Israel and the Lessons of Vienna and Ukraine

Ukraine now is fighting, outgunned and outmanned, for its survival as an independent nation. True, it now has weapons pouring in from the U.S., Germany, the UK, and a dozen other countries. But why were those weapons not delivered in early December, when Russia had already mobilized more than 150,000 troops (that number has since risen to 190,000) and placed them, ready to invade, on its border with eastern Ukraine? Everyone knew why those lines of tanks were there, poised to enter “brotherly Ukraine.” That was the right moment when the Americans, taking the lead, ought to have supplied the weapons that Ukraine needed the most – Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger surface-to-air missiles, mines, drones — and the training its soldiers needed to use them properly, so that they would be ready to stop the Russians coming in from the east, and from Belarus in the north, and then from Crimea in the south.

But the Bidenites dithered. They apparently didn’t want, so we are told, to “upset Putin.” 150,000 Russian troops in tanks on the border with Ukraine suggest that Putin was already quite upset. The dithering continued until the Russians crossed into Ukraine on February 24. Then the Americans, the British, the Germans, came through with weapons in a major way, while the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Czechs, the Romanians, the Italians, the Canadians, the Norwegians, the Portuguese, the Croatians, the Slovenians, and even the famously neutral Swiss supplied lesser amounts of weaponry. But what a difference it would have made if all those weapons had been delivered at the beginning of December rather than the beginning of March.

A report by Israel’s former U.N. ambassador Danny Danon on the lesson Israel should learn, once and for all, from the example of Ukraine, is here: “Believing the Threats of Our Enemies More Than the Promises of Our Allies,” JNS, March 4, 2022:

“Promise me, Danny, that you will always believe more in the threats of our enemies than in the promises of our allies.” Those were the words of the late Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel as he held my hands tightly at one of my final meetings with him in my role as Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations.

The very tragic situation in which Ukraine finds itself must be a lesson to all of us, and for Israel, above all. I took on board Elie’s comment then, and I believe him more than ever now. Assurances from the international community that can be ignored with no consequences are not assurances at all. Resolutions mean nothing if they are not followed up with action.

Israel has sadly had no choice but to learn such lessons from its own history. When Arab armies attacked Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War to destroy the Jewish state, the United Nations—the apparent guarantors of the peace—fled its peacekeeping role in the Sinai Desert and enabled the Egyptian army to advance.

As soon as Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, demanded in mid-May of 1967 that the U.N. remove its peacekeeping troops from the Sinai, the U.N.’s Secretary-General, U Thant, complied, and Nasser then moved tens of thousands of soldiers into the northern Sinai. Israel waited for the U.S., the U.K., and France, to enforce the freedom of navigation in the Straits of Tiran, on Israel’s Red Sea route to Asia, which Nasser was attempting to blockade. But none of those guarantors of Israeli shipping In the Red Sea were willing to take any action to keep the Straits of Tiran open. As Nasser’s noose tightened, with more troops sent into the Sinai, Israel did not wait any longer for its “allies” to act, but let its air force unleash a lightening strike that obliterated Egypt’s air force, won the war, and saved the people of Israel.

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel, the United States withheld weapons from Israel for many excruciating days, holding out for diplomacy that would never come. It thus prevented Israel from defending itself effectively, resulting in a devastating loss of life. And just last May, when Hamas in the Gaza Strip launched more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli population centers, the United States and the international community called for a diplomatic solution and berated Israel for defending itself.

As Israel tried to fend off the Egyptians and Syrians, who had launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur in 1973, it was running out of weapons, including ammunition, from its friend and ally, the U.S. But the U.S., with Secretary of State Kissinger calling the shots, delayed sending the aid, in order, it was said, to make Israel more willing to compromise in future negotiations with the Arabs.

And when Hamas began lobbing hundreds of rockets into Israel on May 10, and Israel launched Operation Guardian of the Walls, the U.S. and other nations urged Israel to instead seek a diplomatic solution. How Israel was supposed to do this, while Hamas was sending more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli cities, remains unclear. Of course, those who counseled Israel to “rely on diplomacy” could afford to do so; it was not their citizens who were being attacked.

Yet Israel’s short history has seen isolated cases of precisely the opposite. These bold and decisive actions have served Israelis well. In June 1981, at the behest of then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Israel conducted “Operation Opera” in Osirak, Iraq, and destroyed the country’s unfinished nuclear reactor.

This reactor had caused great concern for Israel when it was initially purchased in 1976 under the guise of research. Israel did not buy that particular shpiel and believed that it was designed to be used in order to escalate the Arab-Israel conflict. With less than a month before it was reportedly said to go active, Israel bombed the reactor as an act of pre-emptive self-defense.

At the time, immediate and unanimous condemnation came from the world over—in the halls of the United Nations, from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and from the United States, which under the Reagan government temporarily suspended delivery of aircraft to Israel. An excerpt from former President Ronald Reagan’s diary questioned why Israel had not approached him first.

The response from Begin would, I believe, have been immediate and clear; a diplomatic solution would have been proposed, not the required action, and by then, it may have been too late for Israel. A decade later, in 1991, the Gulf War began, and soon afterwards, Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles. At this point, almost the entire Israeli Knesset—100 out of 120 members—signed a letter of appreciation thanking Begin for his foresight in ordering the attack on Osirak and recognizing the momentous decision for which he was viciously attacked at the time.

