© Wikimedia Commons
Hellenistic statue claimed to depict Aesop, Art Collection of Villa Albani, Rome.
Aesop tells the story of the North Wind and the Sun: who is the stronger? They chose a traveler to test their strength; which of the two could force him to remove his cloak. The North Wind went first, whirling furiously down on the traveler, whipping his cloak to wrest it from him; but the more furiously he whirled, the more securely the man wrapped himself in his cloak.
The Sun abided his time and smiled gently at the traveler, gradually warming the air and surrounding the traveler with warmth and gentleness. Before he had gone many steps, he was glad to throw off his cloak and walk lightly clad among his brethren. The moral: Persuasion is better than force.
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said the United States had forfeited its moral right to stop Israel taking action against Iran's nuclear program because it had refused to be firm with Tehran itself." (Newsmax.com, Tuesday, September 11, 2012).
Curiously and perhaps ironically, Netanyahu claimed, "The world tells Israel, 'Wait, there's still time'. And I say, 'Wait for what? Wait until when?'"
And the world might well respond,
"When Israel decides to join the world community in a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement, and places itself in the same position as all mid-eastern states, bereft of weapons of mass destruction, standing with all other nations as free states, free of its military totalitarianism, free to join its neighbors beyond the walls of isolation it has erected to maintain its tribal nature living in constant fear of its true mid-eastern lineage.
It might find that the communities of the world would find Israel's willingness to abide by international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights justification to join that state as a friend worthy of world-wide acceptance into the United Nations,
not a rogue state sustained by the impunity provided by the unequivocal backing of the US.
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