Stand for Israel

Rabbi’s Message – Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution demanding that Iran cease production on a uranium enrichment plant it had hidden for years. Iran announced its response this week: Not only is it not going to stop production, the Islamic Republic said it now plans to build ten more enrichment sites.

Now that is what we here in Israel call chutzpah.

Iran has again made clear just how much it cares about the world community’s demands that it end its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons: It doesn’t care a whit.

This latest “in your face” move is just another in a long series of provocations. For years, acting at the behest of the UN and a strong world-wide consensus, various international regulatory agencies have sought to monitor and stop the Iranian pursuit of nuclear technology. And yet Iran has continued—openly in violation of international law and the will of the international community.

One cannot help but wonder what the world’s reaction would be if Israel were to respond in the Iranian manner. The Obama administration recently criticized Israel for building some apartment buildings in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which it labeled a “settlement.” Imagine the world’s reaction if Israel’s response had been “Not only are we building those apartment buildings, but we’re now going to build ten times as many!”

The mind reels.

Of course, Iran has claimed that it intends to use nuclear technology for peaceful means, not for weaponry. But not even the notoriously naive “world community” believes that.

The world indeed has an obligation to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands. Iran’s mullahs regularly issue shockingly menacing statements against Israel and the West, and there is little reason to expect that they’d refrain from using nuclear weapons to make good on those threats.

And yet, in sharp contrast to the responses we can imagine if Israel were to make the parallel statement above, world leaders’ reactions to Iranian insolence was predictably timid. Russian officials revealed that they were “seriously concerned.” A White House spokesman said that the statement was “another example of Iran choosing to…