Asked by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria whether former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton’s recent assessment that Israel would attack Iran before the end of the year was accurate, Oren replied, “I don’t think it’s true, I think that we are far from even contemplating such things right now.” He added that “the government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran.” – Jerusalem Post
The sound bite making news in Israel is about Iran, as usual. But that’s not what caught my attention.
Fareed Zakaria on his show GPS pushed the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, as far as any U.S. journalist has recently gone on Israel’s nuclear issue. That is, that Israel talks about disarming Iran while they remain a nuclear power without ever being challenged on their own weaponry or nuclear arsenal. It’s something we’ve talked about around here many times. Stunning interview, as these things go in the U.S.
Zakaria pushed Oren on the wording “introduce” until the Israeli ambassador finally put a clarifying “deploy” into the mix. It was a back and forth of tenacious plodding within a short few minutes that yielded something significant, at least in the scheme of an Israeli official talking about their nuclear capacity.
FAREED ZAKARIA: If you don’t believe you can deter a country, why did you build 250 nuclear weapons yourself?
MICHAEL OREN: Israel’s position is that Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weaponry in the Middle East. Stand by that position.
FZ: Wait, let me be clear. Are you denying that Israel has nuclear weapons?
MO: I’m saying that Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weaponry into the Middle East.
FZ: When you say “introduce,” you mean use.
MO: I mean introduce.
FZ: “Introduce” means actually have them.
MO: To “introduce.”
FZ: All right, so… But the common sense understanding of that word is that Israel does not have nuclear weapons.
MO: The idea is that Israel will not be the first to introduce, deploy nuclear weaponry in the Middle East.
At this moment Zakaria paused, then started to formulate another question, but Oren laughed uncomfortably at first, asking something close to, you want to spend more time on this, “I’d be happy to… Fareed, it’s your program,” at the end laughing fully. But Zakaria got the last word by adding, “There are books on the subject by Israeli scholars that suggest otherwise.”
Sort of a rhetorical cat and mouse between respected friends; one trying to get Israel on the record, while the other tried not to give ground. In the end, Oren did just that, moving from “introduce” to “deploy.”
Oren then continued, “This has been Israel’s policy since the 1950s, by the way. Goes back to 1958 and Israel maintains that policy to this day.”
Close folowers of the Middle East will understand Zakaria’s efforts and appreciate them, as we wait and wait for something to happen on actually solidifying equilibrium, though few are paying attention to this right now.
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