The following story reminds me of the famous movie “The Mouse That Roared,” starring Peter Sellers, about a tiny imaginary duchy that declares war on the United States. The movie, based on the satirical novels of American-Irish writer Leonard Wibberley, ridicules international relations, the arms race and US politics.
The story took place on July 2 at a roundtable in Istanbul with Israeli academics and a senior representative of the Israeli Consulate in the city. The event was held at the height of diplomatic efforts to end the crisis of the Mavi Marmara flotilla and rehabilitate ties between Turkey and Israel. One of the speakers was professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University — the very same center where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his June 2009 speech, in which he first expressed his commitment to a two-state solution.
