Dartblog

This Sunday morning, the leading news is the London Times’ report claiming that “Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.” A man called Uzi Mahnaimi, along with Sarah Baxter, earns the byline.

From Mr. Mahnaimi especially, this flavor of reportage should not be cause for surprise. Such august organizations as The Institute for Historical Review—yes, review of that—count themselves fans of his work. In 1998, before the West awakened to the specter of Islamism, Mr. Mahnaimi was issuing other wild-eyed news bits about the evils of Israel. “Israel Planning ‘Ethnic’ Bomb,” one headline read. Mr. Mahnaimi claimed in his article that Israel was trying to isolate Arab-only genes so that a biological weapon could be developed to destroy them all. These were published in the International Herald Tribune, Uzi’s ravings were, and fell about as flat as this latest news that Israel is going to turn the deserts of Iran into ones even more barren than they are at present.

Journalists—real ones—often talk about ledes. The live end and the dead end; the story’s warp and woof. Two crucial things are missing from this sensationalist story. Not coincidentally, both mitigate its dramatic power. The nuclear weapons in question are tactical nuclear bombs. Those are not strategic nuclear bombs, which are the epic machines a few nations hold in reserve to balance geopolitical power. But the writer wants to use the kind of shock they provide, so the headline simply says ‘nuclear’ rather than ‘tactical nuclear’. The difference? A tactical nuclear bomb isn’t special because it is nuclear—it is special because it packs the power of five or so conventional bombs into a single package. A strategic nuclear bomb ends cities and nations. Every nuclear state concentrates its weapons development on tactical bombs, even as the word nuclear conjures in our heads images only of strategic bombs.

Strategic bombs like those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mr. Mahnaimi, who has perfected his scare craft since his days of revealing Israel’s anti-Arab genetic mutation juice, sees fit to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki right in the third paragraph, saying “The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

The second omission? Of course Israel has drawn up plans to forcibly decommission Iran’s nuclear program. So have most responsible nations. Mr. Mahnaimi has not a corpuscle of evidence that Israel has put its plans on a definite timetable, or that any consensus to execute the plans exists among the political class. He’s merely learned that Israel has figured out how to set back the nuclear program of a nation whose president swears to himself, to his god, and to his people each day that he will wipe out Jewry. In a sane world, the report might invite us to wonder why Israel countenances Iran so calmly. Instead, starting Monday, we will be treated to condemnations of “the plan” by the internationalist elites of the world.

BY THE BYE: Uzi and Sarah have issued this report at least two other times—once in December 2005 and again in September 2006.