Iran and the Lion of Judah

As Iranian President Ahminejad continues to stoke the anti-Zionist flame, hiscomments have grown similar to those of Osama Bin Laden. He speaks, aghast, theworld reports, the world condemns and the pattern repeats. It's getting rathertiresome. But we shouldn't pass these sound bytes off as just another tyrantletting off steam; the threats, the antagonism are all driven by the samepoisonous genocidal logic.If the Holocaust and the Jewish claim to a homeland is a fabrication, then theJews are merely common thieves on a grand scale - and in Iran, thieves arepunished harshly.In the West, most level-headed people see holocaust denial as low-gradegutter-talk but it seems President Ahminejad for one is indifferent toEurope's blood-stained history. With a nuclear program quite clearlyunderway, the onus is now on the international community to act; particular theEuropean Union who at least should consider Ahminejad's holocaust denial enoughof a motive as any.In the meantime, how should Israel respond? In the days after Prime MinisterAriel Sharon's stroke, with the cameras rolling and the nation watching, ActingPrime Minster Ehud Olmert addressed his old mentor and asked, "Arik, what shallwe do?" and then he answered in his name: "Arik, we will carry on as you haveshown us." And so with this looming Iranian threat to wipe the State of Israelfrom the face of the Earth, Olmert must be wondering exactly what a healthierSharon would have done.As far as we know, Sharon didn't leave a manual for Olmert entitled 'What to doin times of crisis,' but in the last few years, Sharon's words were always wellconsidered. Olmert could do worse than remember Sharon's address to the UnitedNations in the weeks after last summer's Gaza disengagement.It was on that world stage in New York, where Sharon mapped out at least someform of direction for the future.Those watching would have seen Sharon in an intense moment. This was a speechthat Sharon desperately and deeply wanted to give. Maybe also a speech meant notonly for the leaders of the world, but for the State of Israel as well.He began the same way that the American journalist Daniel Pearl, beheaded inPakistan ended, "I am a Jew." Sharon continued: "The Jewish People have a longmemory," he chanced biblical quotations from Genesis through to the Prophets,repeating and stressing the deep connection of the Jewish People to the land ofIsrael. He recalled journeys, citing, Mt Sinai, Moses and G-d. He spoke ofmemory, tradition, of yearning and of struggle.Interestingly enough, for President Ahminejad, Sharon mentioned the Holocaustonly once: Sharon's logic for Israel's existence was not dependent on the crimesof Nazi Germany.Olmert take note: the night before the soldiers moved in to Gush Katif, theprime minister spoke frankly to the nation, and there stressed his own logic fordisengagement. With disengagement, he pledged, would come an opportunity for thePeople of Israel to look inwards rather than outwards; to engage with each otherintrospectively and, "Heal the rifts between the people."From that auspicious stage in New York, came a Prime Minister's call to hisnation to revitalize its national strength and identity. A warrior turnedstatesman telling Israel in no uncertain term to brace itself for the yearsahead. What a tragedy, that his health has robbed a people of some much neededinspiration.As the wheels of the UN Security Council slowly begin to turn, Ehud Olmert, theprime minister's protégé, would do well to remind a nervous Israel thatsometimes the best way to look forward is to look back; and for a people withthe long memory that Sharon would have us recall, there may be reason to believein ourselves yet.