The Bomb in the Basement and the Hypocrite at the Podium

 Some men lie with such regularity that you almost begin to wonder if they ever drew breath without first scrutinising themselves in a mirror.  Benjamin Netanyahu is, without a shade of doubt, one such man - an actor par excellence on the grand stage of world affairs, perpetually delivering the same tired lines from a tattered script first penned somewhere in the mid-1990s.

Since 1995 (or was it earlier? Can’t really recall, but it hardly matters), Netanyahu has stood before parliaments, think tanks, and television cameras with all the gravitas of a weatherman warning of an eternal storm, and wantonly claimed that “Iran is mere weeks away from acquiring a nuclear bomb.”  And yet, somehow, like Godot or the Second Coming, the bomb never arrives.  But his warnings do, like seasonal allergies, and with more applause every time from Capitol Hill.

It does take a special brand of chutzpah (a word I seldom use now, given its growing use as a euphemism for criminal gall) to preside over a state that refuses to sign the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), one that boasts a clandestine nuclear arsenal the size of a medium-sized apocalypse, and then lecture others on the existential dangers of nuclear weapons.  Israel’s policy of “nuclear ambiguity,” much like its prime minister’s moral compass, is less ambiguous than it is incandescent in its hypocrisy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, that weary bureaucratic janitor of the global nuclear order, is granted sweeping rights to inspect Iranian facilities down to the last centrifuge gasket. But when it comes to Israel? Silence. A policy of “don’t ask, don’t inspect.”  And Netanyahu, flagrantly standing atop this radioactive elephant in the room, has the audacity to brandish cartoon bombs at the United Nations like a villain with a terrible PowerPoint addiction from some James Bond movie!

Of course, Netanyahu’s nuclear alarmism is only the first act in the whole drama.  The encore is always a call for regime change, in Iran, in Syria, in Libya; and, who knows, perhaps even in North Korea if the day’s mood demands it.  He never advocates diplomacy; in fact, he sneers at it.  And whispers of peace are anathema to him; he prefers shouts for purification by fire.  To put it plainly, he is much less of a statesman than a regional arsonist, forever fumbling for matches while blaming others for the smoke.

And yet, for all his globe-trotting, Netanyahu might do well to examine the festering rot beneath his own polished shoes. At home, he faces corruption charges that read like the rap sheet of a South American dictator - bribery, fraud, breach of trust.  His family’s involvement is so deep that it makes one wonder if Likud’s official logo shouldn’t just be a courtroom sketch.  His support among his own people, once so slavish that his name alone could summon votes from even the comatose, is now dwindling, as even loyalists grow weary of a man who treats democracy as a speed bump on the road to perpetual power.

And let us not forget his spiritual twin across the Atlantic, the peroxide-plated patron saint of populism.  Donald Trump, a man who once recommended injecting bleach to fight Covid and who thinks nuclear policy is something you outsource to your son-in-law, and who arbitrarily withdrew from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, remains Netanyahu’s greatest enabler.  Together, they form a grotesque pas de deux of demagoguery - one under indictment for corruption, the other a convicted felon.  Neither can spell “restraint,” but both claim to defend civilisation!

Israel’s so-called “nuclear opacity” is now less a policy than a farce; it’s a diplomatic fig leaf so shrivelled and see-through that only Washington pretends not to notice.  And yet it is Iran, not Israel, that is flogged, sanctioned, and threatened, despite not possessing a single nuclear weapon.  It is like jailing someone for alleged intent while handing the actual thief a Nobel Prize for Peace in the next room.

It is perhaps the cruellest joke of our geopolitical age: that those with the most bombs and the least accountability are the ones preaching the loudest sermons on security.  And Netanyahu - armed with his selective morality, his apocalyptic PowerPoints, and his unwavering belief that rules are for other people - has made himself the high priest of that hypocrisy.

The only real deterrent the world needs is from men like him.