"It is 1938 and Iran is Germany," Israel's leader of the opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu announced dramatically two weeks ago at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities, the largest gathering of Jewish activists in North America. The Jewish people are once again left alone to face the ultimate danger, while the world is standing silent, hesitant to step in and offer help, he implied.

Netanyahu is not the only Israeli politician to warn of the Iranian danger to Israel, hinting at the darkest days of the Holocaust. The new fashion in Israeli corridors of power nowadays favors voicing the threat of Iran on every possible occasion. An interesting competition has evolved between Israeli politicians, most notably between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Netanyahu, over who will be louder and blunter in calling Iran Israel's biggest existential threat.

This reached a cynical high point a month ago when Olmert appointed far right MK Avigdor Lieberman of the Israel Beiteinu party, to be minister for strategic threats. There is an overwhelming agreement among Israeli strategic and military experts that Lieberman is the wrong person in the wrong position; good perhaps at making a show of Israeli might to warn Israel's neighbors who's the toughest guy on the block; bad for promoting Israel's national interests.

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Thus far, the Iranian challenge was important enough to be handled in low-key fashion from the Prime Minister Office, as the most senior policymaker taking care of top Israeli security interests. But now the strategic threat to Olmert is the stability of his coalition, and what could be a better way than shifting public attention from corruption allegations or accusations of misconduct in the Second Lebanon war to nuclear threats?

Hence, Israel's top priority in foreign policy is driven by short-term internal considerations of domestic politics rather than a careful consideration of long-term Israeli interests. But what in truth is the Israeli interest with regard to Iran?

It is true; Iran is a leading threat to Israel's existence. Being a couple of years away from reaching a nuclear capacity, and led by a fanatic regime, which is embarrassingly outspoken about its willingness to do everything in its power to erase Israel from the map, Iran easily positions itself as an extreme case calling for extreme measures.

But an Israeli preemptive strike will not suffice. The scale needed for an effective military operation is grand and exceeds the conventional capacities of this country, even if such a strike does gain international legitimacy. A non-conventional reaction should be left out of our lexicon of possible responses, as it could throw the current world order into chaos.

Israeli interests suggest the formation of a wide coalition of the international community, thus portraying Iran as a challenge to the world, rather than a risk to regional stability, important as that may be. Only a global coalition could apply an effective economic pressure leading to significant political pressure. Realpolitik sadly suggests such a wide coalition will never gather round Israeli interests alone, as much as the American lawmakers might be sympathetic to them. Moreover, overstating the Israeli needs might actually be counterproductive and will hinder the support of important international players. Such a coalition can be formed only by a wide international acknowledgment that having a nuclear Iran is a global threat and thus should not be tolerated.

Instead of creating an atmosphere of fear and panic, the Israeli prime minister and his cabinet would do better to create coalitions between possible allies. The coalition should be undoubtedly be led by the United States, but it cannot rely on American power and readiness for action alone. After the North Korean nuclear test, China and especially Japan are in a better position to play a prominent role in a global front against Iran. The European Union and Russia are essential to make such a coalition effective. Israel can use its good connections with Germany to promote a German lead among European resistance to Iran, rather than make futile comparisons between the Holocaust and current politics. India as a prominent consumer of Iranian oil and an investor in its oil fields is also important.

The man who preceded Olmert in his current position, former prime minister Ariel Sharon, understood this well. He had been making consistent efforts to show Iran in the context of the global war on terrorism rather than a standalone case of a threat to the Jewish state.

Olmert and Netanyahu are continuing the line, drafted by first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that "it does not matter what the gentiles do but what the Jews do." Both policymakers fall short of grasping that the world has changed, and in an era where globalization prevails, threats and public policy should not be coordinated solely from Jerusalem.

Henry Kissinger was quick to comprehend this - "Israel has no foreign policy but only domestic politics." But if in the past the truism of Kissinger's witty wording was enough to carry a comprehensive foreign policy, we may now have reached the point when this becomes a strategic threat.

Can we really afford populism when dealing with what may be the most important question for Israel's security?

Avshalom Vilan is a Meretz Member of Knesset, and a member of the Knesset Finance Committee.