a nuclear bunker in every garden

During the Hezbollah-vs.-Israel war, I was surprised to discover that Israelis were required to have bomb shelters in their homes. Now I’m suitably alarmed but not surprised to read that wealthy Israelis are going all-out in their preparations for a nuclear attack by Iran:

AMID mounting fears that Iran is planning to obliterate their country, wealthy Israelis are shelling out on underground nuclear shelters in the gardens of their luxury homes.

The shelters, which cost at least £60,000 for a bargain-basement version, are built to withstand radioactive fallout, have fortified walls and doors and generate their own electricity and decontaminated air.

Predictably, the Goldbergs are trying to outdo the Finkelsteins:

“The shelter looks like a regular flat,” [Goldberg aka Rakib] said. “It is 2,000 square feet, with a living room, two bedrooms, kitchen, self-powered electricity.”

Rakib’s post-nuclear pad, which can accommodate more than 25 people for two weeks, cost about £250,000.

…

Leading the stampede to the nuclear bunker is [Finkelstein aka] Shari Arison, the country’s wealthiest woman, estimated to be worth about £2.7 billion. The Israeli media have reported that she has already made preparations for Armageddon by building two sophisticated underground structures. One is at her home in Tel Aviv, the other in the garden of her holiday villa in Bnei Zion village.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government’s got some ’splainin’ to do:

Seeking to allay public fears, the government insists that the population has little to fear. “We are aware of all these panicky people building atomic shelters. They’re wasting their money,” said a security source.

“Israel will not allow Iran to build an atomic bomb, and even if it did, the Iranians know very well that we’ll bomb them back to the Stone Age before they’ve launched a single missile.”

Oh, but I forgot. There’s nothing to worry about, according to Matthew Yglesias, who spends a lot of time writing about national-security policy, he says, “frequently criticizing the hawkish urge to blend disparate problems together into a unified ‘Islamofascist’ menace.”

So he ought to know: we’ve got nothing to worry about from Iran. Why, it’s not even a totalitarian state:

The Iranian regime, objectionable though it may be, is a run-of-the-mill authoritarian oligarchy with competing centers of power and some space for civil society.

Yes. And Ahmadinejad is just another “Muslim Behaving Badly.”

Tsk-tsk.