Our Sacred Honor

“I think it should be obvious,” he said.

“It isn’t.”

“Your country, at your personal urging, sought an appeasement with Iran, continuing to allow them to refine uranium. The Europeans went along with you. And this is the result – an Iran that is willing to claim it has nuclear weapons, in defiance of all international agreements. An Iran that is happy to put the most advanced conventional weapons it has into the hands of terrorists – maniacs who are accountable to no one.”

“Yonatan…” Susan began.

“There are hundreds dead here, Susan. Perhaps thousands. We don’t even know yet. Residential buildings have been completely destroyed, and rescuers can only slowly dig through the rubble for fear of further collapses. There was a firestorm in a neighborhood in Haifa. The hospitals everywhere are overwhelmed.”

Susan shook her head. “I’m very sorry.”

It was as if Stern hadn’t heard her. “We are facing, perhaps for the first time since 1973, the question of annihilation. Now, I’m sure you think that the situation is more complicated than what I describe. Isn’t that what the Americans always say? Oh my, Israel and Iran, Israel and Hezbollah, what a complicated situation! But it’s not complicated. It’s simple. You have unleashed Iran upon us. You did it. And now you ask us to hold back our response. For decades you have tolerated a failed state in Lebanon and called it your ally. Lebanon is a launch platform for Iranian terror attacks – nothing more, nothing less. It is not a country. And yet you ask us – ”