A Middle Eastern Apocalypse in the Offing?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Things have been going from bad to worse in the Middle East, as Israel and its neighbours feel ever more frustrated at their inability to craft a permanent peace – or even a tolerable level of co-existence – with each other.

Most worrisome, of course, is the growing power of Iran, a state that not only funds and arms groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, but is clearly working towards acquiring nuclear weapons.

The Iranian regime makes no bones about wanting to wipe Israel off the map, nor should we assume this is hyperbole. They mean what they say.

It is very likely that, should Israel determine that Iran has developed – and intends to use – such weapons against the Jewish state, Jerusalem will launch a pre-emptive strike against the Islamic Republic.

After all, even one or two nuclear missiles launched at Israel, a tiny country with most of its population centered in a narrow coastal strip around Tel Aviv, would destroy the state.

The one thing Israel’s leaders will do all they can to prevent, no matter what their politics, is the end of Jewish sovereignty in the land. They have all made this very clear in the country’s current election campaign.

However, even if Israel struck first, Iran might by then already have acquired second-strike capability, and still deliver a devastating blow.

It might mean the end of the Jewish state, but at that point, like the Biblical account of Samson bringing down the Philistines’ temple in Gaza, my guess is that Israel would launch what was left of its nuclear arsenal at all of the major capitals and holy sites in the region.

Such a massive conflagration might even extend eastwards, given the religious and cultural dimension, and bring in two other nuclear powers long as odds with each other, India and Pakistan.

This would truly be a modern Armageddon and we must do all we can to prevent such a cataclysm. But in the capitals of the world, people far wiser than I are perplexed and seem unable to stop this march towards catastrophe.