Questions of trust for Iran and Israel

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/questions-trust-iran-israel

Version 0 of 1.

The nauseating effrontery of Michael Herzog's jeremiad at what he terms "the smile offensive" of Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, is breathtaking (Israel can't trust Iran, 28 September). While he talks of "Iran's history of deceit" over its "continual pursuit of nuclear weapons", not a word is uttered about Israel's arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it still officially denies and which for years it concealed from the world until Mordechai Vanunu exposed them, for which "crime" he was abducted and imprisoned for 18 years and has been denied permission to leave Israel ever since. And complete silence on Israel's refusal to sign the non-proliferation treaty. Nor has he anything to say on the manner in which, applying the apt words of Milton's Lycidas to the settlers' colonisation of Palestinian lands under successive Israeli administrations, "the grim wolf, with privy paw, daily devours apace, and nothing said".

All this from a man who, for the past 20 years or more, has played a key role in Israel both in the so-called "peace process" and as a senior aide acting as liaison between the Israel defence ministry, the IDF, the intelligence community and Israel's powerful defence establishment, and who concludes his article with an ominous statement that Israel "will be left alone with a terrible decision between 'the bomb' and 'the bombing'".

It really is time for Jews worldwide to stand up and be counted: dissociate us from the suicidal impulses that are ever present in Israel. Benedict Birnberg London

• Michael Herzog might well be asked: why can't Iran and most of Israel's neighbours trust the Tel Aviv regime? Doubtless, were the UN to impose on Israel the kind of sanctions levied on Iran, forcing the regime to comply with international law, we would see a speedy, just resolution to the 65 years of oppression suffered by the Palestinian people. Ian Lowery Kensworth, Bedfordshire

• With Iran, it's not really about nuclear weapons at all. It's about the hawks in Israel and the US needing a suitable enemy to justify their belligerence. Rouhani doesn't fit the bill – they'd rather have Ahmadinejad. Peter Adams Stroud, Gloucestershire

• Simon Jenkins (If we fear an Iranian bomb, we should back Rouhani, 27 September) rightly questions the effectiveness of sanctions, but he misses the irony of what has happened with Iran.

"Targeted sanctions" were devised in the late 1990s as a response to the manifest failures of traditional, broad-based economic sanctions. In 2006 this new approach was adopted to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme. The original aim was to focus economic pressure on key individuals and entities, but avoid causing extensive collateral damage to the general population. However, having failed to achieve anything, the sanctions regime has been successively "toughened" (ie expanded). The result is the sort of broad-based economic blockade that everyone agreed long ago to be a bad idea. It would seem that as far as sanctions are concerned what goes around comes around. David Smart Associate fellow, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies

• It is difficult to disagree with the logic of Simon Jenkins, but he has overlooked a political dynamic. He says "Israel's boycott of Iran's hand of friendship is madness". Not so. The "existential threat" reinforces US support for Israel and its hostility towards Iran. This leverage is too important to give away. And Israel has probably calculated that a rapprochement led by Obama can be defeated in Congress, especially with its help. To break this dynamic, Britain and Europe need to show willingness to pursue rapprochement without, if need be, the US. David Angluin Liverpool

• Is the Netanyahu who has "vowed to 'tell the truth' about Iran's nuclear programme" (Report, 30 September) the same Netanyahu who refuses to tell the truth about Israel's huge stockpile of nuclear warheads and the missiles with which to fire them, and who refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty? Gerald Kaufman MP Labour, Manchester Gorton

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.