WarSclerotic

As a Jew and Israeli, it wasn’t easy reading Wednesday’s New York Times editorial describing Benjamin Netanyahu’s U.N. General Assembly speech as “aggressive,” and suggesting it was controversial. After all, The New York Times is enormously influential. Its problem is that it not only refuses to learn the lessons of others’ history, it refuses to learn from its own experience in the recent past.

There is no better example than North Korea. In 2005, North Korea agreed to a deal to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. The New York Times wrote in its editorial that “diplomacy, it seems, does work after all.”

The New York Times must once again ask itself whether diplomacy really does work, just as it worked with countries whose reigning ideologies were nihilistic.

On the other hand, amid the criticism, the editorial also said that “Mr. Netanyahu has legitimate reasons to be wary of any Iranian overtures,” In other words, alongside the criticism, The New York Times legitimizes Israel’s right to self-defense. This is what should be read between the lines.

What is most worrisome is that the newspaper’s position today reflects the stance of a weary West that is not willing to deal with the diplomatic and military challenges it confronts. Not only is it not willing to learn the lessons of Munich in 1938, but there is also repression of the lessons of North Korea in 2005.

Just last March the evil North Korean regime threatened a nuclear attack on the United States over its military cooperation with South Korea. This is after the Americans had transferred food and aid to the suffering North Korean people. Just a few years later the North Korean government threatened to “retaliate” by destroying those who helped them.

Netanyahu’s speech contained facts and truths that cannot be refuted. The West hears but does not want to accept them, because Western leaders are experiencing a cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, Netanyahu revealed the truth, but on the other hand they cannot accept it. The rotten fruit of this behavior will ultimately be eaten not only by Israel, but by the entire West.

Why? Because the Iranian regime’s ideology, just as the prime minister revealed, cannot be tolerant towards other ideologies.

Moreover, it is worth noting that Netanyahu warned against the Iranian nuclear program during his first term as prime minister, in a speech to the U.S. Congress in July 1996.

The reactions he got were chilly. He once again addressed the issue as chairman of the opposition and during his second term as prime minister. Despite the cool response he continued to receive, the West finally understood that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and began to take action. In other words, the West woke up late in the game. One can assume that the same thing will happen this time. We can only hope that it won’t be too little, too late.

As more time passes, Netanyahu may find himself in the shoes of Winston Churchill, and if he takes successful action in Iran, in the same shoes as Menachem Begin. Both leaders took action at a time when the West stood still — each in his own era — the first in the face of Nazi ideologies of destruction and the second against Saddam Hussein’s ideology of destruction.

Just as Netanyahu faces poisonous criticism today, they faced it in the past. What made both leaders special is that they took destructive ideologies at face value and without filters. They also proclaimed the truth at every opportunity even if they were perceived as militaristic.

Both Churchill and Begin, in very different ways, confronted the threat militarily and led the West to where it initially refused to be led. Let us hope that this time we don’t need to use the military option, because Netanyahu’s speech raised the alarm. Unfortunately, in light of the West’s behavior, it may be unavoidable.