In 1981, Prime Minister Begin ignored what he knew would be universal condemnation, and in Operation Opera sent Israeli planes to destroy Iraq’s Osirak Reactor, a month before it was to go online. The condemnations came fast and furious; even President Reagan, known for his pro-Israel attitude, temporarily halted the delivery of planes to Israel. But Israel, and the world, were spared a nuclear-armed Iraq ruled by Saddam Hussein. It’s not hard to imagine what Saddam could have done with such weapons in 1991, when he invaded Kuwait, to fend off the Americans who had arrived to push the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait. Begin, fortunately, had thought only of Israel’s security, and not of the disapproval of allies.

Decades later, in 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered a similar attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor. This time, in contrast to Begin, Olmert took the steps to apprise President George W. Bush of Israel’s concern over the site and requested advance American support and assistance.

Predictably, the United States decided upon a diplomatic course and confirmed [sic] that no action would be taken. Instead, they proposed a joint press conference with Olmert and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to highlight the dangers of the reactor to the world. Olmert promptly declined the offer; on the very same day, Israel bombed the reactor. Three hours later, Olmert reported back to the United States on the mission. Bush took it upon himself to thank Olmert for averting what may have become a catastrophic situation had Syria attained nuclear capabilities.

Like Begin, Olmert was not about to be persuaded by the America not to destroy the Syria nuclear reactor. Washington’s promise of an American-Israeli “joint press conference” about the Syrian reactor would only have given the Assad regime plenty of time to surround the reactor with a bristling cordon of surface-to-air missiles and fighter jets. Imagine if the ruthless Assad regime had possessed a nuclear weapon when the country’s civil war broke out in 2011. In bombing the reactor, Israel again saved not only itself, but many others as well.

“Fast-forward to 2022, as the international community (with indirect US participation) continues to push diplomacy with Iran. Talks in Vienna on rejoining the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the Trump administration withdrew from in 2018, are still absurdly going on with the involved parties seemingly desperate to reach an illogical deal, no matter the cost or potential consequences.

“In fact, in recent months, the United States took the steps of appeasing Iran by lifting some sanctions, in addition to $29 million in frozen assets,without asking anything from Iran In return. .This for a country that burns American and Israeli flags; preaches hatred towards the West; and even refuses to meet or negotiate with the United States. Such appeasement not only indicates weakness to Iranian ayatollahs; it emboldens them.

Appeasement is exactly the right word to describe the negotiating stance of Robert Malley, whose capitulationist bent caused three senior State Department negotiators to quit the talks in Vienna, in a telling protest against Malley’s performance.

“The JCPOA was a bad deal from the outset. It never addressed Iran’s export of terror throughout the Middle East, nor did it tackle Iran’s research and development of long-range ballistic missiles. Moreover, it gave Iran a 30-day period of grace before inspectors were allowed in the country to examine facilities.

“The deal in the making is even more atrocious. In addition to the now-limited time frame—many of the deal’s clauses expire in just three years—the proposed plan will not allow IAEA inspectors to investigate recently revealed undeclared nuclear sites in Iran. The world’s biggest state sponsor of terror is essentially being given a green light to do what it wants and is not expected to give anything back in return.

“Many of the solutions put forward to Israel by the international community in relation to Iran are made up of similar pledges that have been made to other countries—namely, that Israel’s security will be assured. Should Israel believe such promises? How should Israel respond given the wary international response we have seen in relation to Ukraine?

“The answer is clear. With a country like Iran, which has stated time and again that its goal is to destroy the one Jewish state on the planet, Israel cannot stand back and wait to see if it follows through with its threats. For Israel, the diplomatic “wait and see” approach in relation to Iran is tantamount to extinction. Israel must therefore act preemptively.…

If a country’s leaders say over and over again that they intend to “destroy” or “annihilate” Israel, if that country’s people hold mass rallies year in year out, for forty years, where they scream “death to Israel,” the Israelis had better believe them. When that country is spending vast sums to acquire nuclear weapons, Israel cannot wait until that country reaches its goal. It must do whatever it takes to disrupt that country’s plans, set back its nuclear program, blow up its facilities, and demoralize or kill its nuclear personnel.

That is the moral for Israel from the Ukraine war. It’s a lesson the Jewish state has had to learn and relearn many times before. In 1948, when – despite the recent memory of the Holocaust – there was an embargo placed on weapons for both sides, the British continued to supply weapons to the already well-equipped armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq. In all the world, only Czechoslovakia agreed to sell the Israelis a handful of rickety Avia airplanes. It was the lesson of May 1967, when Israel’s Western friends refused to keep open the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and Israel by itself took on Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. It was the lesson of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when the American government delayed sending urgently-needed weapons to Israel, in order, it was foolishly hoped, to make the Israelis more willing to accept Kissinger’s Middle East policies. It was Israel, acting alone, without either the help or approval of the Americans, who destroyed Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor In 1981. It was Israel, again acting alone, and against American wishes, that pulverized Syria’s nuclear reactor at Deir ez-Zor in 2007. And it is the same now, when the American negotiators In Vienna, led by the unspeakable Robert Malley, have completely ignored Israel’s lucid objections to the deal, a deal so good for Iran and so bad for Israel that, as the Russian negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov said, “Iran got much more than it could expect. Realistically speaking, Iran got more than frankly I expected, others expected.”

When it comes to preventing a nuclear Iran, the Bidenites have made it clear: Israel, you are on your own. That’s the lesson from Vienna.