This Die Welt interview with Netanyahu conducted on Holocaust Memorial Day (of all days) is astounding for various reasons:
- Netanyahu compares Günter Grass to a “teenager in a Neo-Nazi party” for calling for inspections of Israel’s nuclear weapons in the poem “What Must Be Said.”
- Netanyahu cements the Nazi-Iran analogy in front of a German audience.
- Netanyahu misses any sense of perspective as he makes the jump from the Jewish people in WWII to the nuclear-armed Jewish state, speaking of the “power inversions” Grass makes in his poem when he supposedly conflates aggressors with victims, while completely ignoring the power inversion Netanyahu himself has just made in the analogy with the Holocaust.
- And finally Netanyahu quotes Bernard Lewis, saying he thinks that in Iran’s mind, “mutually assured destruction is not deterrence but an inducement.” Netanyahu also exclaims, “This is not true!” when the interview begins a question saying, “Iran might be a vile regime but it hasn’t proven to be a suicidal regime…”
I can accept some arguments in favor of the hypothetical of striking Iran’s nuclear weapons program (for example, that Iran’s mere possession of nuclear weapons will remove constraints on Iran, which will respond by increasing its support of and the violence perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, and terrorist and US interests-undermining and state-subverting activities in Iraq and Afghanistan).
But Netanyahu is not making those arguments. Netanyahu is making bad arguments that push the “jihad” mindset onto a nation-state that is interested in expanding its power and influence and preserving its existence like any other state.