Professor Isaac Ben-Israel, via good services of Ynet, dropped today a huge Valium tablet on the unsuspecting citizens of Israel. The pill is titled Nuclear bomb won’t destroy Israel.
I am not sure whether I understand all motives of that strange performance that, to my taste, has all the attributes of a staged one. One of the motives is clear – to preempt a possible panic toward the time (if and when) when Iran declares itself to be a proud owner of a military quality nuclear device or two. I don’t even attempt to make a guess about the other reasons.
In any case, and with due respect to the professor whose awesome CV is available here, I can safely say that his optimistic outlook is a lot of hooey.
To start with – the predicted number of immediate casualties. Even if we base our outlook on a “10– 20 kiloton bomb, such as the type that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (to be a nitpicker, the bombs used in these two cases were of two different types), a cursory glance at the relevant data shows that (Nagasaki):
The death toll within a distance of one kilometer from the hypocenter was 96.7% among people who suffered burns, 96.9% among people who suffered other external injuries, and 94.1% among people who suffered no apparent injuries.
In simple words, almost everyone within the one kilometer radius will be killed immediately, with descending casualty percentages as the distance grows. Taking 20,00 as an (optimistic) figure for the 500 meter circle Mr Ben-Israel mentioned, we get the predicted death toll of 80,000 with about half of that number again immediately killed outside of this circle. Which brings us to 120,000, still a fairly optimistic estimate, taking into account the 140,000 death toll in Hiroshima: its urban profile is closer to that of Tel-Aviv than Nagasaki, and more than 60% of its 225,000 citizens died (Tel-Aviv population is over 380,000).
Of course, there are too many factors (such as the winds at the time of the bombing) to make a precise estimate of the consequences of the explosion (mainly the fallout), but the horrible numbers are difficult to argue with.
But this is not all.
The explosion victims that will survive the explosion itself to die later of related reasons will create an insoluble burden on a country of Israel’s size. No country of this size is equipped to take care of tens of thousands of injured and dying.
The destruction of Tel-Aviv may not have a crippling effect on the IDF ability, including that of a counterstrike. However, the economic impact of the Tel-Aviv destruction will be too great to ignore and crippling indeed, not to mention the immediate damage to communications and transport infrastructure…
It is impossible to ignore the impact of such a horrible event on the nation’s morale. In a community so tightly knit as the Israeli one, the horrible death of 120,000 will be a devastating shock, and I am not at all sure that, aside of an immediate act of revenge, the nation will ever recover from it.
So, with all due respect, that Valium pill is rejected, professor.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published Friday.
It smells to me as a trend now: is somebody trying to lull us?
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
I would tend to view what a government spokesman says with suspicion.
I would tend to view ANYONE that is trying to calm fears of what a nuclear weapon will do to a population as suspect.
But lets say the “optimistic” report is correct. When Israel nukes Iran in retaliation, will she be able to survive the wave of murderous arabs running towards from all around?
Nope. So Israel will have to nuke about 3 or 4 countries to make sure once and for all Israel is secure. I have to think Israel knows they have to do this. Hopefully Russia will let Israel clean up the garbage without getting involved.
Otherwise…..
I really hope, Long_Rifle, that it will not come to be. So let’s focus on not letting Ayatollahs get their mitts on nukes.
I truly hope it doesn’t happen. But it seems the world has decided that if they ignore a problem it won’t happen.
We in America tend to forget or ignore that we are also in Iran’s sights for nuclear attack, and so is Britain. Several years ago I read of the Iranian equivalent of our National Security Advisor saying that Iran had a plan to destroy both the US and Britain. It involved destruction of 29 specific sites (not named of course) in the two countries.
I interpretd that to mean that they intended nuclear attacks against those sites, most likely by covert terrorist means. That would be the only way to ensure destruction was complete.
The world sits around fat, dumb and happy forgetting the lesson of the Niebuhr epigram. First Iran will come for the Jews, then for the USA, then for the rest of the world. Iran’s Pharaohs want nukes for genocide and imperial aggrandizment. There is no carrot or stick, short of outright war, that will dissuade them from developing nukes since the usefulness of such weapons for their purposes is paramount. This has been apparent for several years now.
Either the Iranian people overthrow the Ayatollahs before the Pharaohs of Tehran get their grubby hands on nukes or the Iranian people will be fried in the crossfire. They put these evil clowns in power, they should remove them. Otherwise they will pay a high price for not having enough people with the civic courage to do that.
Meryl,
Edward Teller once famously published an article on why a nuclear war wouldn’t destroy America.Among other things,he remarked ,if “10 Gazillion ” dollars of damage was done,that was only 8 times the GDP.So in 8 years,we’d be rebuilt.He neglected to think the infrastructure to rebuild would be wrong.
It’s a capital mistake to think extremely bright people,even a genius can’t say stupid things.
Corwin
And Michael Lonie,
The Iranian people are in the position of 10 people in a room wih a gunman.Whoever acts first,dies.I’m much more worried about whether the US will act.Still,I believe rather than Iran go nuclear we will.It’s ironic that the more the Dems try to soft peddle the danger of a nuclear Iran,the more likely they will keep on with their program and the more likely the US will act militarily
Yes, Corwin, but if nine jump him at the same time he can’t kill all of them. As I said, the Iranians put these evil clowns into power. Their present predicament is of their own making. If they do not act to prevent it, they will be killed by nuclear retaliation when the Ayatollahs start throwing nukes around. The Pharaohs of Tehran have been quite explicit, going back to Khomenei, that they do not especially value Iran. If Iran perishes but “Islam” is victorious they will consider the deaths of millions well spent.
At some point we will have to fight the Pharaohs of Iran. When that happens we will not be able to pull our punches to give the Iranian people any wiggle room, any more than we did the Germans in WWII.
The Pharaohs of Tehran have said they want to kill us. I take seriously the lesson for Jews of the Twentieth Century: If someone says he intends to kill you, believe him. The Ayatollahs have committed numerous acts of war against the USA and are carrying on a proxy war with Israel. They are at war with us, why aren’t we at war with them?