Israel Alone

"For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy. For Hamas, every civilian death is a strategy."

"You cannot say you support Israel's right to exist and to defend itself and then oppose Israel when it exercises that right."

"You cannot say you support Israel's goal of destroying Hamas and then oppose Israel when it takes the actions necessary to achieve that goal."

"You cannot say that you oppose Hamas's strategy of using civilians as human shields and then blame Israel for the civilian casualties that result from this Hamas cynical strategy."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu vows to end Hamas  Reuters

 

In the best of all possible worlds it would not be possible to hold a moral position that Israel has an especial obligation to the international community to withhold its determination to destroy Hamas before the terrorist death-cult fixated in annihilating Israel and as many Jews along with the Jewish State as they could conceivably manage can succeed in its evil mission. Israel, which has been placed in an existential position that no other country has ever had to deal with; surrounded with majority Arab nations that intended its destruction at its rebirth in 1948.

And the group of Arabs who migrated from Egypt, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East to find a modicum of opportunity toward a vision of prosperity in Palestine at the turn of the 20th Century who took the name 'Palestinian' for themselves when it culturally and socially had been internationally recognized as referring to Jews, along with the fiction that this was not ancestral Judaean land, but Palestinian Arab land from antiquity to the present.

A group of people who mounted a public relations campaign aimed at the outside world to convince the international community that 'Palestine' equated with Arabs, not the original Judean inhabitants. An Arab population so hungry to dispute and claim ownership of the ancient Biblical land of Israel and Judah, their claim encompassed all that was of Jewish origins, and still does. Taught by their leaders to hate Jews with a fine passion, from birth to death. How to excuse the willing gullibility of the West which has succumbed to Arab blandishments to believe the 'victims' who victimize Jews?

Children taught in schools that Jews were the accursed enemies and it was their destiny to grow to adulthood to become martyrs for the cause of destroying Israel and murdering Jews. The education system funded by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, supporting a society that lived to hate. Where employment for tens of thousands of Palestinians, including those belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine could find employment.

 

Juggling the Islamic Republic of Iran's proxy terror militia Hezbollah in the north and Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- to name but a few of the steadily emerging terror groups that bedevil Israel's security -- the surprise attack of October 7 that swept into Israel from Gaza, a well-orchestrated tsunami of vicious hate, rehearsed and perfected to a degree of malevolently sadistic brutality hard to grasp even with the evidence still accumulating, took Israel's vaunted Intelligence agencies, Mossad and Shin Bet less than attentive to the horrors that would ultimately wrack the southern Kibbutzim and towns and the Nova Music Festival in mass murder and rape of Israelis, the kidnapping of 250 children, women, men, elderly, ailing Israeli victims.

Shock, bewilderment, anger, pain overwhelmed the country. The cohort of supporting nations sympathetic to Israel who have declared themselves repeatedly to be reliable in their kind regard for the Jewish state, its aspirations while admiring of its capabilities in governance, agricultural advances, technical, scientific and economic prowess, all pledged ongoing support. Hamas was condemned and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who overwhelmingly gave their support to the terror group whose mission of obliterating Israel reflected their own compulsion to hate and destroy swiftly morphed into a vulnerable population as Israel's military responded as any national military would; with the intent to destroy an enemy intent on destroying it.

International support for Israel took a slow dive as Hamas deployed its usual strategy of using Gaza's civilian population as human shields, vulnerable to Israeli bombing missions whose purpose was to flush Hamas operatives out of the incredible maze of tunnels built specifically to protect the terrorists from repercussions relating to their constant barrages of rockets into Israel, and as storage for an array of weapons. This time those tunnels, including those under schools, homes, hospitals -- virtually every square yard of the Gaza Strip -- also hosted Israeli hostages, where grim sexual assaults continued, with young girls and women viewed as legitimate prey for the monsters, both civilian and Hamas who captured them.

