Two things happened overnight:
Step One, Israel bombed an Iranian diplomatic post in Syria on April 1st. It killed seven people, including high-ranking army officers.
Step Two, Iran responded two weeks later with a missile barrage aimed at military targets. There were three waves: while the Israelis were ‘reloading’ after the first wave, the second and third hit Ramon Air Base in the Negev Desert and nearby Nevatim Air Base. Nevatim was the base from which Israel launched its strike that killed the Iranian officers. Evidently only half-a-dozen missiles got to their targets. None of Iran’s heavier missiles were used, however…there’s more in the bank.
Why did Israel take Step One?
The men killed were commanders in the Quds Force, the paramilitary and intelligence wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG). It parallels the Iranian Army. The US calls Quds and IRCG terrorist organizations. They had ties to Hezbollah and other Palestinian groups. Thus they were active in Israel.
The Israelis say that it was a legitimate target. They point out that the targets were Iranian military officials, including two generals, out of the seven deaths.
The problem with that, as Israeli columnist Gideon Levy points out, is visible when you flip the question on its head, and ask: Is there a single Israeli officer whose killing would significantly affect Israel’s military capabilities? “There is not, and never will be,” he responds.
“Why is it that we always tend to believe that in Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran are officers whose elimination would improve our national security? Israel killed Zahedi because the opportunity to kill him arose… We have never paid a price for these killings. For several years now, Israel has provoked Iran constantly, in Lebanon, Syria and also on Iranian soil, and has not paid any price. It would be foolish to believe that the rope Israel has stretched will not break.”
His colleague Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz Friday that the killing of Zahedi and that of members of Ismail Haniyeh's family in Gaza on April 10 were carried out without sufficient consideration of the consequences. Harel reported that the relevant Israeli officials apparently did not discuss the implications of the acts at all.
The Israeli political leadership which approved the operation – Netanyahu – bears all the responsibility.
This is the second targeted killing of Iranians since the war in Gaza began.
In moving on to Step Two – as was inevitable - Iran was in a dilemma. It had to respond in some fashion, but it could not do so with too much force, because that would invite a joint US/Israeli attack on its nuclear weapons program. That program is its ultimate equalization card. Iran was close to giving it up until Trump cancelled Obama’s agreements and Iran went back to making the weapons.
Thus far, restrain of a sort is being displayed: Iran said its action was legal under Article 51 of the UN Charter (self defence). And the US says it helped Israel shoot down some of the Iranian drones.
Pity it feels it cannot do that in Ukraine.
Both Jordan and Syria have re-opened their air spaces to civilian travel.
Biden told Netanyahu after the attack that the US will not participate in any offensive action against Iran. I would guess that this message has been heard in Tehran as well. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the US does not seek further conflict with Iran.
And Iran says that its actions are “concluded”.
This cycle of violence could be considered to be ‘closed’ – if Netanyahu lets it.
But there is of course no way Netanyahu will accept that, considering that his primary goal is to keep conflict going. He even had to reach for old combat footage because the recent attack did not seem violent enough to keep the anger hot.
He wants a cycle of violence to continue; Israel is fighting against Israel.
Netanyahu is also fighting against an anger that is growing within Israel, in fact – an anger against him. The protests spotlight a strength that Israel has that is almost unique in the Middle East. Israel allows protests against Netanyahu to take place. It is a democracy.
This seemingly simple action conveys a power that is missing in North Africa and the middle Asia. Israel could be a transforming gene that remakes the centuries of dictatorship that have lain in strata on the lands of our origins.
Nations with equality have higher education, and that both of these factors together drive economic growth. If the Arabic nations do not follow Israel’s model, they will be forever behind Israel in prosperity and stability. The good news for the future is that Arabic nations are in fact making progress:
But now more than 70 percent of Israeli respondents to recent surveys have consistently backed that idea that Netanyahu should step down.
Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfeffer says “He will go down as the worst prime minister [in Israeli history] because he has been catastrophic for Israeli security.”
His colleague Israeli historian Moshe Zimmerman asks: How did it come about that Zionism disappointed and that the Zionist state – or its prophets, from Herzl onward – is incapable of meeting the goals it set for itself?... The Zionist solution is not [really] a solution. We are arriving at a situation in which the Jewish people who live in Zion live in a condition of total insecurity, and not for the first time. Beyond this, we need to take into account that Israel is causing a reduction in the security of Diaspora Jewry, instead of the opposite…"It's clear that the two-state solution needs to be the logical result, even though at the moment it looks hopeless and totally absurd. The alternative is either for us to execute a Nazi-like act against the Palestinians…
"Eight years ago, [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu replied to the question of whether we are always to live by the sword with 'Yes.' That is an appalling answer. There are people who would say that there is another alternative: We can expel them from the country, or the Palestinians can live under Israeli rule. But those are solutions that every sensible person would consider unrealistic, and reject.”
