Israel-Iran Conflict: Can it End Well?

The blank page I face contains a hidden minefield. Any misstep and I will lose a limb and possibly my life; that’s a hyperbolic metaphor. As a Jewish person intending to write about the Middle East, though, that’s how I feel. When I describe myself as Jewish, I acknowledge the trope I’ve heard since childhood (not dissimilar to “the talk” black parents have with their children about how to behave with police): “It doesn’t matter that you call yourself American, that you don’t go to synagogue, even if you’re an atheist. When they knock on your door, you’re Jewish.” They mean the Gestapo or the KKK, or an anti-Semite toting a gun.

Before even mentioning the atrocities committed by Hamas on Israelis on October 7, 2023, I must condemn Israel for their treatment of Palestinians both before October 7 and since. While Palestinians affiliated with Hamas and other terrorist groups committed war crimes that day, Israelis have committed war crimes on a far greater scale since then. 

I won’t discuss or assign where most of the blame may lie on either side in this conflict that has been going on since long before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. There are many books that do that, some biased toward one side, some the other, and some perhaps objective. You should seek out all three kinds to understand “where people are coming from” and why they have never been able to come to a permanent solution to how to live together in peace.

Today, I write to comment on Israel’s current battle with Iran. But first, caveats and disclosures.

For most, my last name already identifies me as Jewish. I was raised in a “Reform” (liberal) Jewish family, parents 2nd generation Americans whose parents, my grandparents, had all immigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 1800’s. I’m the only one of 4 siblings who does not practice the Jewish religion and am married to someone raised Christian. I have an older brother who lives in Jerusalem and has children and grandchildren all over Israel (where he works on joint Jewish/Arab community projects). Another brother’s wife has relatives in Israel. I have visited Israel a few times.

I am disgusted with the Israeli government because of the corruption of its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who in order to hold on to power as Prime Minister, has allied himself to the most odious right-wing warmongers who promote the view that Israel has the right to occupy, if not annex, all the disputed lands “between the river and the sea,” a phrase that refers to all the land that Palestinians nominally control in the West Bank, plus Gaza and the territorial boundaries of Israel. I am disgusted with the behavior of the Israeli army. I thought they went out of their way to act humanely in battle in the past. Now they seem to kill indiscriminately, only give lip service to investigations, withhold food or make it too dangerous to get the aid. In the West Bank, soldiers act as a protection force for Israeli squatters (settlers) and watch passively when settlers bully, harass and try to drive out local Arabs. 

But one must also acknowledge the role of Iran in bringing us to this point today. There would probably not have been an October 7 without Iran’s support for Hamas (with complicity from Qatar and Netanyahu, who let Qatar funnel millions to Gaza, to prevent the Palestinian Authority, which recognizes Israel, from getting stronger it has been reported). Much as I despise Netanyahu, I understand his goal to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat and weaken or destroy its other proxy militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. 

Don’t get me started on Trump. He is such a wild card and loose cannon who acts impulsively and chaotically, that I find it nearly impossible to imagine there can be a positive outcome to any global undertaking he is involved in. There was a perhaps imperfect program to monitor and stifle any Iranian nuclear ambitions when Trump took office in 2017 that he pulled out of. Since then, Iran enriched enough uranium to levels approaching what’s needed for up to eight bombs according to experts, despite continuing to claim they have no ambition to build one. 

Trump started negotiations to reinstitute an agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue recently, but he demands that Iran depend on other countries to provide enriched uranium for power plant and medical uses. Iran says the ability to enrich for peaceful means is a country’s right. As it became clear to Trump at the end of a 60 day time limit he’d previously set for Iran to agree to his terms, in my opinion, he green lighted this attack on Iran by Netanyahu in the indirect way he does, to paraphrase, “seems like they don’t want to give up their enrichment program. It would be a shame if someone attacked and destroyed most of it.” Plausible deniability. Just a coincidence that he pulled diplomats out of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries just before the attack. It’s been reported he nixed the targeting of Supreme Leader Khamenei. If that’s true, he obviously knew about the attack and had some control beforehand. The latest news as I write, is that he’s saying “We have complete control of the skies over Tehran,” the words of a man who is “in the fight.”

