NUCLEAR SQUARE-OFFS
In “No Country Is an Island” [Critical Mass], Lawrence M. Krauss describes the probable apocalyptic effects of a postulated nuclear war between India and Pakistan. After tensions escalated in the late 1990s, the two countries set up a “hotline” and various dialogues aimed at avoiding catastrophe. And despite much mutual animosity, neither India nor Pakistan denies each other the right to exist, in principle and a priori.

Yet many do not appreciate the far greater threat now looming between Israel and Iran. Israel is believed to have hundreds of warheads, with second-strike capability. Moreover, it faces explicit existential threats from Iran and other extremist entities, which are edging closer to nuclear capability. Alone of all peoples, those of Israel have faced attempted extermination in recent history and believe themselves to be under a renewed threat. There exists no logical route whereby dialogue or hotlines could be set up between two enemies in a conflict where one side refuses point-blank to recognize the other’s right to exist per se. Nor would Israel, if faced with certain genocide, have any reason not to take the rest of humanity with it to the funeral pyre.

Whereas there are many reasons to dislike Israel’s obdurate and often ham-fisted foreign policy, the wider interests of humankind are ill served by demands for Israel to be isolated or removed from the planet.
Michael Martin-Smith
Hull, England

HOW BABIES REALLY THINK
In the Key Concepts for Alison Gopnik’s “How Babies Think,” the wording and perspective are not quite correct: “Children learn about the world much as scientists do—in effect, conducting experiments, analyzing statistics and forming theories to account for their observations.” I believe you meant to say: “Children learn about the world much as scientists do—smashing things to smith­ereens, staring in wonder at the results and then breaking out in giggles.”
Michael Jacob
Oakland, Calif.

2 Comments

1. 1. JohnHDouglas 09:55 PM 10/26/10

   Michael Martin-Smith's supposition that Israel faces an existential threat from Iran is a false position, for the very reason he notes: Israel has ample nuclear deterrent. Despite the fun (and benefits) that Iran's President has from thumbing his nose at the US and Israel, he has never really threatened to nuke Israel, nor is there any significant possibility the Iranian leadership would take such a step. On the flip side, Israel could, if it wished, take a step toward entering into reasonable relationships with its neighbors if it would recognize the right of a Palestinian state to exist and negotiate honestly toward that end. That would cut the heart out of Iranian hardliners' arguments.
   But Israel's government is now led by Likud, which has a party platform stating that there will never be a sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank of the Jordan, so any easing of the tensions in the region are far, far away, unless pressure is brought on Israel to truly end the occupation and accept the peace the Arab countries have offered. The internal politics of the US, which is probably the only country capable of putting real pressure on Israel, don't offer much hope of that happening in my lifetime.

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2. 2. sfauthor 11:00 PM 10/31/10

   "Nor would Israel, if faced with certain genocide, have any reason not to take the rest of humanity with it to the funeral pyre."
   
   Really? Just like that? No reason at all? Seven billion people count for nothing?
   

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