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Nuclear War in the Middle East
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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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Hamas-Linked Lobbying Network Expands Political Influence in Europe, New Report Shows
LP4Q Europe network held its first press conference in the European Parliament (April 2024). From Left to Right: MEP David Cormand, MP Malik Ben Achour, Michele Piras, Senator Raymonde Poncet Monge, MP Thomas Portes. Photo: NGO Monitor
A Turkey-based lobbying network with ties to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is working to recruit European politicians to support anti-Israel policies, according to a new investigative report.
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations, published a report last week on the expansion of the League of Parliamentarians for Al-Quds and Palestine (LP4Q).
This political lobby network, which was established in 2015 and includes about 1,500 parliamentarians from around the world, is growing its influence across several European countries.
Vincent Chebat, senior researcher at NGO Monitor, authored the report, which exposes the dysfunction in the ways interest groups operate within European parliaments. He noted that the information about LP4Q’s connections to Hamas and the involvement of highly controversial European representatives in a lobby group backed by Turkey and Qatar was easily accessible.
“The lack of basic vetting is remarkable,” he told The Algemeiner. “It is not surprising that far-left MPs, some belonging to parties that have repeatedly refused to recognize Hamas as a terrorist entity, were involved in establishing this network.”
Since 2023, LP4Q members have met with current and former members of parliaments across Europe and activists in the European Parliament, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Scotland, and Finland.
The organization is also “preparing to expand” its activities to Portugal, the Netherlands, and eastern Europe.
LP4Q describes itself as an organization established “at the initiative of parliamentarians who support Palestinian rights.”
Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken supporter of Hamas and a fierce critic of Israel, said that “the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds has become the voice of the Palestinian issue at the global level.”
Michele Piras, a former Italian member of parliament and current LP4Q board member, leads the group’s expansion in Europe and has reportedly engaged with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization that participated in Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to NGO Monitor.
Last year, LP4Q’s European Network held its first meeting at the French National Assembly, bringing together 20 parliamentarians from several European countries to discuss, as they described, “the pressing need for Europe to take decisive action to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The New Executive Board of the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds and Palestine Holds its First Meeting (May 2024). Photo: NGO Monitor
“Participants advocated for measures such as the cessation of military cooperation with Israel, an arms embargo, an immediate ceasefire, and the provision of humanitarian aid to civilians,” LP4Q wrote in a statement.
“Additionally, support was voiced for pursuing legal avenues, including actions before the International Court of Justice, to ensure severe condemnation of Israeli crimes,” the statement continued.
During the meeting, members also argued for “the recognition of an independent Palestinian State … and the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people.”
NGO Monitor reported that 160 current and former European parliamentarians signed a petition outlining their positions on the French communist website L’Humanité as part of the European Network’s launch. The signatories included 99 French, 23 Italian, 12 Belgian, and 14 Spanish MPs, senators, and MEPs (member of European Parliament).
Until its expansion to Europe, LP4Q was originally composed of members of parliament from Muslim countries, with at least two of its board members linked to Hamas and having been sanctioned by the US government.
For example, LP4Q President Hamid bin Abdullah Al-Ahmar, a Yemeni businessman, is considered one of Hamas’s most prominent international supporters, according to the US Treasury Department. He also played a key role in Hamas’s investment portfolio, which managed over $500 million worth of assets at its peak.
In 2021, Al-Ahmar met now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to discuss “the political developments related to the Palestinian issue, the dangers facing it, ways to confront them, and the required national, regional, and international work strategies, especially within the parliamentary framework represented by the Parliamentarians for Jerusalem Association.”
Other LP4Q members and officials also have ties to Hamas. For example, board member Sayed Salem Abu-Msameh has been described as “one of the founders of Hamas” and was reportedly sentenced by Israel to 12 years in prison for helping to establish the terrorist group’s military wing.
LP4Q board vice presidents Hasan Turan, a Turkish member of parliament, and Ahmed Kharchi, an Algerian member of parliament, have also been linked to Hamas, with Turan reportedly facilitating high-level meetings between senior Hamas leaders and Turkish political elites.
According to NGO Monitor, LP4Q already has influence in Muslim states, including Qatar, as well as in Africa and South America, through its observer membership in the Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC), the African Parliamentary Union (APU), the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC), and the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union.
