Off topic tonight but this article, essay had a profound effect on me today. The passion and sense of dispair it conveys is remarkable. It is written by Cliff Thier, whom I do not know, and is titled “Farewell To Zion. Forever.”

Mr. Thier believes that the end of Israel as a Jewish nation is near due to the admission of the inevitability of a nuclear Iran, the emergence of which has been enabled by the West. I hesitate to excerpt much from the essay as it won’t convey the power of his piece but here is a small bit.

The nightmare scenario for Israel is troubling me more and more. The end of the Jewish state is all too thinkable.

Passover approaches for Jews everywhere. A celebration of waiting, and patience, and liberation. There is a prayer that ends with “next year in Jerusalem” and it has been recited for almost two thousand years. All the years the Jews were barely tolerated guests in other countries. All the years they were chased out of one country after another. The words spoke of a longing and need to finally settle in one place. A place from which no one could ever chase them. A place where they would no longer be guests.

It’s still recited today even though Jews have exercised sovereignty in parts of Jerusalem for more than 60 years, and all of it for more than 40. This year, however, may be one of the last that “next year in Jerusalem” will be said at Jewish tables and in synagogues while there still are Jews in Jerusalem.

I am haunted by a vision that soon the prayer will revert to the same lament it was since the year 70, when the Romans threw the Jews out of Jerusalem and razed the city.

It seems clear as can be. You’d have to be a fool, willfully blind, an American Jew even, not to see it.

Israel has no other options. If there is to be an Israel two years from now, it must flatten the Iranian nuclear program immediately.

I’m afraid, terrified, that it is already too late. Time has run out. The end of the Jewish state is closing in. And there is nothing that can be done to save it. Thoughts will all too soon turn to saving and resettling the six million Jews who now live there.

Obama seems to be looking for the best way to accept nuclear bombs atop intercontinental ballistic missiles in the hands of Iran’s mullahs. Any chance that the United States would either take action to prevent this catastrophe or at least help Israel do the job ended on election night 2008.

There is perhaps too much made of Obama as the architect of the perceived end of Israel but that’s a minor quibble. It’s a remarkable piece of writing and I recommend that you take a few minutes to read it. Given the religious nature of this week it might not be appropriate. Then again, it may be most appropriate.