Samson's Choice

Is this serious? What, another Holocaust? Who the hell is writing this? What an illogical history, a nightmare. And the Air Force commander says: We'll intercept some. Some will get through. I'm sorry. The Arrow 3 system is limited. Let's pray to the Holy One, Blessed be He. And this religious statement from the Air Force commander seems strange to me. But according to protocol, there's no time even to process, let alone pray, but we must decide immediately, and two words appear on the screens

"And the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life" (Source)

I dreamed I was the Prime Minister, and could finally establish during my term the state we had dreamed of and turn it into reality, but with my luck - Iran is just launching a large barrage of nuclear missiles at the central region. And they wake me up and take me almost by force immediately to the nuclear shelter bunker and we descend floor after floor after floor and above us the catastrophe is approaching. And I feel a kind of collapse of consciousness, a gradual but also very rapid sinking, perhaps it's just the speed of the elevator that seems almost like free fall, and only one thought comes to mind, in the tune of a small child who's disappointed: not again.

And the General Staff and the Atomic Energy Committee arrive at almost the same speed as me, and whoever isn't there is immediately brought up on a screen in front of me, according to the rehearsed protocol (yes, one thing works in this country, I'm surprised, only in a total catastrophe does everything suddenly tick like clockwork). And for a moment it seems to me that maybe it's all just a drill, or a prank that got out of hand, and I think: Is this serious? What, another Holocaust? Who the hell is writing this? What an illogical history, a nightmare. And the Air Force commander says: We'll intercept some. Some will get through. I'm sorry. The Arrow 3 system is limited. Let's pray to the Holy One, Blessed be He. And this religious statement from the Air Force commander seems strange to me. But according to protocol, there's no time even to process, let alone pray, but we must decide immediately, and two words appear on the screens: Second Strike.

And the Air Force commander says: Wing Two is ready. We're launching and fueling dozens of Jericho missiles. We have a few minutes before the first bombs land, and it's very likely that some of them are aimed at the Ela Valley base itself, and at the reactor in Dimona. You have a few minutes to give the order - we're waiting. At this moment, the missiles are being programmed with dozens of coordinates across Iran. Tehran will be erased. Also the other main cities. Dams, oil fields, the reactor in Bushehr, everything is targeted. And I look at him in horror and ask: What, what does it mean?

And he looks at me as if I've landed from outer space: Second Strike! It means millions of their dead for millions of our dead (he explains in a matter-of-fact way!), mutual destruction. And my lips tremble: Millions? Isn't one million enough? Isn't a hundred thousand enough? Maybe... And the Air Force commander says: If there are other targets - now is the time to say. There's no time. And I say: Maybe... maybe we should make a more cultural, more symbolic strike? And the Air Force commander says: We also have such a plan, for a comprehensive strike against Islam, in response to the fundamentalist religious motivation, so that this will be the last time someone with religious motivation thinks about a Holocaust (the word came out of his mouth casually, in military jargon, and I shudder). But I emphasize, this is not Option A. The plan includes all the targets sacred to Islam: the Kaaba in Mecca will be completely destroyed and cease to exist - over ten bombs, they will no longer have a pilgrimage, even to the sand that will remain, for hundreds of years there will be lethal radiation. The mosque in Qom and all the holy cities for Shiites will be destroyed. The Temple Mount will be flattened with conventional weapons. And I say: War with Saudi Arabia? With the entire Muslim world forever and ever? Are you crazy? And he says: I think you don't understand the new geopolitical situation. There is no more State of Israel. The only arena left is the historical arena. The Jewish people against all its destroyers throughout the generations. You're thinking about it in too tactical terms. We're talking about strategic weapons, more than strategic, historical weapons. And the words are taken from my mouth. The tactical argument versus the strategic one was supposed to be my argument, wasn't it? I was supposed to tell him that he sees everything through a narrow and shallow military perspective, but now he comes at me with meta-historical depth arguments!

And I say: Listen to what you're saying. Do you think the Jewish people can bear on their shoulders the moral significance of killing millions? Do you understand what you're saying? The meaning of a second strike is the destruction of the Jewish people - more than the first strike. Do you understand that we can survive a second Holocaust, but not causing a Holocaust. There is no Israel, that's it, only American Jewry remains. And I'm about to shout to get me someone immediately, but I don't know who to turn to, the Chief Rabbi? Who here is a moral authority in this country? Even a religious authority? Damn it. My brain is swirling. And I hear myself shouting: Get me Professor Yehuda Bauer immediately!

