Tony Snow |
The issue of Israel's right to act pre-emptively when faced with a nuclear threat is important, and a good question, and White House spokesman Tony Snow says he cannot answer it.
He was responding to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House.
Kinsolving referred to a Washington Times piece written about the issue of the threat facing Israel, and whether under international law it could act pre-emptively.
"The Washington Times published Purdue law professor Louis Beres and Israeli Major General Isaac Ben-Israel's statement that Israel has the right guaranteed to all states to act pre-emptively when faced with nuclear assault. And my question: Does the president agree or disagree with their writing that this is affirmed in international law?"
"The president is not commenting on op-ed pieces. Next," said Snow.
"They all…," started Kinsolving, when he was interrupted.
"I know – I know, it's a good question. And it's – you know, it's got great concern, but you know what? You ask me questions like this, I can't give you answers. And you know what? Why do you do this? Give me a question that – rather than asking an argumentative question about something that raises a provocative issue, or give me a head's up, and I'll try to do it. But we go through this. I love you. But you've got to help me out here… I mean, it's just – you know," Snow said.
"But these were statements by these…," Kinsolving started again.
"I know, and you think the president should respond to every statement made in every newspaper in the United States of America?" Snow said.
"No I just want to know. If you don't want to respond, that's fine. Could I just follow this up with the second part of it? They also write that the right to such pre-emptive action is also affirmed in the Sept. 20, 2002, American policy codification of the national security strategy of the United States. Are they wrong in this?" Kinsolving asked.
"No, we have a national security strategy, and I'm glad that they have read it," Snow said.
"The multiple security threats facing Israel are enormously complex. Jerusalem must soon decide if it can depend upon some combination of deterrence and active defense, or whether it must now also prepare for certain defensive first strikes against selected hard targets in Iran."
The article continued that Israel continues to work on its "Arrow" rocket, which has been successful in tests.
"If the Arrow were truly efficient in its expected reliability of intercept, even an irrational Iranian adversary armed with nuclear and/or biological weapons could be controlled. If Israel's nuclear deterrent were ignored by an enemy state willing to risk a massive 'counter-city' Israeli retaliation, that country's first-strike aggression could still be stopped by the Arrow."
However, the writers continued that no missile-defense system can ever be "leak-proof," and Israeli planners will need to calculate the Arrow's expected leakage rate in determining that nation's course of action.
"In principle, a small number of enemy missiles penetrating Arrow defenses might still be 'tolerable.' But if the incoming warheads were nuclear and/or biological, no rate of leakage could be acceptable. A fully zero leakage rate would be necessary to adequately protect Israel against nuclear and/or biological warheads, and such a rate is unattainable."
There also is the potential of a bomb delivered by vehicle, they noted.
"Israel still faces a number of state enemies whose undisguised preparations for attacking the Jewish state are literally genocidal, and who may not always be rational. Nowhere is it written that Israel must now simply sit back passively and respond only after a nuclear and/or biological attack has already been absorbed. Israel has the very same right granted to all states to act pre-emptively when facing an existential assault."
"Together with the United States, Israel exists in the crosshairs of a determined jihad that is profoundly theological and will not conform to rules of international law. Under no circumstances can Israel and the United States afford to allow this seventh-century view of the world to be combined with 21st-century weapons of mass destruction."
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