The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran (28 page)

The room stayed silent for a moment, until Zvi spoke: “Ss…Sir, we discussed the cc-concept of PP-Pikuah Ne-Nefesh and…and we’re…we’re struggling with the idea of…of…of…tt-taking the lives of millions of people, agg…against the principles of…of…of…the TT-Torah.”

“These are legitimate concerns,” Daniel replied. “But did anyone feel any remorse about the fact that we just killed at least fifty people aboard that Iranian Kilo submarine that our torpedo just sank?”

Jacob replied: “Sir, that’s very different. In that situation, it was kill or be killed. We had an opportunity to eliminate an immediate threat that would have quickly targeted us in the same way, had we been detected first. So it was self-defense.”

Daniel replied with a hypothetical: “So if you saw the very same Kilo that attacked and killed everyone on board the Leviathan, and you knew that this enemy sub wouldn’t attack us because it had no more torpedoes left to fire, are you saying that you wouldn’t attack it because self-defense isn’t necessary against a foe with no more ammunition?”

“Sir, in that case you would be justified in attacking the Kilo because it is part of a system that can still threaten your country. But if your country was just destroyed, then attacking that Kilo achieves nothing.”

Eitan drew another distinction: “And the Kilo would be a military target with a limited number of casualties. Not millions of innocent civilians, Sir.”

Daniel tried another hypothetical: “These are all good points. It’s not the right example. Let me try again: Suppose that an evil arsonist who hated your parents conceived of a plan to burn them alive, and then proceeded to incinerate them in their home. Now imagine further that he’s brought to trial, and his defense lawyer convinces the judge that the perpetrator can be given a pacifying injection that will ensure that he never again engages in violent acts. The judge then sentences this arsonist to receive the injection but allows him to live freely in society. The injection actually works and the one-time arsonist never again harms anyone even though he burned your parents alive. Has justice been done?”

Boutrous replied, “Sir, that example also doesn’t work because the arsonist was actually responsible for burning your family members but the millions of civilians that we kill would not be in any way responsible for what happened to our country.”

“That’s true, Boutrous, but I was using the example only to illustrate that the concept of retribution is not crazy. There’s something fundamentally unjust about allowing the man who burned your parents alive to go unpunished just because he’ll never harm anyone else again. And in our case, we’re talking about a country that may have burned your entire country alive and could very well harm again.”

Jacob objected: “Sir, I agree with you that retribution can be a valid kind of justice. But it still must be carried out against the right people – the ones who are actually responsible for the crimes that need to be punished. And most of the Iranians who would die in our retributive strike are not the ones who burned our country.”

Daniel addressed this recurring argument in a way that surprised everyone: “Egypt enjoys tourism revenues that average about $10 billion a year from monuments and treasures created a few thousand years ago. The average Egyptian has about $6,000 a year of purchasing power. Now take Chad, just 400 kilometers southwest of Egypt. They have no monuments built thousands of years ago to attract any tourists. And the average person there has about one-sixth as much money as the average Egyptian. Is that fair?”

Bao spoke up: “Sir, I couldn’t agree with you more in this debate, but I have no clue what point you were trying to make just now.” There were a few chuckles in the group.

“Let me explain,” the captain said. “The concern that many have understandably expressed here is that it’s not fair to hold individuals responsible for the actions of their state. But that is how reality works, whether or not it’s fair. The individuals who live in Egypt have a life that is six times richer than their southwest neighbor in part because they live in a state where beautiful monuments were built thousands of years ago. And there are countless examples of this. Qatar has the world’s highest proven reserves of oil and natural gas, so it is one of the world’s richest countries. Is that fair? And if individual Qatari citizens were not responsible for putting the oil and natural gas in the land held by their state, is it fair that those individuals should live lives that are on average about a hundred times richer than the lives of the individuals in Chad?”

Michael responded: “Sir, that’s an interesting argument, but it’s from the realm of economics, which seems very different from the life and death issues involved in a military strike.”

“Well, economics present life and death issues every day. Just ask the starving, impoverished countries of Africa. But here’s an example that’s about as relevant as it’s going to get: I’m pretty sure my grandfather, who survived the first Holocaust, did not survive whatever second holocaust was just visited upon our country. Was that fair to him?”

