From I24news.TV
While formulating a response to the Iranian attack, Israel’s leadership must not lose sight of what matters most at this hour
After living through the unthinkable, and then seeing a previously hypothetical situation become a reality, it seems that nothing is impossible these days.
Waking up to the horrific surprise of October 7 made the night of April 13 feel like watching a slow moving car crash.
Many Israelis realized something dramatic was about to happen when they received the sudden notification from Home Front Command that all educational activities would be canceled for the next two days. Slowly, official sources began to confirm that the biggest threat was about to be made real: an Iranian attack.
The reports came from Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran. It was the IDF spokesperson who switched on the timer. His words, “Iran has launched an attack” weighing just as heavily as those spoken by Prime Minister Netanyahu six months and one week ago: “This is not another escalation, this is not an operation. We are at war.”
And this was not a drill. Calculations were made — up to 9 hours for the UAVs, but just 13 minutes for a ballistic missile to arrive. Broadcasts were extended as the flow of information seemed to pour in a mile a minute.
Some stayed up to watch the events unfold. Others managed to fall into fitful sleep. Most bunkered down in their safe rooms with the steel windows and doors closed.
Around 1:45am, missiles began to shoot across the sky. Throughout the night, nearly all of the hundreds of drones launched were intercepted before ever reaching Israeli territory. The Arrow aerial defense system proved its worth — every shekel of the up to 5 billion that was spent in a single night of action.
Things seemed to wind down by 6:30. Day broke on a tense and eerie quiet. The Iranians declared their attack was over, Israel’s top echelon said they would meet in the afternoon, giving themselves a few hours to refresh after a sleepless night.
Slowly, Israelis began to display their hardy ability to move quickly past disaster. City dwellers went down to their corner cafes. Parents searched for ways to entertain their kids. And yet, everyone is holding their breath. How will Israel react — and more ominously, then what?
Immediately, there were calls for an explosive response. Just before the weekend, Israel’s foreign minister and then the defense minister vowed that any strike on Israel’s soil would be met with a direct response.
Just more of the same blustery rhetoric, or was the level of alarm so high they thought one last round of threats would deter Iran?
Now the shouts are deafening, telling Netanyahu to fulfill that promise. It seems laughable that U.S. President Biden would even suggest that Israel take its unprecedented defensive effort as all the success it needs, and now deescalate the situation.
There are other options on the table besides fire and brimstone. Cyber attacks that are debilitating but not deadly. Sanctions. Designating the IRGC a terrorist organization.
So will Israel choose the diplomatic route? Or more precisely, can Netanyahu pay the price of appearing to respond weakly in a neighborhood that demands a strong face, something Israelis repeatedly say the Americans don’t understand.
Netanyahu is at a crossroads. His political partners are expecting action. They’ve been demanding the same when it comes to Rafah, and accusing Netanyahu of letting Biden run the show. “Israel is not a banana republic” has been repeated on air waves and even in the Knesset in recent months.
But Iran has also given Israel an unexpected gift. Just two days ago, the international community was voicing full-throated condemnation of Israel over its running of the war in Gaza, and blaming it almost entirely for the catastrophic humanitarian crisis that has developed.
Last night brought back the vociferous solidarity that Israel experienced for a brief moment in October, and it put into action all of the alliances that Israel has cultivated over the past years and decades, and that had increasingly appeared at risk as the war drags on.
Iran, the head of the snake, may be an easy unifier, and it’s surely tempting to want to deliver a powerful blow. But Netanyahu has been granted a window of diplomatic grace. He should use it to turn the focus back onto Hamas’s inhumane crimes, and the fact that just hours after Iran finished its attack, the Mossad confirmed that Hamas had rejected the latest ceasefire-hostage release proposal.
Sinwar may not want a deal, and he may be willing to sacrifice every Palestinian in Gaza in order to break Israel. But Israel cannot afford to sacrifice every one of the 133 hostages who are left sitting in the enclave for over 190 days now
Netanyahu frequently says, “united we will win,” but society is just as fractured as ever. The increasingly chaotic protests have returned. The anger seen in last year’s judicial reform demonstrations has only increased in magnitude when coupled with the pain of the hostage situation.
The country is in desperate need of healing. There can be no joy found in the arrival of the spring holiday of Passover and the festivals that follow.
Making a deal, no matter the price, will take all the political capital that Netanyahu has left, and will likely cost him some coalition partners. But he finally has the international community back in his corner. The chance that no hostages remain alive is only becoming more likely. Bringing home just cadavers would be by far Netanyahu’s greatest failure, and there’s a limited amount of time left to make sure that scenario doesn’t happen.
We saw the impossible become a reality on October 7 and April 13. Now it’s up to Netanyahu to make one more impossibility — a deal with Hamas — become real.
