The phrase that one hears most often in this context is "never again" - the idea that Jews owe it to themselves never again to be placed in a situation where they risk annihilation and do not confront the threat head on. In the context of Iran's nuclear project, the moral imperative to "do something" is an argument that wins hands-down any Israeli debate on Iran, whether it is conducted around the Cabinet table in Jerusalem or at an outdoor café in Tel Aviv. For most Israelis, the long list of political, strategic, and operational considerations that militate against attacking Iran are trumped by the lessons of the all-to-recent attempt to exterminate European Jewry.

Of course, the implications of the "never again" mentality weigh most heavily on Israel's leaders. This was true of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, who once confided that his worst nightmare was that by helping to gather in the remnants of European Jewry he had created a situation where Jews risked suffering a second Holocaust, this time in their own country. It was equally true of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who decided to bomb the Iraqi reactor without informing the Americans, because the country's survival was at stake. And similar considerations determined Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to bomb Syria's nuclear installation in 2007, despite dire warnings that such action risked triggering all-out war with Syria.

And the same holds for Benjamin Netanyahu today. It is not a coincidence that in his public statements Netanyahu repeatedly equates Iranian leader Ahmadinejad with Hitler. For all the heavy-handedness of this parallelism, it is one that does not need to be elaborated in order to be understood by Israeli audiences. The line that Netanyahu has taken with regard to the threat that Iran poses to Israel is harsh to the extreme, both in public and in private. It is fair to say that the Iranian threat has had a profound impact on his perception of his obligations as leader of the country. Israel, he believes, simply cannot reconcile itself to the existence of a nuclear Iran. A country that repeatedly calls for the destruction of Israel cannot be allowed to obtain the wherewithal to do so. And, as he told me in an interview in 2007, in the event that Israel fails to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel must prepare for every eventuality: "Against lunatics, deterrence must be absolute, perfect."

In the final analysis, therefore, concerns about Obama's reaction, retaliatory acts by Iran and its proxies, or even the unprecedented operational difficulties inherent in carrying out a successful strike - all these will not determine whether or not Israel takes action. Short of a success in terminating Iran's nuclear program, whether through covert operations or as a result of international pressure -neither of which seems a realistic possibility at this point - it is very hard to imagine Prime Minister Netanyahu (or his successor) choosing not to take what is, in practice, the only possible course of action available to him when Iran nears the point of nuclear capability.

(SZ vom 05.02.2010/dgr)