Is an Israeli Attack on Iran Inevitable?

Now that it is an election year, President Obama let it be known this week that he is a strong supporter of the state of Israel. Despite this new bromance, he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aren't on the same page as far as the nuclear threat posed by Iran is concerned.

Today's New York Post contained this interesting claim:

The US offered to give Israel advanced weaponry -- including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes -- in exchange for Israel's agreement not to attack Iranian nuclear sites, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Thursday.

President Obama reportedly made the offer during Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week.

Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year. The newspaper cited unnamed Western diplomatic and intelligence sources.

This leak may or may not be just more posturing. Netanyahu said on FNC this week (see video below) that war with Iran is not inevitable. The prime minister added that "The paradox is that if they actually believe that they are going to face the military option, then you probably will not need the military option."

Apartheid in the Middle East

You have to wonder how delusional anti-Israel "activists" function in day-to-day life given their unreal claims that apartheid is in effect in that country.

Yesterday, Michael Rubin posted this at Commentary.com:

According to this report in USA Today, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative in Washington has declared there will be no place in any future Palestinian state for Jews. There are several ironies.

Turkey and perhaps European countries as well are maybe on the verge of recognizing the first state since Nazi Germany to propose a judenrein policy. There are several ironies: First, Israel, whose Arab Christian and Muslim minorities—perhaps 20 percent of the population—have full rights, but is lambasted by the cocktail set as racist. Second, when the Netanyahu government proposed recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, many diplomats—including those in the State Department—balked. But to propose a Jew-free state? That’s okay.

Back on August 30, Dennis Prager (at National Review Online) rejected the apartheid comparisons:

One and a half million Arabs live in Israel, constituting about 20 percent of the country’s population. They have the same rights as all other Israeli citizens. They can vote, and they do. They can serve in the Israeli parliament, and they do. They can own property, businesses, and work in professions alongside other Israelis, and they do. They can be judges, and they are. Here’s one telling example: It was an Arab judge on Israel’s supreme court who sentenced the former president of Israel, a Jew, to jail on a rape charge...

Arabs in Israel live freer lives than Arabs living anywhere in the Arab world. No Arab in any Arab country has the civil rights and personal liberty that Arabs in Israel have...

So, then, why is Israel called an apartheid state?Because by comparing the freest, most equitable country in the Middle East to the former South Africa, those who seek Israel’s demise hope they can persuade uninformed people that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist just as apartheid South Africa didn’t deserve to exist.