What about the day after?

HAARETZ

I am not a military expert but a scientist, whose specialty has been environmental risk analysis. One thing I learned early on is that numbers drawn from multiple observations always represent a range of probabilities. The size of the range − the standard deviation − depends, among other things, on the number of observations, their reliability and their variance. A number based on one observation or guess is usually very unreliable. There is every reason to believe that this is no less true with regard to all of the predictions, estimates, guesses and promises concerning the proposed Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Let us examine the possible range of probabilities around the main issues that confront us, as reported in the press:

Most reports state that if Israel alone attacks the Iranian nuclear facilities they will be put out of commission for a period varying from a few months to up to at most two years. All agree, however, that Israel alone, even with the help of the Americans, cannot totally destroy all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, many of which are buried deep in the ground. Thus at best bombing can only postpone the day that the Islamic Republic possesses nuclear-weapons capability by a few months or a few years.

An Israeli attack on Iran will either unite the resolve of the Iranians to gather around and support their current Islamic leaders or, alternately, will contribute to the downfall of the ayatollahs, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested would happen to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, on the latter’s visit here last month. That, according to Netanyahu, is what happened eventually to President Idi Amin of Uganda following Israel’s rescue attack on Entebbe airport in 1976. Is this just wishful thinking on the part of the prime minister? ‏(Amin was deposed in 1979.‏)

In response to an Israeli attack, even if supported by America, it is widely expected that Iran and its terrorist allies Hezbollah and Hamas will shower all parts of Israel with a barrage of 10,000 to 50,000 rockets. According to intelligence estimates, these will include highly powerful and highly accurate missiles, which can be expected to lead to the death of many Israelis and to the destruction of many homes and vital services and infrastructure, including such critical facilities as power stations, oil refineries, airports and possibly even the reactor in Dimona. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has suggested no more than 500 will be killed − but he hasn’t revealed the basis for that calculation. What if the number were 1,000 or more? Risk analysis studies of major accidents or bombings indicate that the number of wounded is often some 10 times the number of deaths. Thus the number of wounded, including those crippled for life, might range from 5,000 to 10,000.

A story in Yedioth Ahronoth several months ago reported that the Home Front Command has estimated that in the case of such a massive rocket attack on Israel, we have to be prepared for some 300,000 people ending up homeless. But are they sure? Couldn’t that number be 600,000 homeless, or more? Where would they go? There are only limited facilities in Israel that could absorb masses of people whose homes have been destroyed.

Barak, in a press interview, promised that in any event it will all be over in a week. What if he’s wrong? What if it were to lead to a war with Iran that goes on for 100 weeks, or 1,000?

We haven’t heard much about the possible billions of dollars worth of damage the economy and national infrastructure can be expected to sustain as a result of massive Iranian/Hezbollah/Hamas barrage of rockets on Israel. What if electric power production, industries, oil refineries, railroads and water supplies are so severely damaged as to reduce their output by 10-20 percent? What will happen to tourism? Will it disappear, as has occurred in Egypt, or perhaps be reduced by 30-50 percent for a year or so? Has any one calculated the massive economic damage and long-term implications that could result from an attack, and that might well cripple the Israeli economy for years? ‏(These questions, without a doubt, also need to be asked when considering the effects of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel, as the prime minister tells us the Islamic Republic intends to carry out, in the absence of Israeli action.)

Can the public stand by passively and allow its national leaders to play the deadly game of Russian roulette with their very lives and economic future?

Prof. Hillel Shuval, emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializes in environmental risk analysis. He was a former member of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission’s Committee on the Safety of Atomic Reactors.