Eitan replied: “No, Sir. But why would that make it right for us to do the same thing to the innocent people living in the state that killed your grandfather?”

“For the same reason that it’s wrong to let the arsonist who burned your family go unpunished. The crime must be answered, even if the answer is imprecise. And this is even more the case when it will produce other benefits.”

“What other benefits, Sir?”

“How about freeing over 70 million Iranians from a regime that censors and represses them? A regime that placed a Fatwa on writer Salman Rushdie that led to the murder of his Japanese translator and a hotel fire that killed many. A regime that violently crushed the democratic aspirations of its own people in 2009 and then helped the Syrian regime to butcher tens of thousands of ordinary Syrians seeking freedom.”

Michael objected: “But Sir, it’s not up to us to change Iran’s thug-ocracy. Otherwise we’d have to launch strikes against North Korea, Cuba and many other oppressive regimes.”

“I agree. But if the Iranian people are too terrorized by a powerful and entrenched regime to oust it on their own, then our attack might give them the external force they need to topple the government there. Helping them to do that would never be the reason for our attack, but it could be a side-benefit.”

“Sir, is that the main benefit you have in mind?”

“No, there is another, possibly more important benefit: we would be sacrificing a few to save many.”

“I don’t follow you, Sir.”

“Think about a virulent epidemic that requires quarantining an entire city, even though most of the residents are healthy. For the safety of surrounding areas and to stop the spread of the virus, healthy residents in the infected city may have to die. Is that fair to them?”

“Bb…But that definitely pp-promotes the greater goo…good, Sir,” Zvi said. “Ifff…If Israel has already been de…de-destroyed, how does our killing mm-millions of inn…innocent Iranians promote the gr-greater goo…g-good?”

“By eliminating a growing military menace from a hostile country that is the leading state sponsor of terror, and is only going to threaten more of its neighbors as it grows stronger.”

Bao chimed in: “Now we’re back to a rationale I can relate to. Think of Iran as a tough schoolyard bully who regularly terrorizes about twenty students. What if you could improve the lives of those twenty students by terrorizing just two innocent people – the bully’s parents – enough to make them change their son’s behavior or leave the neighborhood? They really aren’t responsible for their son’s bullying because there’s only so much that they can do to change it, just as – according to Ambesah – there is only so much that the Iranian people can do to change their government. But if terrorizing his parents means that twenty students would stop being bullied by their son, wouldn’t that be worth it, even though his parents did none of the bullying?”

Samir added, “Exactly. And in the case of Iran, the cruel bullying is on an infinitely more evil scale. That regime will soon be terrorizing the rest of the Middle East and beyond, even more than it’s done in the past. And let’s not forget that their attack on our state was totally unprovoked. We did absolutely nothing to deserve a nuclear attack.”

Ambesah rejoined: “Well, there’s been a shadow war for years between our countries. Iran blames us for the assassinations of some of its nuclear scientists.”

Samir dismissed his answer: “Come on, Ambesah. That’s a ridiculous point. Even if those accusations were officially confirmed, preemptively killing some scientists working to create a weapon that threatens a country’s existence is hardly grounds to destroy that country and kill millions of people.”

Eitan joined in: “Iran was involved in major terrorist attacks against the Jews long before the nuclear issue arose. What did the people in the Argentine Israeli Embassy or the Jewish center in Buenos Aires do to deserve the horrific attacks that took their lives and were planned and funded by Iran in the early nineties?”

Daniel reinforced Eitan’s point: “And if Iran was responsible for those massacres under the leadership of Rafsanjani, who is considered to be a moderate, then what does that tell you about the nature of the political system there? And if it pursued such horrible acts without the cover of a nuclear weapon, how much more aggressive and cruel could it become once it possesses the world’s most dangerous weapons? Well, we have the answer to that question in the last two updates from headquarters,” he said, holding up the printout of the updates. “So stopping this threat with an overwhelmingly forceful retribution definitely serves the greater good.”

Ambesah spoke next. “Sir, I feel like we’ve discussed the moral issues pretty thoroughly by now, but I wanted to raise a practical consideration as well.”

“Go on.”

