Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that Americans by a 49% to 37% margin believe that the United States should help Israel if it attacks Iran. Not if Iran attacks Israel, notice, but if Israel attacks Iran, presumably to take out its nuclear weapons program that threatens Israel with annihilation.
There’s a tension here between public opinon on the one hand and, on the other hand, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller’s call, reported by Eli Lake, that Israel should join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which might threaten the existence of Israel’s nuclear deterrent and would change an American policy which has been in place for three or four decades.
Gottemoeller’s statement seems to represent a principle of moral equivalence of nations—one country, Israel, must be treated like any other country, including Iran. Public opinion, however, clearly recognizes that Israel and Iran stand in very different moral positions, so different that we should support an Israeli attack on Iran, an attitude which makes sense only if you recognize that Iran poses a moral threat to Israel. So what is it to be, in the meeting between Barack Obama and Benyamin Netanyahu on May 18, moral equivalence or support of an ally with strong moral standing?