The world focused on Israeli bombardment of Hamas operations, the headquarters set up with full intent in delicate areas, hospitals and apartment blocks, leading to numerous but independently unverified numbers of civilian casualties. International law  upholds the right of any sovereign nation that has been attacked to respond to its attackers. The Hamas strategy, one adopted by many Islamist terrorist groups, is to hide behind its civilian population, and the more such civilians who become victims of an internationally legitimate military response to an attack, the more fodder for the Hamas public relations machine.

 

Calling out to the world at large -- agonizingly willing to give credence to any claims of Israeli military malfeasance against Palestinian civilians -- that Israel's military is deliberately targeting Palestinians when it is Hamas that places them deliberately in harm's way, elicits a now-predictable response from the international community, quick to respond by chiding Israel, then blaming her for an independently unverified mounting death toll. The world somehow bypasses the need to demand that Hamas surrender the Israeli hostages it holds, and cease weaponizing hospitals, and allow humanitarian aid to reach the civilian population, but it does not.

 

And Israel's greatest traditional supporter, the United States? Initial support from the U.S., the E.U. and other nations was swift and firm, but has since waned; a factor of immigration, migration and illegal haven-seekers from the Muslim world, massing in great numbers in the West, and representing a political voting base that Western leaders are quite conscious of, leading to an unwillingness to restrain

hordes of Palestinian/Hamas supporters among a fifth column installed in Western democracies whose calls for the destruction of Israel finds appeal among other Jew-haters.

 

"He must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken. ... He's hurting Israel more than helping Israel", comments American President Joe Biden, turning his back on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just as his predecessor and mentor Barack Obama had done. As a once-firm supporter of Israel, the United States is mistaken in feeling it has the authority, moral and political, to lecture Israel on what course of action it should take to please world opinion, in responding to the heinous bloodbath Palestinian Hamas perpetrated in Israel's south.

 

More than a million Palestinians have fled to Rafah from other parts of Gaza  Getty Images

 

While addressing the issue from an internationally legal standpoint and supporting Israel's right to destroy the death-cult that seeks to destroy it, the international community shrinks back in horror at the potential of civilian Palestinian deaths -- when during World War II or any other war, such casualties were viewed as the unfortunate wages of war, often impossible to contain. Yet the Israel Defense Forces take every conceivable precaution possible, and warn civilians and urge evacuations for safety sake, measures no other nation has ever taken in the interests of preserving innocent lives.

 

Now, when Israel is close to fulfilling its obligation to itself by destroying the possibility of any future functioning Hamas terrorist group, its Democratic liberal global cohorts, ostensibly in support of Israel's security and autonomy, lecture the democratically elected government of Israel to pull back from its goal. While international military professionals expert in the strategies and reasons for war, support Israel's strategy of eliminating Hamas, their governments urge Israel to cease bombing the tunnel hideaways and to set aside its intention of entering the Rafah stronghold where four Hamas battalions and its leaders shelter, among the 1.4M civilians it urged to stream there to shelter the terrorists from their coming due. 

Israel, the Jewish Homeland, Here to Stay in Perpetuity

"The Palestinians' views were disclosed in a public opinion poll conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) on the 75^th anniversary of the "Nakba" ("Catastrophe," the term used by Palestinians to describe the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, when Arab armies initiated -- then lost -- a war to prevent the Jews from having their own state)."

"The findings of the poll, which was conducted between June 7 and 11, show that the Biden Administration and all those who continue to talk about reviving the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians are living under an illusion. The results of the poll indicate that most Palestinians are more interested in killing Jews than making peace with them. The results, in addition, show that most Palestinians want as a successor to their current leader, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ties to terror."

