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ISRAEL MUST NOT WAIT FOR THE WORLD North Korea, a dogmatic state that is isolated from the world, has a starving population and a collapsed economy-yesterday detonated a nuclear device and sparked a worldwide uproar. Its deranged leader, Kim Jong Il, was the recipient of condemnations from across the globe-from his neighbor China to the United States, from Russia to Australia. But the danger posed by North Korea to Israel lies elsewhere. Over the course of the past number of years Iran has cooperated with North Korea by supplying technical devices for testing and for manufacturing fissionable material. In return, the Iranians received help developing their surface-to-surface missile, the Shihab-3, which has Israel within its range. The big question for Israel is whether North Korea also made the Iranians privy to the development of its atomic devices and that now all that Tehran has left to do is to develop the requisite fissionable materials for conducting its own nuclear bomb test in the deserts outside of Tehran. As noted, for Israel the two situations are incomparable. While the world, including the countries directly threatened-South Korea, Japan and other countries in Asia-can live with a crazy atomic neighbor; Israel cannot live in the shadow of an Iranian nuclear threat. Iran has voiced its desire to attack Israel, and now it is developing the capabilities to do so. We would do well were we to believe Ahmadinejad when he and his cohorts speak about "destroying Israel." They mean what they say, and it behooves Israel now to begin to prepare so that if the Americans don't act in the near future against Iran-Israel will do so alone. Many officials have said that the coming few weeks will be critical for the atomic development underway in Iran. The security of Israel cannot be negotiable.
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