Contrary to conventional wisdom, Israel’s “Iran nuclear problem” is not principally about enemy leaders who might go mad. The more worrisome existential problem for Israel is sane, rational enemies who experience miscalculation, poor reasoning or mechanical/electrical/computer malfunction. Other nuclear hazards that could coincide with Iranian sanity and rationality include accidental firing, unauthorized launch and coup d’état.

While it is true that decisions made by a mad Iranian nuclear adversary could have catastrophic consequences for Israel (even, indeed, by a mad pre-nuclear Iran), the likelihood of such decisions is lower than what could be expected of a sane and rational Iranian enemy. Because a nuclear war would be a unique event, such a likelihood cannot be expressed numerically or statistically but is still supportable by analytic argument.

Logic-based calculations suggest that the dispersion of nuclear dangers among multiple Iranian decisionmakers would be more perilous for Israel than the threat posed by a single authoritative Iranian leader who is mad or irrational. Here, madness and irrationality would include Iranian decisionmakers driven by jihadist theologies and principles.

In all circumstances, whether the greater danger to Israel is Iranian decisional madness or Iranian decisional sanity, Jerusalem must stay mindful of a possible “black swan” event. This need will be much greater if Iran is allowed to become a nuclear weapons state. Even at this late date, Israel should remain preemption-ready.

For Jerusalem, there are also time-urgent geopolitical considerations. Iran is approaching nuclear weapons capability concurrently with the acceleration by its jihadist proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Islamic Jihad and Fatah – of terrorist crimes against Israel. Iran, which is steadily expanding its ties with Russia, China and North Korea, repeatedly declares its genocidal intentions toward Israel. And Israel is a state with no “strategic depth.”

Prima facie, Middle Eastern geopolitics are a system. Potentially related scenarios of superpower conflict may be dense or even opaque, but they remain relevant. Among other things, the continuously changing iterations of “Cold War II” could embrace international conflicts that involve Israel with North Korea, China, India or Pakistan. Such a dangerous embrace could be sudden or incremental.

For Israel to proceed purposefully, some primary and subsidiary distinctions need further clarification. One concerns the vital differences between a deliberate or intentional nuclear war and a nuclear war that is unintentional or inadvertent. Without considering this distinction, little of value can be determined about the likelihood of a nuclear conflict.

The greatest dangers of an unintentional nuclear war are decision-making errors, underestimations or overestimations of enemy intent, or simple miscalculations. As classical military theorist Carl von Clausewitz observed, “Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest thing is difficult.”

There are other nuances to be considered. With regard to growing nuclear war risks in the Middle East, no concept could prove more clarifying than “synergy”. Synergistic interactions are those wherein the whole of nuclear war risk effects is greater than the sum of its parts. Unless such interactions are accurately assessed and evaluated in time, Israeli leaders could either underestimate or overestimate the cumulative impact of superpower competition on risk-taking. This suggests circumstances in which Russia and the United States (and perhaps China) struggle for escalation dominance in extremis – that is, during high-value crisis situations.

In the United States, allegedly reliable safeguards have been incorporated from the beginning into all operational nuclear command/control decisions. These safeguards do not apply, however, at the presidential level. In 1976, to gather informed policy clarifications regarding madness, irrationality and nuclear war, I reached out to retired General Maxwell D. Taylor, a former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Taylor sent a handwritten reply in which he concluded: “As to those dangers arising from an irrational American president, the only protection is not to elect one.”

In today’s convulsive world order, General Taylor’s succinct 1976 warning takes on even greater meaning. Based on both ascertainable facts and logic-based derivations, it is reasonable to assume that if an American president were to exhibit signs of emotional instability, irrationality or “mad” behavior, he/she could still lawfully order the use of American nuclear weapons. More worrisome, an American, Russian or Chinese president could become emotionally unstable, irrational or delusional, but not conspicuously exhibit such liabilities.

In all matters concerning nuclear war in the Middle East, there exist no histories from which to draw inferences. This is a fortunate absence, of course, but it still stands in the way of rendering reliable conflict predictions. The irony of this situation is obvious and problematic. Still, whatever the science-based obstacles to reliable prediction in this explosive region, Israel should approach the problem as an intellectual rather than a political challenge.

It must always be remembered that a nuclear war in the Middle East could occur as a spillover effect of nuclear war in Europe. To protect Israel’s survival, an American president should avoid strategic postures that neglect potential synergies with Russian, Chinese and/or North Korean postures. North Korea is a nuclear ally of Iran that built a nuclear reactor for Syria – the Al Kibar reactor, which was destroyed by Israel’s Operation Orchard on September 6, 2007. In law, that operation was a permissible act of anticipatory self-defense.