Israel’s attacks will not end Iran’s nuclear program without American “bunker buster” bombs or a ground operation to destroy an underground enrichment facility. Even if Trump would provide the 30,000 lb. bombs, what is to stop Iran from starting from scratch and be close to having a bomb in a few years? After being humbled in these attacks, lacking the backing of Hamas and Hezbollah, who have been seriously weakened by recent Israeli military actions, and having had their air defenses destroyed, will Iran sit down to negotiate a permanent solution to get out from under international sanctions? Essentially, will they stop calling for and working toward the total destruction of Israel?

If the answer is yes, much as I hate to admit it, I would have to credit Netanyahu and Trump. If the answer is no, will this become another grinding war? Will Russia, China, and/or North Korea come to Iran’s aid and bring us to the brink of another World War? Contemplate that.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston. 

Have We No Sense of Decency?

The United States is schizophrenic. Okay, maybe it just has what used to be called a split personality. In recent years this condition has been reduced to the words Red and Blue. Since I identify as Blue, anything I say about the Red side is suspect. Probably, however, since most of my friends and relatives are Blue, I am just preaching to the choir. 

On one side we have those who want low taxes for all including the super rich, less government regulation, strong borders and limited immigration, free and unlimited access to guns, lower spending on all social programs: health care, education, transportation, scientific research, and greater spending on the military along with a generally more robust interventionist foreign policy.

On the other side, the opposite.

On both sides we have a culture of fear and distrust of government, except when the government is in the control of their side, and even then, there is a growing percentage who distrust government regardless of which side has control. Many Americans identify with groups whose goal seems to be to destroy or dismantle most of the functions of government such as the Tea Party, Patriot Movement, and Libertarians. I couldn’t find evidence of an organized leftist group that wants to destroy the government, but those on the Red side see programs such as the Affordable Care Act and efforts at Immigration Reform and gun control as the destruction of the “American Way of Life.” 

Increasingly, therefore, there is a feeling that the other side is “Anti-American” or at least acting in ways that are counter to established American values.

And that’s how I’ve felt since the anti-Syrian, anti Immigrant response to the Paris attacks from Red state governors and congressmen. 

I am ashamed of the news coming out of the United States regarding these issues. It boggles my mind that over half the states’ governors have requested that Syrian refugees be kept out of their states. It drives me crazy to hear supposedly serious candidates for president proclaim that no amount of vetting could be adequate to verify that a Syrian refugee is not coming here to cause us harm. 

There oughta’ be a law (I’m not serious) against that kind of fear mongering. I wonder when the harassment and discrimination, possibly worse, of Syrians and other immigrants or even long time citizens who may look less than white or vaguely Arab will begin.

I shouldn’t be surprised after the fear and panic some of these same so-called leaders encouraged in the face of the outbreak of Ebola in Africa. Remember the hysterical declarations and efforts to keep people from any of the affected countries from coming here? Where are the outbreaks they predicted?

The fact is that anyone can become radicalized and become a terrorist in this age of social media and slick recruiting videos. Putting refugees of war in camps and refusing to integrate them into any kind of society or allow them any opportunity to have a decent life is a recipe for creating terrorists. 

To paraphrase Jack Welch to Anti-Communist crusader Senator Joe McCarthy when he was using a Senate investigative committee to accuse them, costing many their jobs and reputations, “Have you, at long last, sir, no sense of decency?” Have we, as Americans, no sense of decency? Are we so afraid that our only response to tragedy is an impulse to send troops, to send bombers, to seal our borders? 

What have we Learned Since September 11, 2001

On the Monday following September 11, 2014, I visited what used to be called "Ground Zero", and now is called the 9-11 Memorial and Museum. In 2001, I was in New York during the Christmas break and made my way down to the smoking remains of the twin towers. I smelled the acrid air; I saw the fences around St. Paul's Chapel covered with photos, flowers, missing persons signs--the jutting remains of the iron skeleton like a massive tombstone. Like almost all Americans, I felt anger, sadness, and a sense of wonder and confusion about the vulnerability we had to acknowledge our way of life allowed. I also tussled with the question so many asked, "Why do they (so many in the Muslim world) hate us?" knowing that it was wrapped up in our support of Israel (a country that I support while not agreeing with all of its policies), our support of Arab dictators who kept our oil supply flowing, our way of life, so enticing and yet so evil in the eyes of all religious fundamentalists – not just Muslim.  How would we balance freedom and security?