This gets to the heart of the crises today. If Netanyahu’s only and continuing answer is to reach for the sword, then Iran’s pledge that ‘this is now over’ is meaningless. Netanyahu will keep on charging.
The strategic trap for Israel is that its goals mandate an endless war. At the same time, the leadership says that its mistakes will only be investigated after the war is over. They supposedly do not engage in politics during wartime, even though in practice Netanyahu is doing so all the time. In the meantime, the whole group on whose watch the attack occurred is remaining in office.
Yes, Israel has degraded a large part of Hamas' abilities. But over time, the test will be its ability to regroup. If there are three things that are not in short supply in Gaza, it's young men, Kalashnikov rifles and shovels.
According to Israeli journalist Amos Harel: “Netanyahu and his cohorts have not abandoned the effort to advance [his] judicial coup. In extreme circumstances, Israel might experience a particularly toxic potion: a long war, in which a very unpopular leader both clings to power and continues his efforts to enact antidemocratic legislation.”
In the meantime Netanyahu is preventing the move to the next phase of the conflict: the creation of a new administration with a clearly defined governance goal in Gaza.
He has unleashed a bombing campaign that will equal the destruction of the city of Dresden in WW2, where two years of bombing during World War II destroyed half of the homes in that city and killed about 25,000 people. Gaza has matched this in two months. "Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," said a U.S. military historian as Israel's use of arms including 2,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs pushed the Palestinian death toll over 20,000.
The effort of fighting Hamas is affecting the entire Israeli economy, with 300,000 people are deployed as soldiers at its height and 170,000 continuing to be deployed. 14 percent of reservists work in high-tech in their civilian lives, the economy's growth engine and main source of income tax revenue.
In order to protect Israeli democracy from its own self-destruction, President Biden stepped in with America’s official view.
“A two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people,” President Joe Biden posted on X/Twitter on Nov. 28 in one of his now often-repeated calls for such an outcome. He went further, saying this was essential “to make sure Israelis and Palestinians alike can live in equal measures of freedom and dignity,” adding: “We will not give up on working toward this goal.”
Instead, this is what Netanyahu has created, as reported by an Israeli journalist: “Just a 90-minute drive from Tel Aviv, a place exists where streets are piles of dust, debris and the rubble of destroyed buildings. There are cities without hospitals, schools, parks, libraries - or hope. An inconceivable reality, where thousands of children are being killed in their beds by bombs dropped from the skies, where almost nobody has enough food or water for survival. A small hell you can never leave. A place for nobody: an ongoing human tragedy without any end in sight.”
In engaging Iran, Netanyahu has entered a room he really does not want to be in. Perhaps you can remember the images of the Iraq-Iran war, which went on from 1980-88. Thousands of Iranians walked across the desert no-mans-land, over the land mines, because they knew that Allah would grant them their reward. Iran now has a population just short of 90-million people.
Thus far, their leaders have actually been acting with great restraint. It took them two weeks to decide on a course of action that would send a message, yet not involve the taking of civilian life.
Throughout the Iranian attack, Israel continued to bombard the Gaza strip.
There is obviously more to come. Perhaps at some point Israel’s citizens will say “enough”!
The only possible glimpse of hope in this, is that the situation might cause Johnson, the Republican Speaker who is blocking the aid package for Israel and Ukraine, to allow it to pass.
He is being guided by Trump, the man who killed Obama’s peace plan with Iran and who sees no difference between Ukraine and Russia…why should Ukraine exist?
To which one might answer: why do Netanyahu and Trump exist?
Fools exist, some say, as a joke being told by the universe.
Well, joke’s over. Time to quit.
And we can pass that on to Putin as well.
None of this will be truly “over” until all these nations are democracies. The glimmer of light is that Türkiye has just had a very successful election…it showed Russia what could be achieved. The time is coming…
And the time of the madness is going.
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Your chart on the gains in democracy in the region after the Arab Spring shows that the Arabs are modernizing except for a few extremist pockets generally used as Iranian proxies against the West and westernizing Arab states.
Theocratic Iran is causing trouble and fighting secularism in the region. It should be noted that Jordanian Air Force was shooting down Iranian missiles to protect Israel. Theocratic Iran is not the future of the Middle East and young Iranians know this.
Theocratic Israel is not the future of Israel and Netanyahu is delaying the inevitable which is declaring Israel a modern multicultural secular nation. There are currently millions of Arab and Christian Israeli citizens creating a vibrant modern state. It is past time for Israel to separate church and state.