Strategist Herman Kahn wrote in the early 1960s that in the aftermath of a nuclear conflict, “survivors might envy the dead”. This is true whether the catastrophe was intentional or unintentional – in other words, whether it was spawned by base motives or by miscalculation, computer error, hacking, or a weapon system or infrastructure accident. Whatever else can be determined by Israel’s national security decisionmakers, they should understand that nuclear strategy is ultimately a high-stakes struggle between intentionality, uncertainty and calamity. Even if both Israel and a newly nuclear Iran were to undertake “sane” risk-taking measures during a crisis, the cumulative effect could still be mutually unwanted and “mad.”

For Israel, the only successful outcome of protracted military conflict with Iran would be a tangible reduction of Iran’s nuclear war-fighting capabilities and intentions. Optimally, this point will be understood and operationalized while Iran is still pre-nuclear.

Once it is at war with either a nuclear Iran or a pre-nuclear Iran with a willing nuclear proxy (e.g., North Korea), Israel could be mortally wounded by rational decisions made by sane enemy leaders. Even now, though Iran is not yet nuclear, it could use radiation dispersal weapons against the Jewish State and/or launch non-nuclear missiles at Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor.

In world politics, the most significant risks of nuclear war are not those of madness or irrationality. They are the cumulatively catastrophic risks of sane and rational decisions. For Israel, this means the worst-case Iranian nuclear war scenario is not the popular narrative of mad leadership in Tehran, but one of sane adversaries operating in opposition to sane adversaries in Jerusalem.

In this bewildering world order, the accumulated risks of a mutually sane search for escalation dominance could include nuclear war. Israeli leaders should be wary of mad or prospectively mad Iranian leaders, but even more wary of the nuclear consequences posed by sane and rational Iranian decision-makers.

Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

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One of many remarkable aspects of BBC coverage of the current war between Israel and terrorists in the Gaza Strip has been the media corporation’s readiness to uncritically amplify practically any claim or statement put out by Hamas, the terrorist organization that chose to initiate the conflict.

Even after 10 months during which many Hamas claims have been shown to be inaccurate — for example, the causes of explosions, casualty ratios, casualty figures, allegations of famine, and more — the BBC apparently still has not arrived at the conclusion that its own reputation as a provider of accurate and impartial reporting would benefit if its journalists did some basic fact checking before promoting assertions made by a terrorist organization.

One recent example of that phenomenon appeared in a report published on the BBC News website on August 7, under the headline, “Gaza to get 1.2m polio vaccines amid outbreak fears” in which Tom Bennett told BBC audiences that:

Last week, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said the territory had become a “polio epidemic zone.” It blamed the reappearance of the virus on Israel’s military offensive and the resulting destruction of health facilities.

The WHO says that fewer than half of Gaza’s primary healthcare facilities are operational.

Hamas’ ministry of health did indeed put out such an announcement on July 29. But with the word epidemic defined as “an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in that area,” it would have been advisable for the BBC to check whether there is actually a widespread occurrence of polio in the Gaza Strip  — and if so, whether there is any connection to the factors cited by the ministry — before they uncritically repeated the statement.

In order to appreciate the redundancy of the Hamas claim that the BBC chose to promote worldwide, it is necessary to go back to July 23, when the BBC News website published a report by David Gritten titled, “WHO ‘extremely worried’ about possible Gaza polio outbreak.” That piece opened as follows:

“The World Health Organization is “extremely worried” about the possibility of an outbreak of the highly infectious polio virus in Gaza after traces were found in wastewater.” [emphasis added]

On July 23, the WHO put out the following announcement:

On 16 July 2024, the Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN) notified the detection of six circulating variant poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) isolates in environmental samples from Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis in Gaza. Further genomic sequencing of these isolates by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta indicates that these isolates have close genetic linkage with each other and are also related to the cVDPV2 that was circulating in Egypt during the second half of 2023 – which was last detected in Egypt in samples collected in December 2023.

Based on the analysis of genetic changes in the isolates, the variant poliovirus could have been introduced in Gaza as early as September 2023.

WHO considers there to be a high risk of cVDPV2 spread within Gaza, and internationally if this outbreak is not responded to promptly and optimally.

It is important to note that poliovirus has been isolated from environmental samples only at this time; no associated paralytic cases have been detected. However, acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance has not been functioning adequately, and environmental surveillance has been suspended since 7 October 2023. [emphasis added]

In other words, according to the WHO, the strain of the virus discovered in two locations in the Gaza Strip in July 2024 may have been there before the war began in October 2023.

Also according to the WHO, by July 23, no symptomatic cases had been recorded. That statement was accurately reported by Gritten at the time: “No associated paralytic cases have been recorded so far.”