As for LP4Q’s finances, NGO Monitor explained that the Turkey-based lobbying network is not transparent about its sources of funding, and the amounts related to its agreements remain undisclosed.
In 2021, LP4Q signed a “protocol cooperation” with a Turkish governmental institution, the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities. That same year, it agreed with the state-run news agency Anadolu “to engage and coordinate in order to serve the Palestinian and the cause of Jerusalem in the media and to confront the disinformation and falsification campaigns of the Israeli media machine.”
The Algemeiner reached out to LP4Q for comment for this story but did not receive a response.
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IDF Confirms Death of Hostage Shlomo Mansour, Murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7
Shlomo Mansour. Photo: courtesy
Israel announced on Tuesday its conclusion that one of the hostages slated for release in the current Gaza ceasefire deal died on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, recent intelligence confirmed that Hamas murdered Shlomo Mansour, 86, and took his body from his home in Kibbutz Kissufim to Gaza.
In a statement, Mansour’s family called him “the pillar of strength for our entire family” and “a man of high morals and values, a lover of humanity, who always helped others wholeheartedly.” They described Mansour as “a man with a heart of gold, golden hands, and a smile worth gold.”
Born in Baghdad, Mansour survived the 1941 Farhud pogrom which targeted Jews in Iraq’s capital. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says that “during the two days of violence, rioters murdered between 150 and 180 Jews, injured 600 others, and raped an undetermined number of women. They also looted some 1,500 stores and homes. The community leaders estimated that about 2,500 families — 15 percent of the Jewish community in Baghdad — suffered directly from the pogrom.”
Mansour, now the oldest hostage still in Gaza, immigrated to Israel at 13. He and his wife Mazel — who escaped during the Hamas attack — had five children and 12 grandchildren.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that “my wife Sarah and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the late Shlomo Mansour, upon receiving the bitter news of his murder by the terrorist organization Hamas.”
Netanyahu called Mansour “one of the builders of the country and the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim. He survived the Farhud riots in Iraq in his youth. During the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas murderers on Oct. 7, he was murdered and kidnapped to Gaza. We share in the family’s deep grief. We will not rest or be silent until he is returned to the grave of Israel. We will continue to act resolutely and tirelessly until we return all of our hostages — both living and dead. May his memory be blessed.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement that he sends “all my support and strength to the Mansour family and the community of Kibbutz Kissufim, who have received the bitter and painful news of the murder of Shlomo Mansour, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7.”
Herzog stated that “about a month ago, I had the privilege of meeting his incredible family and hearing from them about their beloved Shlomo, who survived the Farhud pogrom against Baghdad’s Jews in 1941, only to be brutally abducted from his home in Kissufim at the age of 86. They fought with all their might for his return throughout a year and four months of hell and pain, clinging in hope and prayer for his fate.”
Describing Mansour as “a talented carpenter, a modest and kind-hearted family and community man who radiated warmth and love to all those around him,” Herzog said that “we will continue to do everything in our power to bring Shlomo home to be laid to rest in dignity, and to bring back all our hostages — both the living and the fallen — until the very last one.”
Mansour’s family advocated in their statement for “decision-makers to make a brave and ethical decision to bring all hostages home immediately — the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial in their homeland.”
The American Jewish Committee said in a statement responding to Mansour’s murder that “we weep with his family, his kibbutz, and all of Israel today. May his memory be a blessing.”
The European Jewish Congress stated that “we will continue doing everything in our power to bring Shlomo home for a dignified burial and to return all our hostages — both the living and the fallen — until the last one is brought back. May his memory be a blessing.”
The Anti-Defamation League responded that Mansour “endured unimaginable tragedies yet was deeply loved by his family and community. For over a year, his loved ones clung to the cruel hope he was alive. We mourn this heartbreaking loss and send our deepest condolences to his family. May his memory be a blessing.”
Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, told Sky News Australia following confirmation of Mansour’s death that “there is no depths, no ends to the depravity, the cruelty and the monstrous evil of Hamas. They spare no one. From a Holocaust survivor, 86-year-old Shlomo Mansour whom they took hostage from his home, to the youngest of hostages, a 9-month-old baby, to women and the elderly — no one is spared by their evil. There is no end to that.”
Hamas announced on Monday its plan to suspend the planned releases of further hostages, accusing the Jewish state of violating the ceasefire agreement — charges which Israel denies.
