By Danny Danon

 

For more than a decade , Israeli leaders have consistently, and repeatedly, warned anyone who would listen about the dangers of a nuclear Iranian regime. Ironically, however, these warnings have seriously impeded our ability to employ military might to defend our country.

In recent years, we have forgotten the maxim "speak softly and carry a big stick." Thankfully, Israel possesses the biggest "stick" in the Middle East — the Israel Defense Forces. But we have warned too much, and put too much stake in possible action from our friends and allies around the world. History has taught us that it is best not to telegraph our plans, especially if we plan on using military action when necessary to protect the citizens of Israel.

Despite our message, endlessly bombarded around the world, that the Western world should be extremely alarmed by the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and despite the shifting political scenery in the region, Iran's ambitions have remained the same. It is now obvious to all that the Iranian leadership harbors dreams of grandeur and hopes to revisit the glory days of thePersian Empire— this time as a world-dominating nuclear power.

But the world has refused to take meaningful action. Efforts to date by the international community to stop or slow the development of this program have not achieved the desired results. The so-called crippling sanctions have barely inflicted a paper cut on the ayatollahs, and the famous Stuxnet computer virus that might or might not have originated in Israel, along with a similar virus that is said to have struck Iran in November, have only mildly succeeded in setting back Iran's sinister ambitions.

The good news is that this is not the first time Israel has had to deal with a nuclear threat, and an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would not be the first time the IDF was called to neutralize an enemy nuclear program. In 1981, the air force successfully destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. In 2007, foreign reports claimed that our pilots destroyed a similar facility in al-Kibar, Syria.

If an Israeli strike on Iran does occur, there will, of course, be many differences compared with Israel's previous military actions against nuclear facilities in our region. Both the IDF and the Israeli government will need to make sure that the army and home front are well prepared for all the possible scenarios before deciding on such an operation.

Still, it is possible that the most consequential difference between a strike on Iran and the operations on Osirak and al-Kibar will be the absence of the element of surprise. Both these earlier attacks were carried out in complete secrecy and came as an absolute shock to the target. There were no TV news headlines on the topic in the months leading up to the attack, and you did not read newspaper articles about U.N. consultations on possible sanctions and International Atomic Energy Agency reports. Government officials understood that complete news media silence on the matter was essential to the success of those operations, and they considered their silence a matter of national security.

This is a far cry from what we are seeing today. Each morning's newspaper and evening's news broadcast are full of officials and pundits discussing every possible detail of a hypothetical attack — from what type of ammunition the IDF might use to the number of casualties our home front will need to endure. Though we cannot blame the news media for reporting freely in a democracy, many of our appointed officials seem to have lost all sense of responsibility and are unwittingly hampering our ability to act, if needed.

It is vitally important that we understand that the more we talk about Iran, the less room we have for acting against Iran. Perhaps we need to take President Teddy Roosevelt's advice one step further in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat. It would be wise for our leaders to barely speak at all, while at the same time preparing to use the "big stick" of the Israel Defense Forces.

 

MK Danny Danon announced Monday that he would run against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for chairmanship of the Likud Electoral Committee. Danon said that he felt it was necessary for a member of the right wing of the party to stand against Netanyahu, whom he said was too easily swayed to the left.

“I will not allow the party to give Ehud Barak a guaranteed spot in the Likud Knesset list, and I will not let the Likud slip to the left,” Danon said. “As head of the Committee, which sets policy for the party, I will remain true to the Likud's true platform and values – not to the values of Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan,” two influential Likud members who do not represent the party's traditional values, he said.

Danon said he has been preparing his campaign for several months. His main purpose, Danon said, was to ensure that the Likud remains true to its right wing legacy and to prevent “slippage” towards left-wing positions, which Netanyahu has undertaken apparently as a means of attracting the left into his coalition. Such “slippage” is a guarantee that the Likud will lose votes in the general election, Damon said. “It is our nationalistic agenda that unifies us as a party, and this must be preserved, in order to succeed at the polls. This agenda must be preserved at all costs,” he added.

During a Likud faction meeting Monday, Netanyahu announced that he, too, would run for the spot. Netanyahu said that he was seeking to ensure that the new party structure remained, with decisions of the Committee remaining predominant in the structure of the party's decision making process.

Commenting on Netanyahu's decision to run, Danon said that “I am running to preserve the party's ideology and protect it from a leftist agenda. An ideological Likud is a strong Likud,” he added.

The Knesset has developed into a firm purveyor of the democratic values that reflect our country’s character. 

This week the parliament of the renascent State of Israel marked its 63rd anniversary. I was awestruck by the 4,000 visitors we had that day, youngsters, observant and nonobservant, Jews and Arabs – all proudly engaged in their inspection of our nation’s democracy at work.

Even as the Knesset is routinely ridiculed by eager critics, I firmly believe all Israelis and friends of Israel around the globe can continue to look to our legislature with abiding pride and respect.

As an insider, an MK and Deputy Speaker, not a day passes in which I do not hear the constant rhetorical drumbeat that members of Knesset have abandoned their commitment to the values upon which the institution is based. Such arguments are largely based on misinformation, or more often a dislike for the sitting government and the parties in the majority. It is imperative that we remind ourselves that in Israel, unlike most in other nations in the region, the parliament is elected by the people in free and open elections.

The positions voiced in the Knesset reflect the electorate which places us there. The views which we advocate are not ours alone but are rather based on party platforms and promises that we presented as our contract with the voters. As in other Western parliaments, the legislative process in Israel employs a healthy system of checks and balances wherein every Knesset member is able to voice his or her opinion, within the confines of the law.

Critics of a specific member of Knesset would therefore be wise to remember that our actions are not tied to our individual personalities but are rather an honest reflection of what we have been elected to do.

Recently, I and many of my colleagues have been nastily labeled undemocratic. As a long-time observer of this body, I respectfully suggest that today’s Knesset is more democratic, more transparent and in fact more effective than during any other period I can remember.

Case in point: Last year, I proposed that the foreign funding of NGOs should be thoroughly investigated by a parliamentary commission so as to determine their origins and motives and assess the potential harm which such funding could cause to our national well-being. I also proposed a bill mandating that Israeli organizations and individuals who support boycotts against Israel should be subject to civil penalties that could be imposed in an Israeli court of law.