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Noah Pollak has been having a back and forth with Andrew Sullivan and Joe Klein over the Iranian and Israeli nuclear programs. Joe Klein writes:

In one of the sillier bits of prose I've read in some time, Noah Pollack argues: 

"But Israel isn't Iran's rival — Iran is Israel's. Can Andrew name any acts of unprovoked bellicosity Israel has committed against Iran?"

How about Israel's constant threats of military action against Iran's nuclear program? How about the disproportionate bellicosity Israel visited upon Iran's Hizballah surrogate in 2006? Which is not to say that Hizballah is anything other than a group of extremist thugs--but southern Lebanon and, more recently, Gaza are the battlefields where Israel's rivalry with Iran has been playing out. (Add: Indeed, given the state of hostilities--for which Iran is almost totally responsible--the very existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal can be seen as an existential threat to Iran.)

Pollak responded for himself here, but it's worth highlighting what a warped sense of morality Joe Klein has. Iran has a decades-long record of supporting terrorism against Israel, its leadership has denied the Holocaust, threatened to wipe Israel off the map and done so within the context of seeking a nuclear weapon. One of the terrorist groups that Iran was funding -- Hezbollah -- was firing rockets at Israeli civilians and raided Israel to kidnap Israeli solidiers, while another terrorist group funded by Iran -- Hamas -- was doing the same on the southern front of Israel. And this represents unprovoked bellicosity on the part of Israel? Wow.  

Joe Klein goes on to write that:

For the record, I think 60 years of history make it reasonable for Israel to have a nuclear deterrent. But the reality of Israel's nuclear arsenal does make it difficult to argue against Iran's right to have the same. And the constant plumping for war against Iran by Likudniks in Israel and the U.S. makes the case for a nuclear capability dire and immediate from Iran's point of view. It is time we stopped kidding ourselves about this--and stopped making arguments that the rules should be different, somehow, for Israel than for other countries.

This is like saying that allowing law-abiding individuals to posess guns to protect their families makes it difficult to argue against allowing violent criminals to own guns. At this point, I wonder if Joe Klein actually believes anything he writes, or if he just leaps at any oppourtunity to attack "Jewish neoconservatives" without thinking about what he's writing.