When did the mantra “never again” become “here we go again?”  Here is one nation (Iran) vowing to wipe another nation (Israel) off the map. This intended destruction is based solely on religious hatred towards Jews. Iran and Israel share no borders, and Israel is not intent on stealing Iran’s oil wealth behind their backs. So what gives? How can Iran remain a member of the United Nations?

Some may ask - What’s it to you Sharon Alice? You have no dog in this fight.  To be sure, I am neither a Jew or a Muslim.  But due to the strange vagaries of life and happenstance, I did live as a citizen of Iran for six years.  I also lived as a temporary resident of Israel for twice that many years (part of that time in the West Bank, which I add to show my neutrality).

My first novel, written in the mid-nineties, involves a plot that reveals Iran’s secret nuclear (and biological) underground research labs.  How did I know about those nefarious laboratories way before they became public?  I have no friends in high places, in Iran, Israel or the United States. I am the quintessential “nobody important.”  However, I do represent the average “man in the street” and as such I hear a lot of gossip, laced with truth that the highly placed diplomats, ambassadors and secret agents never hear, mainly because they never, ever mingle with low-paid nobodies like “the man, or in this case, the woman on the street.

Add to that the vivid imagination of a creative writer and voila – The Samson Option trilogy is written.

Back to my main point of “Here we go again”, the Jews are once again faced with annihilation.  Of course, we all know, at least the men and women on the street know, that Israel is far from defenseless, what with a nuclear bomb or two in Dimona.  But how many people know and fully understand the principal of the Samson Option?  I speak not of my novel by that name, but the original story where Samson has the power to wipe out his enemies, but will die with them.  For those of you who never went to Sunday School read Judges chapter 16 in the Hebrew bible.                   .

Do you get my message?  Israel can inflict terrible damage on Iran and vice versa.  But remember, Iran has a population of approximately 70 million. Israel has a population of approximately seven million.

It is a daunting equation.  I for one, have no answer.  The man on the street, or the obscure novelist who writes about these things does not have the solution.  I write about a Mahdi and a Messiah, my characters are ordinary men and women, Jews, Persians, Arabs and Christians.  I even scare myself with my leaps of creative imagination. But what ever you think is going on with Iran and Israel it is not imaginary.