This morning's One Jerusalem bloggers' conference call was with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu's schedule kept the call relatively brief, but he still managed to cover an enormous amount of ground. The topics ranged from Hamas incitement to Arab-Iranian relations, from the Wye Accords to international financial networks, and from military consideration to Hamas declaring that Iran is their "strategic backbone." As usual, the call was recorded and will be available soon on One Jerusalem.

You should listen to the whole thing. It's about 25 minutes, and it moves very quickly. Even if you know his positions and campaigns, there's still compelling insider-y reasons for going through the whole interview. It has the single most compelling defense of the Wye Accords we've ever heard from the former Prime Minister. In the next campaign he will be attacked - again - for handing over the City of the Patriarchs to Arafat. You can't begin to understand Israeli politics until you understand the political alliances that turn on that event, and you can't know how Netanyahu is going to respond until you listen to him defend it vigorously. And wow, is he good and polished on that question.

Like all Israeli leaders these days, Netanyahu is worried sick about Iran's plans for a second Holocaust. It's 1938, Iran is Germany, and they're about to get nuclear weapons. A new line from him we hadn't heard before: Iran is about to become the world's "first non-deterable nuclear power". And yet, despite explicit declarations from every level of the Iranian political echelon, there are still people who suggest that Iran has no intention of bombing Israel. As if Iran hasn't said over and over again that they're willing to sacrifice millions of their own people if the reward is the eradication of millions of Jews.

So far the world has been pathetic in dealing with this impending second Holocaust. The current sanctions regime can and will do nothing. The financial pressure has to be ramped up, and soon. Netanyahu has personally been going from state to state and from governor to governor trying to get leaders to divest state pension funds from Iran. It's easy to see that that he's has an MBA with experience in consulting: his brilliant slogan is "divest against genocide", meaning both the genocide being denied, and the genocide being planned.

So now there's a concrete campaign for anyone who thinks non-military options against Iran can stop the mullah's Manhattan Project. For people who believe that Iran can be reasoned with, this is one of the last opportunities to prove it. Because Israel cannot let Iran get nuclear weapons.

No possible Iranian response to an Israeli preemptive strike - no amount of terrorism or war - can come close to what a nuclear armed Iranian regime will do. Iranian blackmail would bring Middle Eastern oil reserves under Iranian control, triggering cascades of instability that would roil the global economy. European states would be similarly helpless against not very subtle Iranian threats, while relatively moderate states like Lebanon would become Shia hotbeds. Nuclear terrorism would become inevitable as Iran supplied lunatics with bombs and reserved plausible deniability for itself.

And while the Jewish State would be destroyed by a nuclear attack that would wipe out millions of Jews, its last gasp of defiance would ensure that this second Holocaust was not without cost to the lunatic anti-Semites who triggered it. Chirac is right to say that a nuclear missile from Iran "would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed", although that will be little comfort to millions of murdered Jews and no real concern to the mullahs who murdered them. Nonetheless, the costs should be made clear: a nuclear armed Iran guarantees not just tens but hundreds of millions of deaths.

References:
* One Jerusalem
* Chirac: Iranian Nukes Are Just Fine By Us! [MR]
* Mathematical Proof That Negotiating With Iran Is Stupid. Not Wrong. Stupid. [MR]
* What Will Stop North Korea [Charles Krauthammer, WaPo]

Previously:
* Bloggers' Conference Call With Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
* Washington Post: We Were Wrong. Please Bomb Iran and Syria ASAP. Thank You.
* Video: Iran Declares Their Intentions, Calls US An Affront To God