"According to the poll, the largest percentage of Palestinians (24%) believe that the rise of extremist Islamist terror groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) was "the most positive or the best thing that has happened to the Palestinian people since the Nakba." Another 21% said that the eruption of the two Palestinian uprisings, or intifadas, in 1987 and 2000, during which more than a thousand Jews were murdered and thousands more wounded in terror attacks, was the most positive thing that has happened to the Palestinian people since 1948. And 9% said it was the establishment of Fatah and the launch of "the armed struggle." This means that a majority of the Palestinians see terrorist groups and the murder of Jews -- not the construction of schools and hospitals -- as their proudest accomplishment over the past seven decades."

Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute -- International Policy Council 

The results of a recent public opinion poll indicate that most Palestinians are more interested in killing Jews than making peace with them. Pictured: Palestinian terrorists in Jenin on March 8, 2023, at the funeral of fellow terrorists who were killed the previous day when they attacked Israeli soldiers. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)

The international press, reporting on the violence in the Middle East, and more specifically, violence perpetrated by terrorists against Israeli targets, invariably classify those whose intention it is to terrorize and to murder, as 'militants'. They are certainly militant, viciously, violently so, but they are also terrorists, but that labelling somehow goes against the grain by journalists and news sites who prefer to somehow empathize with Palestinians and to consider Israel's defences as 'oppressive' and Israel itself in its maneouvres to protect its citizens as 'occupiers'.

'Occupiers' of their own ancestral land, land contested for claims of ownership by Arabs who migrated to the area of what was historically once Judea and Samaria, Judaean lands until Jews were twice exiled in antiquity, the last time by Rome after an insurrection against Roman occupied dominance of indigenous Jewish territory, which included Jerusalem. 

 

When the United Nations felt they had a reasonable solution to Israel's claims of ancestral territory by announcing a Partition plan, which gave what remained of Judaea's historical territory once TransJordan received its slice, between the nascent Jewish state of Israel and the Palestinians demanding their own state, Israel gratefully accepted, the Palestinians waited out the anticipated success of combined Arab armies that marched on the fledgling Israeli state.

The outside world believes, because Palestinians play to their sense of justice and assure them that it is now prepared to accept what it once rejected, that there is hope the Arabs -- which co-opted the ancient designation of 'Palestinian' from its historical rightful owners, Judeans, just as it seeks to do the same with its territory -- are prepared to agree to a peace settlement with Israel. When, in fact, the real agenda is one expressed by the slogan 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', meaning the complete elimination of Israel.

Palestinian leaders make no secret of their goal, to destroy Israel by any means it finds practical. They have somewhat less support now than they did 70 years ago, but the support remains, principally from Iran, although Iraq, Qatar, Syria and Lebanon (captured by Iran's protege-proxy terrorist group Hezbollah) all of whom encourage, support and arm Hamas, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other newly-burgeoning groups in a no-holds-barred long-term strategy to ensure that Israel's existence is short-term, and demolished.

 

Israel is not peopled by shtetl Jews, Jews who throughout the history of their diaspora, were subject to oppression, violent hostility, suspicion, persecution, pogroms and ultimately genocide. Its collective of Jews from around the world, from Morocco to Mexico, Afghanistan to Cuba, as Israeli citizens and Jews of multilingual, multi-cultural, multi-colour variations on a theme of ethnic/cultural/religious Jewry will defend themselves on both the micro and macro level. No amount of placating or sincere efforts at negotiations has resulted in an 'understanding' of 'live and let-live' between Jews and Arab Palestinians.

 

Attacks by Arab Palestinians against Israeli Jews are never-ending, and not surprising, given the culture of antisemitism nurtured by the Palestinian leadership, including the 'moderate' Palestinian Authority who surround Palestinians from cradle to grave with media of every dimension that portrays Jews as their mortal enemy who must be slaughtered before the opportunity to kill them comes to hand. Hatred as deep and dense as that of the Palestinians', groomed to resent and detest Jews as robbers of their destinies to inherit Jewish land, identity, opportunities -- sears their souls.

