Ahmadinejad and Israel's Best Interests (Cont'd)

Aluf Benn criticizes those Israeli leaders who think that Ahmadinejad is a kind of blessing for their country:

The claim of pro-Ahmadinejad Israelis goes like this: The president in Iran is a puppet of the real powers - the religious leaders, led by Ayatollah Khamenei. Iran's nuclear plans have advanced and will continue no matter who is president and what that person's positions are. Therefore, it is better for us that Iran's most prominent spokesperson to be a Holocaust-denier who threatens to destroy Israel; that way it will be easier to garner support from around the world for pressure on Iran.

To understand how baseless this approach is, it is enough to look at what has happened over the four years of Ahmadinejad's rule. The Iranian nuclear project has crossed the "technological threshold" and reached the capability to independently manufacture enriched uranium without really being bothered from abroad except for hollow sanctions. During this period, Israel enjoyed a loving relationship with the Bush administration and a reasonable relationship with Europe, yet did not manage to get the international community on board to stop the centrifuges in Natanz. Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran's allies, armed themselves uninterrupted.