Photo: Marc Israel Sellem
If I were an ayatollah I would be rubbing my hands with glee. Israel’s relationship with the United States is teetering on crisis; Europe’s leaders, led by Angela Merkel of Germany, the same country that provided Israel with nuclear-capable submarines just recently, are furious; Israel’s prime minister and defense minister are at each other’s throats, as are other members of the Israeli cabinet, often with microphones in front of their mouths; day after day Israel’s major papers publish more and more details of Israel’s strategic thinking on the Iranian issue, while the never ending flow of Iranian-related verbiage put out by pundits, many fresh out of uniform or the civil service, just adds to the general confusion.

If the ayatollah in question had been with me at a bar mitzva just the other week, he would have been even more delighted to hear several young couples with an assortment of young children between them, discussing whether or not the responsible thing to do as parents would be to leave the country for a while. The weekend papers and Friday night TV commentators had certainly left an impression of pending war, and who knew what the crazy Iranians and their Hezbollah and Hamas allies would do in response.