 

Palestinian towns still called 'refugee camps' despite all the trappings of any modern cities, harbour and celebrate Palestinian youth who are encouraged by incitement to aspire to 'martyrdom', to sacrifice themselves for the honour of murdering Jews. When the Israel Defence Forces intervene and Palestinians are killed either because they are involved in violence with the intention to kill, have killed, or are simply the cheering section, they become propaganda fodder for Palestinian public relations with the West, enabling them to portray Jews as killers of Palestinians, particularly Palestinian children.

 

Two days ago, residents of the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya saw themselves 'invaded' by hundreds of Israeli 'settlers' who stormed their streets, setting fire to cars and homes in vengeance against the deaths days earlier of four Israelis, a minor among them, killed by a duo of Palestinian terrorists designated by Western media as 'gunmen'. To stem the violence emanating from Israeli 'settlers', the Israeli military deployed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the uptick in violence by announcing plans to build new settler homes.

 

Israeli military forces have been involved lately in raids to detain and arrest terrorists in the West Bank town of Jenin, whom the West names as 'militants' and 'gunmen', and whom Israelis, faced with the constant spectre of these ongoing deadly attacks, call terrorists. The Israeli army dispersed the incursion of the settlers determined to exact a price in burned homes and vehicles from the very people who champion the rise of new terrorist gangs, the better to terrorize their Jewish neighbours. 

 

Settler vigilantism does not have the support much less approval of the Israeli government or its military. National security calls for organized, military operations to defend the Israeli public; those who take matters into their own hands cause obstruction and consternation, but they are fulfilling a personal obligation to no longer allow themselves to be intimidated, denigrated, challenged, and attacked. One day after another of deadly shootings, stabbings, car rammings, has an effect on a people whose history is one endlessly long recounting of violence perpetrated against them.

 

The Jenin stronghold of terror must be eliminated. Any new such strongholds must be confronted and defanged. If the Palestinian Authority, which to the outside world proclaims itself prepared and capable of administering a country to the benefit of its people without posing as a constant threat to its neighbour cannot and will not deal with its own terrorists which it has groomed to behave in precisely the way they do, then there is only Israel left to do so. Israel's military and its civilian population grapples existentially with terrorists, not 'gunmen', and not 'militants'.

 

A Palestinian man runs near a burning object, after an attack by Israeli settlers, near Ramallah, in the West Bank, June 21, 2023 (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMAD TOROKMAN)

Life As Usual In Israel

Israeli soldiers stand near artillery units deployed near the Lebanese border northern Israel on August 26, 2020. Photo by David Cohen/Flash90.

"In response, overnight, the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] attack helicopters and aircraft struck observation posts belonging to the Hezbollah terror organization in the border area [between Lebanon and Israel]."                                                Israeli military spokesperson 

"Our message to Hezbollah is sharp and clear: We will continue to thwart its attempts to gain achievements."                                                                                    Brig. Gen. Shlomi Binder, commander, IDF Galilee Division

"It is our assessment that the choice of location by Hezbollah [for the sniping attack] was not accidental ... probably in order to [draw] Israeli retaliation towards a United Nations position or near it."                                                                            "I would emphasize that this was a very dangerous and cynical practice to deliberately locate their combat troops close to U.N. positions and then engage against the IDF, violating U.N. Resolution 1701 [which bans the presence of armed Hezbollah cells in south Lebanon] … and probably hoping for there to be U.N. casualties as a result of Israeli retaliation. The IDF is very much aware of the location of U.N. troops, and does [its] utmost not to affect them."                               "Our objective is not to escalate the situation, but to protect our civilians, uphold sovereignty and allow hundreds of thousands of Israelis enjoying [he] last days of summer to vacation in northern Israel."                                                                 Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, Israeli military spokesman 

An IDF labeled view showing the proximity of the Hezbollah terror squad to UN peacekeeping forces and the Israel-Lebanese border. Source: Screenshot.