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Kanye West’s Website Shuts Down After Selling Swastika Shirts, Celebrities and Jewish Groups Slam Rapper
The swatika shirt that was selling on Yeezy.com. Photo: Screenshot
After celebrities and major Jewish organizations blasted rapper Ye, formerly know as Kanye West, for selling on his Yeezy website shirts emblazoned with a swastika, the online store has shut down as of Tuesday morning.
Ye, 47, used a Super Bowl commercial to direct people to his website Yeezy.com, which since Sunday night was selling only one item — a short sleeve, white t-shirt that features in front a black swastika, a symbol of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party that is still used by far-right extremists today. There was no description for the shirt on the website except for the letters “HH-01,” which according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is code for “Heil Hitler.”
The shirts were being sold for $20 in three different sizes, but by Tuesday morning, the Yeezy.com website was down. “This store is unavailable,” said a message on the homepage. Shopify, which was helping to sell the product on the Yeezy website, has not publicly responded on its involvement with Ye. The president of Shopify, Harley Finkelstein, is the grandson of Holocaust survivors.
The ADL started a call to action, demanding that Fox Sports condemn Ye’s Super Bowl commercial. Meanwhile, StandWithUs, a pro-Israel nonprofit, is calling on the public to pressure Fox Productions to publicly apologize for airing Ye’s advertisement and to donate all proceeds from the ad to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust. Several other major Jewish organizations — including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Campaign Against Antisemitism — all denounced Ye’s decision to sell the swastika shirt as well as the rabidly antisemitic comments he posted on X early Friday morning.
American pop singer Charlie Puth, who is Jewish from his mother’s side while his father is of German descent, posted a message on his Instagram story on Monday addressed to Ye, when the swastika shirts were still being sold. “@Ye The message you are sending to the world is incredibly dangerous,” he told the rapper. “Please, man, I beg you to stop. You are selling a T-shirt featuring a Swastika, and MILLIONS of people are influenced by you. Please, I BEG you to stop, PLEASE [sic].”
Photo: Instagram
“Since 1945, the swastika has served as the most significant and notorious of hate symbols,” according to the ADL website. In an Instagram video on Monday, former NFL player Emmanuel Acho criticized Ye for attempting to “desensitize” the mass genocide carried out by Nazis during the Holocaust.
“I once talked to a Holocaust survivor and she told me, ‘Emmanuel, the Holocaust was created by the most brilliant minds; the greatest minds of the time,’” said the former NFL linebacker, who is not Jewish. “And Kanye West has proven to be a musical genius, a musical mind. Do not for a moment become desensitized to what is occurring in our culture. There is no space for racism, sexism, antisemitism, misogyny. And I believe that what Kanye West is currently doing is desensitizing us to one of the greatest forms of hate this world has ever seen. I hope you’re not laughing, because it stopped being funny a long time ago.”
Ye’s Super Bowl commercial was not aired nationally but viewed in the Los Angeles area. He started selling the swastika shirts shortly after posting numerous antisemitic comments on X in which he targeted Jews, and declared “Im [sic] a Nazi,” Im [sic] a racist” and “I love Hitler.” His X account is no longer active as of Sunday.
Ye has a history of making antisemitic comments, including glorifying Hitler and the Nazis.
American singer, songwriter, and musician Matthew Koma, who is Jewish, shared in an Instagram post that he is selling a t-shirt that says on front “F—k Ye.” He originally noted that all profits from the shirt would be donated to Backline, a nonprofit that supports mental health care for music industry professionals and their families. Koma, who is married to actress and singer Hillary Duff, originally wrote in the caption of his Instagram post: “I made this shirt because f—k Ye and his antisemitism but also I don’t trust my fellow Jews with money and all Jewish organizations have a questionable history.”
He also told one Jewish social media user in the comments section that he chose to donate all proceeds to Backline and not a Jewish-related organization because he “had a hard time figuring out which [Jewish] charities were legit or didn’t have a questionable history.” His anti-Jewish comments garnered backlash from social media users who noted the similarly between his remarks and Ye’s antisemitic rant on Friday, in which the rapper said he does not trust Jews and claimed, “They always gonna steal.”
Koma responded by saying on Tuesday that all proceeds from the “F—k Ye” shirt will now be given to Blue Card, a nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to Holocaust survivors in the US.
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