A harrowing five days in Israel

It would be grandiose of me to predict how all this will turn out, but the same could be said of our atomistic-thinking leaders, as violence creates unexpected, often undesired, possibilities

Before I get started, I want to express my gratitude to all the people who have reached out and expressed their concern over my well-being and that of my family. The care that cuts across political and cultural boundaries provides a reminder of our common humanity. We all deserve better.

I have had many false starts trying to write this post, and by now, there are countless analyses out there about why Israel attacked Iran at this moment, how it all unfolded and what the prospects are of how to get out of this mess. I find that many pundits oversimplify a complex conflict. But when I try to encompass that complexity, there’s too much to condense into a concise piece. So, let me just start by sharing how I have experienced this war so far and what I’m seeing.

It's been a harrowing five days. We have been in and out of our safe room numerous times. We have stayed nearby on the orders of the Home Front Command on several other occasions. After hustling back and forth between the bedrooms and the safe room the first few nights, we started just sleeping there the past couple of days. And although the chances are infinitesimal, we keep some precious belongings in the safe room, just in case.

If I’ve learned one thing from all my years studying conflict theory, it’s that it would be grandiose of me to proclaim that I know how this will turn out. I can’t say because I am lacking so much information: what fire power Iran has left, what the respective leaders are thinking, what their allies are telling them. But I am concerned about the future, not so much for my personal safety because I have faith in Israel’s defense systems as for the soul of my country, Israel.

I also feel strongly that this war with Iran was unnecessary, at least at this moment. The assertion that Israel had “no choice” but to wield violence, knowing that Iran would retaliate and kill innocent civilians, is no less grandiose than confidently predicting the outcome. The choice reflects atomistic thinking that ignores the complexity of the system. For all of Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric and aggressive behavior, Israel has never produced any hard evidence of an actual plan – and I’m confident that if such a plan had existed, Israel would have revealed it to the world. [1] Iran recognizes that it is part of a global political system, which explains its hesitancy to cross the nuclear threshold despite being within weeks or months for years.

We also know that Iran was caught completely off guard. Iran thought that it had at least until the now-canceled sixth round of nuclear talks with the United States before Israel might attack. Iran was certainly not planning an imminent attack. And if that day would come, we can see how Israel’s overwhelming military and intelligence advantage means that Iran could not pose a real existential threat, regardless of Israel’s narrative. The more likely scenario is that Iran would have avoided a full-frontal assault on Israel, in line with its risk-avoidant behavior to date.

But that path is now closed. It turns out that Israel was the one with a plan to topple its enemy, a plan it is now implementing. Netanyahu has changed the system, introducing more harm, and no one knows what lies ahead, including him.

History offers many cautionary tales for Netanyahu. Numerous powerful leaders have made costly miscalculations with their atomistic thinking, believing they were just one dramatic blow away from forcing their foes into submission.

Israel took just six days in 1967 to conquer the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai. Many Israelis believed they had forever deterred the Arabs. Instead, the defeat of the Arabs created a vacuum in which the Palestinian national movement arose. Israel has lost thousands defending the occupation. In 1982, Menachem Begin celebrated the vanquishing of the PLO in Beirut by quoting the Biblical passage “and the Land was quiet 40 years” – suggesting the peace that would follow the PLO’s exile from Lebanon. Yet, the Lebanon War gave birth to Hezbollah and indirectly to the first intifada and Hamas. Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Nusawi and got the far more lethal Hassan Nasrallah. Israel later assassinated Hamas’ Sheikh Yassin, who shunned cooperation with Iran, and got the far more lethal Yahya Sinwar.

Netanyahu’s atomistic approach does nothing but change the iteration of the system and create new and unexpected adjacent possibles. A bruised but defiant Iran will more likely search for new ways to hurt Israel – just as Hamas did every time Netanyahu thought he had deterred it with a show of force. It may also turn to its allies – Russia, China and North Korea – to help rebuild its nuclear program, just as Egypt’s Nasser turned to the USSR to rebuild his military after the Six-Day War, paving the way for the painful War of Attrition and Yom Kippur War.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is causing palpable harm to his own people. Besides the dozens killed and wounded, Israelis are suffering economic losses and property destruction; more than 100,000 Israelis are stranded abroad, while 90,000 tourists are stuck in Israel; most everyone suffers an existential anxiety that wasn’t present even after October 7; and hostages still languish in Gaza. He has fed the destructive positive feedback loop of escalation. The Israeli strikes, Iranian retaliation and accompanying rhetoric – like Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s threat that “Tehran will burn” – reinforce each other’s perception of the other as an implacable enemy that poses an existential threat.

But let’s say for a moment that Israel wildly succeeds: Iran surrenders, and there’s even a revolution to topple the radical Islamic regime. Isn’t that cause to celebrate? Not for me when violence is involved. It’s not just the lost lives we can’t get back. First, we don’t know what chaos will follow; ISIS filled the void in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. The use of violence against Iran also fuels the positive feedback loop of control in Gaza and the West Bank. See? Military force pays! It further legitimizes and normalizes violence as a tool of control, which plays into the hands of extremist forces who have messianic designs for Israel.

And that’s why ultimately the use of force is a lose-lose for Israel. We lose good people, two dozen in Gaza since Netanyahu restarted the war on Hamas and another two dozen from Iranian rocket fire, while we plant the seeds for either further conflict or further oppression. The Iran war brings Israel one step closer to resettling Gaza, expelling Palestinians, annexing the West Bank and who knows what new militant group. That is what keeps me up at night, more than Iran’s diminishing supply of missiles.

Iranian missiles over Tel Aviv being met by Iron Dome rockets, Monday.

[1] Tragically, Israel did uncover the Hamas plan for October 7 but ignored it because of confirmation bias – it didn’t jive with officials’ conviction that Hamas was deterred from trying to perpetrate such an attack.

I also know that Netanyahu brandished about a copy of Khamenei’s book about Palestine when he spoke to the UN in 2015 and called it Khamenei’s “screed detailing his plan to destroy Israel.” However, Netanyahu never detailed what that plan was. So, what did the plan detail for the role of Iranian’s in the conquering of Israel, according to an English language version? Khamenei stated: “Of course, by Allah’s favor, in Islamic Iran the throats of the people are active for Palestine, their fists are clenched and they are ready. But we do not think it is advisable for anybody other than Palestinians – who must be present on the scene – to go and fight alongside Palestinians. Something that must be done by a nation cannot be done by somebody else: it must be done by that nation itself.” That doesn’t sound like a plan for Iran to destroy Israel so much as dropping the ball in the Palestinians’ court. If you can find a detailed plan, please share it. I haven’t seen it.