Palestinians  release balloon-borne explosive to Israel  Fadi Fahd/Flash90

"One device was found next to a playground and a second was found in a tree. In both cases, a police sapper was called. No damage or injuries were caused." Eshkol Regional Council spokesperson

"Following the continued violation of security stability, and following the decision to close the Kerem Shalom Commercial Crossing with the exception of humanitarian equipment, it will be noted that the import of vehicles, which has so far been carried out through the Erez Crossing, was stopped as well starting today."                                                                   Spokesperson, Erez crossing with Gaza

Oh, did Lebanon just several weeks back suffer a horrendous Beirut-dock explosion that killed 200 people, injured thousands and made hundreds of thousands Beirutis homeless, causing thousands of Lebanese to march in the streets demanding their Hezbollah-driven government step down? If so, the magnitude of the catastrophe has not yet penetrated the minds and consciences of the Hezbollah elite who far prefer to provoke Israel by attacking its soldiers across the blue line in Israel in hopes of inciting a lash-back to harm UN representatives keeping the 'peace' to enable an 'incident'.

The Israeli military responded as it must, striking Hezbollah posts with no loss of life, in the knowledge that the incident was a ruse to place UN personnel within the nearby peacekeeping post at risk. According to a Lebanese army announcement Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a local environmental group center. The following day the Israeli military gave the all-clear to Israelis living near the border -- instructed to remain indoors -- that they might now resume normal activities. Israel's north and Lebanon's south are on uneasy terms.

An attempt by Hezbollah operatives the month before to infiltrate Israel failed. Within Israel itself, Palestinians find the opportunity to stab Jews, sometimes causing grave injury, and sometimes causing death as happened last week when an Israeli rabbi was stabbed to death in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva, leaving four children without a father. The attacker, father to five children, will now face Israeli justice, and his family will be left homeless when their house is destroyed.

Incendiary balloons launched from Gaza have caused dozens of fires in Israel in recent days  AFP

Attacks by Palestinians on Jews, though routine enough, and incited by the Palestinian Authority which claims the attackers to be Palestinian heroic 'martyrs', are not the only means of violence committed against Israel. Incendiary devices attached to helium-filled balloons are regularly released by Palestinians over the border from Gaza into Israel, where vast acreages of forest and farmland are burned. Other balloons carrying explosive devices wreak carnage of the type that exploded into a home in an Israeli town last week, its occupants miraculously escaping harm.

Israeli aircraft and tanks last Friday retaliated by striking Hamas facilities in Gaza while Hamas responded by firing a half-dozen rockets into southern Israel. No casualties were reported despite the exchanges, on either side, Israel or Gaza. According to Israel, the military struck underground infrastructure and a military post belonging to Hamas, as well as a Hamas armed training camp. This time, it is Israel's south and Gaza's north where the neighbourly exchanges are taking place.

Israel has responded to the attacks by bombing militant targets  Reuters

These are pressure tactics used by Hamas to 'persuade' Israel to open the blockade of Gaza, to allow Hamas free reign to bring in materials to continue building tunnels, and arms to continue posing its existential threat to Israel. Israel, despite the blockade, opens the Erez crossing daily to ensure that vital supplies enter Gaza. The cement and other building materials that Israel will not permit entry other than in limited amounts, is smuggled into Gaza by Hamas and  used not for civilian infrastructure but for more tunnel-building.

The endless cycle of threats and violence plays its course through the relationship Israel labours under, with its neighbours who place low value on quality of life for ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese and high value on destroying stability for Israelis, with the intention of  ultimately bringing violent destruction to the nation, cleansing the historical heritage Judean landscape of the presence of Jews in a Jewish state, renewed with the intention of defending Jews in their own homeland restored, from a world that has repeatedly proven it has no place for them elsewhere in the diaspora.

What other nation on Earth has its legitimacy and sovereignty challenged continually by its neighbours in never-ending attacks? What other nation must defend its population from ongoing threats of attack leading to death from violent terrorists, the world looking on with detached interest, while segments of that world rise to the defense of the attackers claiming them to have been ill done by, refusing to condemn the violence, and expecting Israel to escape condemnation by restraining its military from imposing the full strength of its defence against indomitable hatred and hostility threatening to annihilate the country?