“The Jewish people have never been numerous. In Ethiopia, we were only about 100,000. And in the entire world before the first Holocaust, the Jews totaled about 18 million. After the Holocaust, we dropped to 12 million. If this turns out to be the second Holocaust, then our numbers may have dropped from about 14 million to 7 million. As horrible as such things are, we always seem to survive. We always rebuild. And in a sense we on this ship are on a kind of Noah’s Ark.”

Eitan blurted out some banter to Boutrous: “Wow, Ambesah pulled out Noah’s Ark again – you’re getting the origins of two nicknames in a single day.” There were some scattered chuckles among the men.

Ambesah continued: “I know it may sound a little silly. But that really is Jewish history – surviving one disaster after the next by focusing on rebuilding each time, as unlikely and hard as it may be. And killing millions of innocent Iranians won’t help us to do that. If anything, it will make rebuilding that much harder because the world will hate us even more than it already does.”

Michael replied: “History has shown that the world hates us no matter what we do, so we should just focus on doing the right thing, whatever that is.”

Eitan agreed: “Indeed, the Jews were never destined to win a popularity contest. No point in trying to start winning one now.”

Daniel spoke next: “I understand the need to move on and rebuild as a people, no matter how huge the scale of the tragedy that hit us. But I think there is a fundamental injustice in not responding to what Iran did. And what kind of message would that send to the rest of the world? That naked aggression pays off? That a regional minority can be slaughtered by the millions without consequence? That the Jews are as powerless today as when they were rounded up and put into Nazi cattle cars?”

Michael replied: “I don’t share Ambesah’s hope for renewal. Jewish history grew weary of having us live as subjects at the pleasure and mercy of our hosts, as we were ostracized from one country to the next. It took us two millennia to regain our sovereignty. And now that it’s been destroyed, what’s left? Am I supposed to return to Russia, where my parents are from, and live in fear again as a member of some small and abused ethnic group? I have to embrace a weak and pathetic destiny dependent on favors from greater powers? I prefer that we leave history in dignity, with one last, unforgettable message to the world.”

Eitan addressed Michael: “Does this mean that you’re no longer among the undecided?”

“Yes, I’ve made up my mind. We should attack.”

Samir offered a psychological explanation for Eitan’s indecision: “Maybe you’re still unsure because you have distant cousins in Iran?”

“Don’t be a smartass, Samir. I have my parents, my siblings, some cousins, and all of my friends in the country that was reportedly just destroyed. So a few distant cousins I never met in the country that destroyed Israel isn’t going to change anything. My hesitation has nothing to do with cousins in Iran or even being proud of my Persian heritage. It has to do with the fact that it’s such a monumental decision. I don’t know how we’re supposed to make such a decision when most people here are only in their twenties and nobody’s over forty years old…Normally this type of decision is left to the Prime Minister and his security cabinet. Not to a bunch of kids on a submarine.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised there’s any ambivalence,” Samir responded. “I mean, each of you chose to serve in the submarine force knowing that a potential nuclear strike was exactly what you were signing up for.”

Jacob rejoined: “It’s one thing to sign up for it in the abstract. It’s quite another thing to be here, just 300 kilometers from being able to hit the preferred Iranian targets, deciding to actually do what we signed up to do.”

Chapter 32: Standing at the Altar

Samir’s suggestion that Eitan somehow had conflicting loyalties because of his Persian roots continued to grate his conscience after the second debate. When he lay in his bunk a few hours later, trying to fall asleep, his mind began visualizing the countless stories that he had heard from his parents and much older siblings about their flight from Iran before he was born.

His mother and father were each born in 1950 to relatively poor families in Tehran but, by 1977, the two had grown to symbolize the “Iranian dream.” When they were each just 18 years old, they risked their meager savings on a fashion venture that they launched from their humble one-bedroom apartment, where they were raising a one-year old daughter and a newly born son, and barely had enough money to pay the rent. But in under a decade, thanks to the creative vision of Eitan’s mother and the business savvy of his father, the two would go on to build one of Iran’s most successful fashion design companies, by creating elegant, European-style clothing that most Iranian families could afford. They patriotically represented Iran at international fashion shows and design competitions where they won various awards and honors. In 1977, the family moved into a beautiful, ten-room villa, and Eitan’s father assumed an active leadership role in the Iranian Jewish community. The young, remarkable couple’s talent and hard-earned success caught the attention of the political elite and they eventually became the personal tailors to the Shah and his family.