But the Air Force commander has no intention, and in his eyes also no moral authority, to let go of the discussion. And he raises his voice: Mr. Prime Minister, this is not your personal country, this is a historical decision, will we be like sheep to the slaughter again? If the Jewish people this time does not restore its deterrence against the second Holocaust - there will also be a third and fourth Holocaust. This is our opportunity to say never again. To show that a Holocaust of Jews also leads to a Holocaust of Gentiles. This is the moral thing! You have no authority at all to decide otherwise in the name of millions of murdered. After all the Crusades, the Chmielnicki massacres [Translator's note: A series of mid-17th century massacres against Jews in Ukraine], the pogroms, Holocaust 1+2, this is a one-time opportunity to stop this sequence. There is nothing more moral than the second strike. Do you think they didn't think about this discussion? Why do they dare to do this only to the Jewish people? Because they know what material we're made of, because they know we think we're made of spirit, so the material can be raised in the furnace. Not killing millions of Iranians now means killing many more millions of Jews until the end of history. If we destroy the destroyers once - suddenly no one will talk about our destruction anymore. All relations between us and the Gentiles will be reshaped. We'll show the world that true Jewish morality is actually a second strike, not turning the other cheek. This was the whole project of the State of Israel. The entire burden of the nation is on your shoulders - don't stammer now. And who knows - if we had taken revenge on the Germans in millions and not forgiven them - maybe we wouldn't be here today.

And I say to him: What is this, Abba Kovner? [Translator's note: A Jewish partisan leader who planned revenge against Germans after WWII] So why only the Iranians? Why not show the whole world that we've gone mad, after all, the whole world led to this strategic situation, the whole world stood by during the Holocaust, and stood by now too. From them we should exact the price. How far can your missiles reach? And he says: To any point in our hemisphere, and even beyond. And I say: Cool. So why not target all the cultural capitals of the world? Why not take revenge on Russia, with Moscow and St. Petersburg? And Beijing, do you have the coordinates? All these collaborated with the Iranians. And the Europeans who thwarted attempts at crippling sanctions and NATO action, let's target them too, let them learn. Even Washington, who were quite indifferent. Let them all understand that the Jews are crazy. That if they are destroyed, the whole world will suffer this time. That the revenge will be global. If we're already going for the Masada option and grand finale of the Jewish story, then we might as well go big. Let them all understand that if Jews are slaughtered - everyone is slaughtered. That you can't just sit quietly on the side and tut-tut every time, as they've become accustomed to, in every genocide. We'll create a new balance of deterrence between injustices and the world. And we'll make a proper nuclear winter. So that at least from the perspective of Earth and global warming and animals we'll come out right. And maybe one day it will turn out that the Jews did this planet a favor.

But it seems they're no longer listening to my confused speech. The Air Force commander is making final coordinations with the Navy commander, all the submarines have left the docks loaded with nuclear Jericho missiles, including hydrogen bombs, and they can be launched all over the world, telling the submarines to simply disappear into the sea and not create any contact with the outside until reaching launch, and they won't be able to be stopped. And the Air Force commander says to me with a terrible look: Come on, time's up, we need to decide on the targets or give up on everything... and understand that culturally the Jewish people is simply not built for self-defense, for revenge, that we're simply not capable. Actually, I feel that I can't really give... the "order". I really want to but the words get stuck in my throat. What sin did millions of Persian mothers commit. Maybe the leftist is coming out of me, but it's just a bit too much... And then they inform me: Even the historian Professor Yehuda Bauer - Israel's greatest Holocaust researcher - was killed in the second Holocaust.

And I don't know why the death of this individual, the old Tycho [Translator's note: Possibly referring to Tycho Brahe, the astronomer], dizzies me. But suddenly a unique, breathtaking historical insight is rising in me. And I scream at them: On Germany - on the German sons of bitches! On them throw all the bombs, hydrogen, nitrogen, whatever you have - kill, destroy all the Germans may their name and memory be erased! What do I care about avenging Tel Aviv? Auschwitz I want to avenge, Auschwitz!! In furnaces you'll burn these Germans, they're the ones who invented the patent of Holocaust, avenge my grandmother! All the submarines made in Germany, all the missiles, immediately - now - launch - burn the Black Forest, let the Rhine evaporate entirely, by order I tell you the ninety-nine [Translator's note: Possibly referring to the 99 names of God in Islam] - Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt, Dortmund, the Ruhr region turn into a nuclear fireball, let there be no German city without a mushroom cloud, and Berlin, Berlin destroy to the foundation, to dust, turn it into one huge field of ash, I want a Reich of nuclear radiation for a thousand years, that will never be rebuilt, let Germany burn in the fires of hell. And the Air Force commander, practical as he is, asks: But what about all the Israelis in Berlin? And I say: They - they can go to hell.