An Israeli soldier battles a blaze close to the southern kibbutz of Nir Am that was apparently caused by a balloon-borne incendiary device launched from the Gaza Strip, August 23, 2020. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

New Day Dawning in Ontario Politics?

Doug Ford before a transition meeting at the Ontario legislature. Stan Behal/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

"Our government will take action to ensure that events like Al-Quds Day, which calls for the killing of an entire civilian population in Israel, are no longer part of the landscape in Ontario."
"Blatantly racist or anti-Semitic ideology should never be permitted on the grounds of the legislative assembly of Ontario, or anywhere else in our province."
Doug Ford, Ontario Premier-Elect

"Some on the left have claimed Ford's description of Pride as an event where 'middle-aged men with pot bellies' run down the street 'buck naked' was evidence of homophobia. I would say that was just an accurate description of what goes on. Disturbingly, more and more parents are bringing young children to watch the parade, exposing them to provocative displays of sexuality that no child should witness."
"If a politician believes in family values, why would he or she want to be associated with such debauchery?"
"...There are some perfectly legitimate reasons to skip the annual bash. I'm gay and I boycotted the parade last year. So did a lot of other people. The reason fewer people showed up seems obvious. Pride endorsed hostility and division when it allowed the parade to be hijacked by Black Lives Matter Toronto in 2016, and subsequently gave in to their demand that police in uniforms be banned from marching in 2017."
"The best thing about Pride before the GLMTO takeover was that everyone was welcome, so the decision to exclude gay- and gay-friendly cops really ruined the fun."
"So long as our politicians are willing to defend equality, that's all that really counts. Many of us couldn't care less whether they parade down Yonge Street posing for selfies [Justin Trudeau] in the summer."
Josh Dehaas, freelance writer, Toronto

The "progressive" provincial Liberals have been tossed out of their governing perch, finally, and it's past time. Their "progressive" approach to every facet of government over the past fourteen years has effectively taught the voting public in the province that more of Liberal mis-administration of the province represents a punishment that the population can and will no longer tolerate. That done with this election, and the Liberals reduced to non-party status with the Progressive Conservatives given their turn at governing, there is hope that responsible administration will ensue.

Starting with a more intelligently judicious use of tax-payer-funded initiatives. And extending to more social order heightening respect due from one segment of the citizenry to the others with whom they share an obligation to take part in dedication to upholding the decency and moderation of public debate while enhancing the public weal. Which blatantly offensive displays of anti-Semitism and slanderous accusations against Jews alongside threats of mass murder fail to qualify.

And nor do the juvenile, spoiled-child attention-seeking of the greater majority of the LGBT2Q community rate as a communion of law-respecting citizens, and fair communication with segments of society who accept gay and lesbian human rights without wishing to be part of grotesque public displays of rude and inflammatory innuendo and behaviour of which the LGBT2Q community appears to feel entitled to expect obsequious acceptance on the part of straights.



So if the incoming premier of the province chooses to be absent from the latest iteration of Gay effrontery it should be recognized that this is his privilege and is not an indication that he has any intention whatever of turning back the clock to an era when gays and lesbians were horribly discriminated against through threat, disentitlement and violence.

Similarly, the components of the provincial population who feel it their given right to march in public with the emblems of violent terrorist groups in full display should be disabused of that notion.

The yearly Al-Quds Day rallies represent an instrument of defamation and intolerance rife with threats and the violence of mass murder engineered by the Islamic Republic of Iran, spread throughout the Muslim world as a symbol of oppression by Jews of Arabs and Muslims; a true David and Goliath fantasy of dysfunctional hatred in a religious culture given to global terrorism in aid of upholding Islam's most basic tenet of intolerance for other religious through the instrument of jihad.