On July 26, the WHO announced that it would be sending a consignment of vaccines to the Gaza Strip, again stating that no cases of polio had been recorded.

Nevertheless, three days later, the Hamas ministry of health declared an “epidemic” — and the week after that, the BBC’s Tom Bennett chose to provide uncritical amplification for that unevidenced claim.

Another notable aspect of Bennett’s report comes in the following paragraphs:

It will be a “huge logistical challenge” to ensure the 1.2 million vaccine doses are deployed successfully, said WHO official Andrea King.

Vaccines need to be continuously stored in a limited temperature range – from the moment they are manufactured until they are administered – which presents a technical challenge during ongoing hostilities.

The WHO called for a ceasefire and requested “absolute freedom of movement” during the rollout of the vaccine programme. It said it was in the process of obtaining the necessary approvals to enter Gaza.

However, previous calls for a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds have not been granted by Israel.

Bennett refrained from informing BBC audiences that between October 2023 and late January 2024, over 300,000 polio vaccinations (along with vaccinations against other diseases) were delivered to the Gaza Strip in coordination with the IDF.  He also failed to note that Israeli officials are currently collaborating with UN bodies to facilitate a vaccination campaign against polio.

While there is no doubt that the detection of a strain of polio at two locations in the Gaza Strip is a serious cause for concern — which is currently being addressed by UN bodies in collaboration with Israel — Bennett’s uncritical promotion of Hamas’ propaganda concerning an “epidemic” (which fortunately is not currently the case) caused by “Israel’s military offensive” (even though the WHO has stated that the variant could have entered the Gaza Strip before the war) clearly hinders audience understanding of this story.

Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Why Is the BBC Promoting Hamas Propaganda as Fact? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A new round of Gaza ceasefire talks was underway in the Qatari capital Doha on Thursday afternoon, an official briefed on the meeting told Reuters, with Israel‘s spy chief joining his US and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister for the closed-door meeting.

The talks, an effort to end 10 months of fighting in the Palestinian enclave and bring 115 Israeli and foreign hostages home, were put together as Iran appeared on the point of retaliating against Israel following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.

With US warships, submarines, and warplanes dispatched to the region to defend Israel and deter potential attackers, Washington is hoping a ceasefire agreement in Gaza can defuse the risk of a full-out wider regional war.

Hamas officials, who have accused Israel of stalling, did not join Thursday’s talks. However, mediators planned to consult with Hamas’ Doha-based negotiating team after the meeting, the official briefed on the talks told Reuters.

Israel‘s delegation includes spy chief David Barnea, head of the domestic security service Ronen Bar, and the military’s hostages chief Nitzan Alon, defense officials said on Wednesday.

CIA Director Bill Burns and US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk represented Washington at the talks, convened by Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, with Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel also in Doha.

Israel and Hamas have each blamed the other for failure to reach a deal but in the run-up to Thursday’s meeting, neither side appeared to rule out an agreement.

A source in the Israeli negotiating team said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has allowed significant leeway on a few of the substantial disputes.

Gaps include the presence of Israeli troops in Gaza, the sequencing of a hostage release, and restrictions on access to northern Gaza.

In the lead-up to Thursday’s talks, Hamas, which rejects any US or Israeli intervention in shaping the “day after” the war in Gaza, told mediators that if Israel made a “serious” proposal that is in line with Hamas’ previous proposals the group would continue to engage in negotiations.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Thursday that the group is committed to the negotiation process and urged mediators to secure Israel‘s commitment to a proposal Hamas agreed to in early July, which he said would end the war and required a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Even as negotiators arrived in Qatar, fighting continued in Gaza, with Israeli troops hitting targets in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped some 250 hostages, taking them to Gaza. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.

In a statement Hamas issued late on Wednesday jointly with some smaller factions, it reaffirmed the outstanding demands the factions wanted a ceasefire agreement to achieve.

The group said negotiations “should examine mechanisms to implement what was agreed upon in the framework deal submitted by mediators that would achieve a comprehensive ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, breaking the siege, opening crossings and reconstruction of Gaza as well as reaching a serious hostages/prisoners deal.”

Iran’s threat of a response to the killing of Haniyeh has added extra gravity to the talks. Three senior Iranian officials have said that only a ceasefire deal in Gaza would hold Iran back from direct retaliation against Israel.

But a possible escalation from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in southern Lebanon is also weighing on the outlook.

Following a missile strike that killed 12 youngsters in the Golan Heights on July 27, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s senior military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, prompting vows of retaliation from the movement.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging regular fire for months but the exchanges have been kept within tacitly understood red lines that risk being erased if the conflict escalates.

Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement in Haniyeh’s killing. The US Navy has deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defenses.

The post New Round of Gaza Ceasefire Talks Begins in Qatar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.