals of containment and democratization. Back then, Washington addressed the world in clear and explicit language, expressing its utter disdain for an expanding axis of evil and presenting – in word and in deed – its determination to defeat openly anti-Western tyrannical regimes, replacing oppression with hope and succor for the suffering people of the region.
At that time, one could not imagine that within a few short years, the West would adopt today’s policy of appeasement toward the Iranian dictatorship, expressed by the Iran deal.
Sadly, this policy has all but ruined the courageous decision taken by the American people in 2008 – electing the first African-American to the Oval Office. From the comfort of his seat there, Obama has now squandered all of his moral and political capital, abandoning the progressive meaning of his 2008 victory by marching America and the West backwards toward 1938, when Neville Chamberlain sacrificed Czechoslovakia on the altar of Hitler’s totalitarian dictatorship.
The people of Czechoslovakia were not the main targets of Hitler’s murderous intentions. The Jews were. And that fact makes the Iran deal even more worrisome. The mad mullahs of Tehran make no secret of their desire to rid the world of the Jewish state, whatever the “collateral” damage which might ensue from a response to a nuclear attack against Israel.
Unfortunately, the Obama White House and the Kerry State Department are deaf to this matter. Instead of recognizing that the Iran deal jeopardizes the State of Israel and the world, the current administration in Washington mocks these concerns, choosing to combat them with what has been described as “anti-Semitic dog whistling.”
Recently, the dark shadow of “dual loyalty” has been allowed to sully the good names of US senators and congressmen who come from a Jewish background and oppose the Iran deal. American Jewish defense organizations have been blackened by the soot which emanates from this charge. Their lobbyists – all of whom are US citizens – have been portrayed as “foreign agents” pursuing a pro-Israel agenda even if it comes at a price to the foreign policy interests of the United States. Worse yet, they have been charged with favoring the use of American troops – sacrificing the lives of American boys and girls – for the sake of Israel.
It is almost as if the Obama administration has lifted its talking points in support of the Iran deal from the nefarious work of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
Furthermore, in an attempt to sway some of the Jewish opponents of the Iran deal, Secretary of State John Kerry has asserted, with great malice, that voting against the deal will lead to the fall of the US dollar.
Following Obama’s mention of the “power of people with money,” those associations between the Jewish people and money are worryingly similar to the craziest anti-Semite stereotypes circulating today in the world.
Ultimately, Israel will not be deterred by anti-Semitic dog whistling.
The Iran deal puts Jews at risk for a second genocide and there is no doubt that Israel will find a way to secure the Jewish future. The West, however, is a different matter.
The appeasers in Washington have led it to death’s door, where it lies in excruciating agony. At this point, it seems that only the US Congress can revive it.
Hanging in the balance is nothing less than the future of Western civilization.
The author is a Franco-Israeli international political analyst specialized in Middle East affairs.