(Aspen Daily News).During “An Afternoon of Conversation” in the Benedict Music Tent on Thursday during the Aspen Ideas Festival,The new Israeli ambassador to the U.S. said the country would “take whatever actions are necessary to protect its citizens” from a nuclear-armed Iran.
Israeli ambassador Michael B. Oren was interviewed by Bob Schieffer of CBS News, who asked him to comment on the prospect of Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
“A nuclear-armed Iran poses multiple existential threats to Israel,” Oren said. “It is not just the threat of some crazy mullah in Tehran getting a nuclear weapon which can wipe Israel off the map, and that is what they pledge to do, pretty much on a daily basis.
“Once Iran gets that nuclear capability they can pass it on to terrorist groups — Hamas, Hezbollah — which presents a threat not just to Israel but to every country in the world, including this country, because your ports are porous, your borders are porous.
“Once Iran gets the bomb, a whole series of Middle Eastern states are saying that they want nuclear weapons, too. So you are just not going to have to worry about nuclear deterrents between Iran and the world. The entire Middle East could become a nuclear tinderbox, which would be very, very unstable.
“So Israel is going to do its utmost to prevent Iran from doing that harm,” Oren said.
Oren, 54, was born in the United States and raised in New Jersey before moving to Israel in 1979. He returned to America to earn a Ph.D. in Near East Studies at Princeton and is the author of “Power, Faith and Fantasy,” a best-selling history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. He also served as an officer and paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces.
He was appointed Israeli ambassador to the U.S. by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and started his duties on June 23, less than two weeks ago. Oren, who lives in Jerusalem, had to give up his U.S. citizenship to become the Israeli ambassador.
In response to a question from Scheiffer, Oren said Thursday that the nuclear threat from Iran is growing every day.
“We are watching very carefully, very carefully because we know that there is a clock ticking,” Oren said. “And as that clock ticks, those centrifuges — and there are about 6,000 of them now in Iran — are turning and they are turning out the enriched uranium that can produce that nuclear alternative.”
Schieffer asked him if Israel would take military action against Iran to prevent them from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“I think Israel would take whatever actions are necessary to protect its citizens from this multiple and existential threat,” Oren said.
“Do you have the military capacity to prevent them from making these bombs?” Scheiffer asked.
“Israel has the military means to defend itself under all conditions,” Oren said.
This drew a round of applause from the crowd in the 2,050-seat music tent, which was about three-quarters full.
Oren told the crowd that it now has been three years since Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, had been held hostage in Gaza and that he had become a national figure, with posters of him everywhere in Israel.
“The country that tears its heart out over the future and security of a single soldier is not going to let a country threaten it with nuclear weapons,” he said.
Scheiffer concluded the interview by asking Oren what would he like to see happen next in regard to relationships with the Arab world.
“I’d like to be able to take my next vacation in Riyadh,” Oren said, referring to the capital of Saudi Arabia, where Jews from Israel are barred from traveling by the Saudi Arabian ruling family.
“I’d like to see some gestures from the Arab world to show that, OK, we’ve been at war for 61 years, enough is enough,” Oren said. “How about showing us some gestures that you recognize the state of Israel is a permanent reality in the Middle East and isn’t going away.”
