Er, so remember guest contributor jdavis85? Before leaving the blogosphere, he wrote one last post. Except that I just found it today, so it was about four months ago when he wrote it. Luckily, these kinds of issues never go away…
There are two major issues that I am very interested in and I spend about 1-2 hours each day reading blogs about these issues. These issues are Israeli politics/relations and China in general. So, naturally, as someone who considers himself a Zionist and tries to continually keep updated on Israeli politics, I read Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog over at the Atlantic. Recently, he had an interview with Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the recently sworn in prime minister of Israel (for the second time at that!). The full text of the interview can be found here.
One thing to note is that during the interview, Bibi implies, signals, hints at, however you want to call it, that if America doesn’t manage to stop Iran’s acquiring nuclear arms, Israel will be forced to. After all, for a country that has stated that it wants to wipe Israel off the map, publicly funds two terrorist organizations, and has recently rebuffed Obama’s attempt at peace, who can blame the Israelis? But, what is also important to note is Joe Klein’s note on the same subject where he said:
“Netanyahu is also completely wrong when he says that Iran, with a bomb, will be able to coerce Arab neighbors to its side. The precise opposite is true: Iran with a bomb would touch off an Arab arms race. The very prospect of Iran with a bomb is freaking out the Arabs now–in private, your average Egyptian, Jordanian or Saudi diplomat is far more passionate about the threat from Iran than the “atrocities” Israel undertook in Gaza. ”
A friend of mine from Pakistan who is actually willing to discuss the subject of Israel and the Palestinians on an intellectual level (note: this is not to say that only his “side” is usually not willing to do so, on the contrary, both parties frequently revert to childish attacks) has also belabored this same point to me on several occasions, telling me that the Saudis would never tolerate a nuclear Iran and would never allow it to occur.
Now here is where I’d really like some comments to educate me. Exactly what the hell are they doing? Because it isn’t making news on my iGoogle. Maybe I should start reading Al-jazeera more. Any other comments are also, of course, appreciated.