I understood and supported our attack on Afghanistan, as did many of our allies who sent troops or other resources. After all, the Taliban government there was supporting and protecting our attacker, Al Qaida, which threatened many civilized nations. I did not realize, however, that our attack would mean we would spend more than a decade fighting there. By the time the Bush administration was gearing up to go to war in Iraq, I was highly suspicious of the motives and veracity of the Bush administration’s claims. I couldn't help but agree that Sadaam Hussein was a vicious tyrant, but should the United States be in the business of going to war, preemptively, to remove every dictator who might pose a threat to us?

Coming up out of the subway thirteen years later our troops are still in Afghanistan and the possibility exists that when these troops leave, the Taliban or a corrupt dictator will return to power there. And with President Obama announcing a new campaign against ISIS, a vicious extremist group now establishing a terrorist stronghold straddling Iraq and Syria, I was moved to ask myself what we have learned.

Most of us have learned that we shouldn’t invade every country with terrorists or leaders who may pose a threat. We might be able to invade and conquer, but then we end up having to support them: “You break it, you bought it,” General Colin Powell warned before we went into Iraq.  And our ability to win hearts and minds after destroying a country is limited. Our ability to help countries solve centuries old tribal and sectarian grievances is also limited.

President Obama tells us he’s learned that we can and must fight and destroy terrorist networks that threaten us wherever they are in the world. But we’ve learned that the job of distinguishing between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” is not so easy. Actually, it never has been. Ronald Reagan helped strengthen Al Qaida by supporting the Afghani “freedom fighters” who drove out the Soviet Union. We supported and armed Sadaam Hussein in his wars against Iran. The elected leader of Iraq, Nouri al Maliki, a Shiite, sowed the seeds of ISIS success there by marginalizing and discriminating against Iraq’s Sunnis.

Americans want their president to be tough and strong in response to threats. Everyone recognized ISIS was dangerous, but the beheading of two American journalists made them our enemies: mass murders, rapes, stonings, kidnappings, and various other war crimes against Syrians and Iraqis were not enough for most of us to want to take action. But fighting them in Syria is likely to help the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad. Some fear we will end up with “boots on the ground,” and some think we should send troops now.

Before 9/11/2001, I, and most Americans, did not know the words Sunni and Shiite. We did know that Iran was Shiite, that there was a Shiite majority in Iraq ruled by an elitist and often brutal Sunni majority led by Sadaam Hussein, that the Saudis protected, funded, and exported an extremist Islamic group called Wahhabis, who had spawned Osama Bin Laden. And not knowing all that, many of us believed the fantasies that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spun that establishing democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan would be as simple as scheduling an election. And when the Arab Spring began, we allowed ourselves to believe that democracies were bound to flower when dictators were forced aside through mass demonstrations.

We have learned that the world is much more complicated and much less predictable than we wish it were. Too many of us yearn for the simplicity of the black and white world Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush painted. We don’t like the honesty in the shades of grey that Obama has acknowledged is what exists. But in the long run, and it appears that it will be a long run, acknowledging those shades of grey may save us red (blood) and green (treasure).

So what was it like to visit the 9-11 Museum and Memorial? The Memorial on the plaza above the museum is a peaceful shrine, the names of the dead engraved in marble bannisters surrounding waterfalls endlessly pouring into the deep holes of the footprints of the twin towers. The museum is a testimonial and a history, a reminder for those of us who lived through this time, a chance for those who didn’t to get a sense of what those who did saw and heard that day and in the days following. I won’t say you must go, for some it may prove too difficult to relive those times, but having visited, I am reminded that war is traumatic in a way that newspapers and TV can’t convey. We experienced an act of war on our soil in 2001 that killed almost 3,000 innocent Americans, setting us on a path to actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and now Syria. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed or wounded at the hands of our military and at the hands of those fighting us or each other.  The fact that we try not to kill innocents does not seem to count for much. Beautiful memorials and expensive museums will probably not be built for them. But the memories of our role will not be easily forgotten.

a shortened version of this essay was published in the Charleston Gazette on Oct. 15, 2014: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141015/ARTICLE/141019604/1134