My Word: Dos and don’ts in defense and diplomacy

It was surreal. When Iran launched its barrage of explosive-laden UAVs and missiles on Saturday night, Israelis received a few hours’ warning of their estimated arrival time, commencing around 2 a.m.

Usually, when Iranian-financed Hamas, Hezbollah, or Houthi rockets are fired on the country, the warning siren sounds just seconds before impact – seven seconds close to the borders, a minute and a half in Jerusalem. The fact that there was such a long waiting period gave the country time to prepare.

More significantly, it demonstrated that this is not a war about territory. Iran’s proxies are established throughout the region – in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere – but the Islamic Republic does not share a border with the Jewish state. It was attacking from thousands of kilometers away. Iran’s unprecedented assault was not about Palestinian aspirations for statehood; it was about the Iranian desire for regional dominance.

It’s not easy to go to sleep knowing that hundreds of killer drones and projectiles are on their way; but having made sure I had a flashlight and a transistor radio – what Israelis call “a war radio” – next to my bed, and that I was wearing decent pajamas for when I met the neighbors, that’s what I did.

Living in Israel during the Iran attack 

Every Israeli reacted in his or her own way – many with humor, that quintessential Jewish coping mechanism. A meme by journalist Matthew Kalman noting “First direct flights from Iran to Israel since 1979” became a cyberspace hit.

I woke up around 1:30 a.m. to the sound of the windows rattling and the distant crump of intercepted rocket shrapnel falling. It gave me enough time to wake my son just before the siren sounded for our area and the crumps and bumps became less distant. It’s not the type of mother-son bonding experience that I’d recommend, but when life throws rockets at you, there’s no time to make lemonade.

We headed for our small and rough shelter and waited there quite a bit longer than the required 10 minutes, not because we were having a good time but because we could still feel the interceptions nearby. Then we went back to our apartment, stroked the rather rattled cats, and turned on the television for the updates.

It soon became apparent that the Economist headline last month “Israel Alone” had missed the mark. The US, UK, France, and Jordan, and reportedly Saudi Arabia and Gulf states, participated in the defensive measures. Of the more than 300 attack devices launched, 99% were intercepted. There was limited damage to two Israeli Air Force bases in the South, and sadly, a seven-year-old girl suffered serious head wounds when shrapnel hit her home in a Bedouin village.

I am grateful, of course, that a defense alliance kicked in, but I’m under no illusions about its nature. The Arab countries that participated were on the Sunni side of the street in the global village. This was not about a sudden love of Zionism. It was a pragmatic response to the Shi’ite Iranian threat in the region.

Iranian hypocrisy is limitless. Despite its constantly professed love of Jerusalem, rockets whizzed over the Temple Mount, threatening the site that is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims (in historically chronological order). Later, I saw Iranian media reports celebrating those rockets that had endangered al-Aqsa as a victory, a sign of Iran’s reach and prowess. Had the mosques there been damaged, I’m sure they would have found a way to blame Israel.

Watching the footage on TV, I posted on Facebook: “I hope the hundreds of Iranian explosive UAVs and rockets launched on Israel early this morning didn’t delay delivery of the hundreds of trucks of aid to Hamas still holding more than 130 hostages in Gaza and sporadically launching rockets also paid for by Iran because the world would obviously be unable to forgive us.” Others quipped about the possibility that we’d now be asked to provide humanitarian aid to Iran, too. But it’s no laughing matter.

Consider what would have happened had any of the Iranian warheads carried a nuclear payload. It’s not a remote possibility, it’s a real one. Tehran, courtesy of the US and the Western world, has come perilously close to realizing its nuclear dreams. 

And when the Obama and Biden administrations lifted sanctions, the flow of money into Iranian coffers was directed to arming and training terrorist proxies, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) which carried out the October 7 mega-atrocity. The barbaric terrorist attack in which some 1,200 were murdered should leave no illusions of what Hamas is capable of, and the April 13 Iranian rocket assault should be an additional wake-up call regarding the ayatollahs’ regime.

The Iranian message got lost in the English translation, however. US President Joe Biden had twice warned Iran, “Don’t!” But when it did, the president, backed by European leaders, swiftly issued another “Don’t” – this time to Israel. “Don’t respond!”

It would be comforting to know that the US and the West have our backs if they didn’t ignore the nature of the target pinned there.

Joint defense is great; joint action would be better. Iran and its proxies were clearly not deterred when they launched their attacks. And they’re not deterred now. Naturally, the United Nations Security Council could be depended on – to do nothing. The world body has yet to pass a resolution condemning the murders, rapes, mutilation, beheadings, and burning perpetrated by Hamas during its invasion of southern Israel. 

This week, there was no resolution against Iran’s belligerence. Every one of the Iranian rockets and drones was a war crime, whether it hit its intended target or not.

Israel now faces a serious dilemma. After October 7, the country finally internalized the principle that a policy of restraint, not responding to acts of aggression, encourages more attacks. Response isn’t revenge; it’s prevention. It’s not Israel’s response that endangers the region. It’s an emboldened Iran that hears “Don’t” and “does” anyway – and gets a free pass for failing in its genocidal plans.

Had Iran aimed its rockets and drones at American cities, would the administration have shrugged and said, “No harm done”? Iran claimed the attack was retaliation for a targeted strike attributed to Israel in which Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Reza, a key figure in arming terrorist organizations, was eliminated in Damascus. Iran says that Saturday night’s mammoth barrage of deadly drones and cruise and ballistic missiles “has been concluded,” but it still threatens to “wipe the Zionist entity off the map.”

THE OCTOBER 7 invasion, carried out on the joyous Jewish festival of Simchat Torah, has changed everything. It was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Passover recalls the story of the exodus from Egypt, the first step to Jewish nationhood in the Land of Israel. But throughout millennia, the Passover celebrations have also often been marred by violence against Jews. In the Park Hotel massacre in Netanya in 2002, more than 30 people were killed when Hamas terrorists detonated suicide bombs as guests sat down to their Seder. It was an atrocity that won’t be forgotten.

Seder night this year will be overshadowed by recent events. Jewish communities around the world are suffering a disturbing wave of antisemitism. And in Israel, there will be too many empty chairs, too many bereaved families.

The murder of 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair as he herded a flock of sheep on Friday didn’t receive the attention it might have had Iran not attacked the following day – but his will be another family mourning a missing loved one on Seder night. 

No justification for terrorism

And don’t try to justify terrorists beating him to death with rocks because he happened to be in the Binyamin Region, close to Ramallah. There’s no justification for the terrorist atrocities, only their twisted ideology. He was killed because he was a Jewish boy, the same way as the terrorists from Gaza called the nearby kibbutzim in sovereign Israel “settlements.” 

Some 100,000 Israelis are still displaced from their homes near the border with Lebanon, making their Passover bittersweet. And the heart goes out to the families of the more than 130 hostages being held in Gaza, dead or alive. Meanwhile, the US and others are warning Israel against taking action in Iran or against the last Hamas strongholds in Gaza’s Rafah district.

If Israel is not free to act without the blessing of Western powers, their support is a mixed blessing indeed.