Hoisting Palestinian flags in empathetic support of Palestinian Arab 'return' to 'their' land with the destruction of the State of Israel, marchers carry Hamas and Hezbollah banners to ensure that any witnesses to their hate-fuelled event are fully aware that these two Iran-sponsored and -funded terrorist groups, both of which remain on Canada's official outlaw list, are prepared to launch bloody war against the Jewish state with the popular support of the organizers and marchers of the Al-Quds Day event.

Netanyahu, Churchill and Congress Trying to Avert War by Richard Kemp March 1, 2015 at 3:30 pm http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5302/netanyahu-congress-speech There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill's speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu's today; both with no less purpose than to avert global conflagration. And, like Churchill's in the 1930s, Netanyahu's is the lone voice among world leaders today. There is no doubt about Iran's intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz. Israel is not the only target of Iranian violence. Iran has long been making good on its promises to mobilize Islamic forces against the US, as well as the UK and other American allies. Attacks directed and supported by Iran have killed an estimated 1,100 American troops in Iraq in recent years. Iran provided direct support to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. Between 2010 and 2013, Iran either ordered or allowed at least three major terrorist plots against the US and Europe to be planned from its soil. Fortunately, all were foiled. Iran's ballistic missile program, inexplicably outside the scope of current P5+1 negotiations, brings Europe into Iran's range, and future development will extend Tehran's reach to the US. It is not yet too late to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. In his 1941 speech to Congress, Churchill reminded the American people that five or six years previously it would have been easy to prevent Germany from rearming without bloodshed. But by then it was too late. This vengeful and volatile regime must not in any circumstances be allowed to gain a nuclear weapons capability, whatever the P5+1 states might consider the short-term economic, political or strategic benefits to themselves of a deal with Tehran. In a few days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the US Congress for the third time. The only other foreign leader to have had that privilege was Winston Churchill. Like Churchill when he first spoke to Congress in December 1941, Netanyahu is taking a risk. For Churchill the risk was to his life -- he had to make a hazardous transatlantic voyage aboard the battleship HMS Duke of York through stormy, U-boat infested waters. For Netanyahu the risk is to his own political life and to his country's relationship with the United States, given the intense presidential opposition to his speech. But like Churchill was, Netanyahu is a fighting soldier and, like Churchill, a tough political leader, unafraid to shoulder such risks when so much is at stake. And in both cases, the stakes could not be higher, greater than their own lives, political fortunes or rivalries and affecting not just their own countries and the United States, but the whole of the world. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of U.S. Congress on May 24, 2011. (Image source: PBS video screenshot) There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill's speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu's today: both with no less a purpose than to avert global conflagration. Speaking days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill summarized the course of the war thus far but then concluded with a dramatic appeal to the American people for Anglo-American unity to prevent conflict in the future, reminding them that "twice in a single generation, the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us." "Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to mankind," he asked, "to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for the third time?" No less profound, and no less far-reaching, will be Netanyahu's appeal for American-Israeli unity in the face of a new danger. A danger perhaps even greater than Churchill was able to comprehend in pre-nuclear 1941. Whereas Churchill spoke of a future, as yet unknown peril, Netanyahu will focus on the clear and present threat to world peace if Iran is allowed to produce nuclear weapons. And like Churchill in the 1930s, Netanyahu's is a lone voice among world leaders today. In pursuit of both uranium and plutonium tracks to a bomb, as well as the development of long-range ballistic missiles, there is no doubt about Iran's intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz. It is Netanyahu's duty to sound the alarm against such a prospect. It is Israel's survival that is at stake. It is Israel that will have to conduct military intervention if the US will not. And it is Israelis who will die in any subsequent regional conflagration. But this is not only an existential threat to Israel -- it is a danger to other states in the Middle East and to us all. Doubtful of Western resolve, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are already investigating the development of their own nuclear capabilities. An agreement that leaves