We shouldn’t be surprised if Bibi Netanyahu doesn’t sleep well these nights. He bears the responsibility to guard the people of Israel against the danger of an Iranian atomic bomb. There are others who share the responsibility with him, but he is the Prime Minister and “the buck stops with him” to paraphrase Pres. Harry Truman’s famous phrase.
We know how other Prime Ministers acted previously. Menachem Begin gave the order to bomb the Osirak Reactor in Baghdad before it “went hot”, to universal international condemnation. Only 10 and more years later did many leaders and countries thank him.
More recently, Ehud Olmert assumedly gave the order to bomb the Syrian Atomic reactor, which was being built from North Korean plans. Imagine an Atom bomb in Bashar Assad’s hands.
The prospect of an Atomic bomb in the hands of the Iranian leaders, who regard Israel as a cancer which must be eliminated and all its Jewish citizens murdered, is even more dangerous than the prior examples. Bibi will not allow it on his watch any more than his predecessors did.
However, he must consider that if Israel attacks Iran’s atomic targets, tens of thousands of missiles and rockets will be fired at Israel’s civilian population, from Dan to Beersheba.
Furthermore, Pres. Obama wants Israel to wait to give sanctions and negotiations a further chance. The “64,000 Question” is “How long is it safe to wait before it will be too late?”
So we can’t blame Bibi for not sleeping well. But in the spirit of Purim, we can paraphrase what Mordechai told Queen Esther, “Who knows if it was not for just such a time that you came to office?” (Esther 4:14)
