Benny Morris: Israeli historian calls for nuclear strike against Iran

Israeli historian Benny Morris called on Israel to launch a military attack on Iran, either with “conventional weapons” or with nuclear weapons.

In a column for Haaretz over the weekend, Morris said Israel’s response to the April 13 Iranian missile attacks was “weak” and reflected the “extreme restraint and restraint” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown in the face of the Iranian threat over the past 15 years.

In April, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles in its first direct attack on Israeli territory.

No one was killed in the attack. It was a response to a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed 16 people, including senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Morris said Israel had reached the “moment of truth.” Iran was close to enriching uranium to 90 percent and could increase it to the point where it could produce a stockpile of nuclear bombs.

“The attacks by Iran, its proxies and its allies on Israel over the past eight months … are sufficient grounds to attempt to destroy Iran’s strategic capabilities, including its ballistic capabilities,” he wrote.

“Given the current asymmetry of capabilities between the two countries, there is no better time to launch a strategic strike against Iran,” he added, saying Israel has far better weapons than Tehran, but that advantage will be lost in the coming years.

“Once the Ayatollahs have nuclear weapons and the means to use them, they could well use them against Israel – and leave it to Allah to protect them from Israel’s second-strike potential,” he wrote.

He said that Israel has a decisive advantage over Iran: According to current reports, the possession of nuclear weapons is currently in sight, whereas Iran is only striving for them.

“If Israel proves incapable of destroying Iran’s nuclear project with conventional weapons, it may have no choice but to resort to its non-conventional capabilities,” Morris wrote, referring to nuclear weapons.

He said that the international media, some heads of state and government, and “ignorant and thoughtless young people in universities” would condemn Israel, but that there would be “considerable understanding” among other international observers.

Yair Katz, head of the Israeli aerospace union, responded to Morris’ comments with an apparent reference to nuclear weapons. He said that Israel had weapons with which it could “put an end to” the Iranian threat.

“If Iran, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and all the countries of the Middle East decide that it is time to settle accounts with us, then I understand that we have the capabilities to use the doomsday weapon,” Katz said, according to an Israel Hayom report.

“Israel’s moral decay”

Morris’ column was criticized by several Israeli commentators.

In a column for Haaretz, Yossi Melman, an Israeli security and intelligence commentator, wrote that Morris was “overwhelmed by an idea that none of the current and former established members of the security apparatus are proposing,” apart from far-right politicians such as Culture Minister Amichai Eliyahu.

In November, Eliyahu suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was “an option” – a remark rejected by Netanyahu and led to the heritage minister being excluded from government meetings.

In his column, Melman wrote that Morris had become an “Israeli Dr. Strangelove” who “stopped caring about the bomb and learned to love it,” referring to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film.

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Israeli historian Adam Raz said Morris’ proposal reflected the “all-destructive strategy of revenge” that has dominated Israeli thinking in recent months.

“The destruction has become legitimate in Israeli discourse and is proof of Israel’s moral decay,” he wrote in Haaretz.

Morris was formerly part of a group of Israeli historians known as the “New Historians,” along with people like Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim and Tom Segev, who challenged prevailing Israeli historical narratives, including the forced expulsion of Palestinians in 1948.

In recent years, however, Morris has taken extreme positions that have been criticized by his colleagues at the New Historian.

He said there were “circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing” and explained that if Israel had “completely cleansed” the Palestinian population in 1948, it would have “stabilized the State of Israel for generations.”

He was also accused of making discriminatory remarks about Palestinians, including comparing them to wild animals.

When asked about this during a lecture at the London School of Economics in March, he replied: “I’d rather be a racist than a bore.”