Iran with the potential to achieve nuclear breakout will trigger a Middle East arms race that will exponentially increase the risks of global nuclear war, a risk multiplied by the vulnerability of regional governments to overthrow by extremists. Iran's ballistic missile program, inexplicably outside the scope of current P5+1 negotiations, brings Europe into Iran's range, and future development will extend Tehran's nuclear reach to the US. The world's number one sponsor of terrorism, the regime of the ayatollahs would have no qualms about supplying their terrorist proxies with nuclear weapons. This is the greatest threat the world faces today. Yet all the signals suggest that the P5+1, driven by President Obama's apparent desperation for détente with Tehran, is already set on a path towards 1930s-style appeasement that will end with Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. The view that Cold War style containment and mutual deterrence could prevent this apocalyptic, fanatical regime from using its nuclear weapons is dangerously naïve. Yet the Western leaders who seem to be on the verge of reaching an agreement are not naïve. Lacking the moral strength to face down Iran, they see deception and appeasement as the only way out of their dilemma. To gauge their intentions, we do not need to rely just on frequent Iranian threats, such as those of General Hossein Salami, who said recently, with negotiations still under way: "As long as the US continue to use the Islamic world as the scene for their regional policies, all the forces of the Islamic world will undoubtedly be mobilized against them." In the same interview, he threatened Israel too: "The very existence of the Zionist entity and its collapse are of crucial importance." Iran's determination to bring about the violent collapse of the "Zionist entity" is continuously manifested in its directing and funding of armed attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians at home and overseas, by proxies including Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Gaza conflict last summer, for example, owed much to Iranian funding and weaponry. Just a few weeks ago, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Mohammad Allahadi was operating with senior Hizballah commanders to set up a new front on Syrian territory in the Golan, from which to launch attacks against Israel. He was killed by an Israeli air strike while visiting his planned area of operations. Israel is not the only target of Iranian violence. Iran has long been making good on its promises to mobilize Islamic forces against the US, as well as the UK and other American allies. Attacks directed and supplied from Tehran killed an estimated 1,100 American troops in Iraq in recent years. Strikes have been facilitated in Afghanistan, killing US, British and other Coalition soldiers. Iran provided direct support to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks and continues to harbor Al Qaeda terrorists. Between 2010 and 2013, Tehran either ordered or allowed at least three major terrorist plots against the US and Europe to be planned from its soil. Fortunately, all were foiled. Direction, support and facilitation to both Sunni and Shia terrorist groups in planning attacks against the US and its allies continues today. This vengeful and volatile regime must not in any circumstances be allowed to gain a nuclear weapons capability, whatever the P5+1 states might consider the short-term economic, political or strategic benefits to themselves of a deal with Tehran. Even before the world's first experience of nuclear bombing in August 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt both understood the dangers of allowing their enemies and potential enemies to acquire such capability. When Allied intelligence identified a Nazi uranium production plant in Oranienburg in eastern Germany, 612 bombers destroyed it in a single raid in March 1945 with 1,506 tons of high explosives and 178 tons of incendiary bombs, to prevent it falling into the hands of advancing Russian troops. Only a strong stand by the West, and rejection of an agreement that allows development of nuclear weapons, will ensure that such action does not in the future become necessary against Iran. In his 1941 speech to Congress, Churchill reminded the American people that five or six years previously it would have been easy to prevent Germany from rearming without bloodshed. But by then it was too late, and the world was engulfed in unprecedented violence. It is not yet too late to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. The American people, the American government and the West as a whole must heed Netanyahu's clear warning not to reach a deal that will allow the mendacious and malevolent Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons. Instead, sanctions that stand a chance of compelling Tehran to abandon its world-threatening ambitions must be maintained, and if necessary, increased. Colonel Richard Kemp spent most his 30-year career in the British Army commanding front-line troops in fighting terrorism and insurgency in hotspots including Iraq, the Balkans, South Asia and Northern Ireland. He was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003. From 2002 - 2006 he heading the international terrorism team at the Joint Intelligence Committee of the British Prime Minister's Office.