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In the question and answer session following Michael Oren’s November 23 speech at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles on “Israel at 60 – The Challenge of Jewish Statehood,” he addressed the issue of the Iranian nuclear program and the practical difficulties of Israel doing anything about it:
. . . having said all that, and having acknowledged that today there is not overwhelming international support for an Israeli operation against Iran — with all that, Israel has acted in unpopular ways before to save itself. That’s our national priority.
And we will act to save ourselves – I strongly believe that Israel will not allow Iran – will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and will do its utmost to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. We cannot eliminate the Iranian nuclear program. We have to be fully cognizant of that. As I said, Israel does not have strategic bombers. We cannot mount a sustained bombing campaign. At most we can neutralize central facilities in the Iranian nuclear apparatus. We can delay their program five to ten years.
Now five to ten years is a long time in the Middle East. We all know that old Yiddish joke about “the goat may die, and the king may die.” In that time, the goat may die, the king may die, there may be changes in Iran. And we are not the only country working to delay this program. A lot of intelligence services are working to delay this program.
At the end of the day we may have to acquiesce in some type of Iranian enrichment program with observers. I would hope we would not. But I am confident that we will work to delay this program.