War With Iran, Continued Gaza Fighting: Israel Is a Sick Lion, Not a Rising One - Opinion - Haaretz.com
The fate of the war now depends on the whims of a capricious and voluble American president. He bombs Iran; there might be a victory. He doesn't bomb, and Israel will have embarked on another futile war, more superfluous and dangerous than all of its predecessors.
The involvement of the United States should have been secured in advance. It should have been a prerequisite for going to war. In the meantime, Donald Trump is playing his childish games of humiliating Iran and demanding its full surrender, destroying with his words any remaining chance for an agreement, the only chance for a happy ending.
If the heavy bombers stay in the hangars – this remained an open question Wednesday – then the war of attrition will continue, its outcome and duration impossible to predict. Israel will not be able to endure it for long, socially, economically and perhaps even militarily. If the bombers take off, on the other hand, it might end the war and lead to a much larger one.
- From Tehran to Rafah, military victory is not enough for Israel
- Here's why despite Netanyahu's pleas Iranians aren't rising up
- Killing of 51 near aid truck proves Israel's Gaza food policy failing
In the fog of battle, Israel unites behind the war and its leader, celebrating, boasting and marveling, without any public debate. Any discussion ignited momentarily among the talking heads in the TV studios revolved around the issue of credit. Credit for what? For the inspirational performances of the pilots, who circle above Tehran as they do over Gaza or Hatzerim Airbase? Amit Segal says the credit goes to the prime minister; Nir Dvori, to the defense establishment: a profound philosophical dialogue between two intellectual giants, and well before the chickens are hatched.
In Gaza, the slaughter not only hasn't stopped, it's racing toward genocidal proportions. The food line has become a death line. "Who's next in line and who's in the next line. / Good evening despair and good night hope" (Yehuda Poliker and Yaakov Gilad). The tally counter measures the streaming Palestinian blood as a flow meter on a gasoline pump measures the fuel flowing into a car.
Palestinians carry a woman who was wounded in an Israeli strike while waiting for aid, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, at Nasser hospital, in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday.Credit: Hatem Khaled/Reuters
So far 400 have been killed while waiting for a sack of flour and a bottle of cooking oil. What sin did they commit? Who has the mental bandwidth for that now, between dashes to the bomb shelter – our new normal. The destruction in the streets has also become normal. There are streets in Israel that look like Kharkiv after the latest Russian assault, and that's fine with us. A sick lion, not a rising lion.
It's as if it all fell from the sky, a natural disaster, divine decree. The achievements are all ours, only the cost is force majeure. As if there is no other choice but this crazy reality, we have chosen for ourselves.
About a week ago, Israel chose to go to war with Iran, 20 months into a savage attack on Gaza that has yet to yield any enduring achievements. The cost of the war in the Strip will outlast the achievements it might yet gain. Ask the world what it thinks of Israel, talk to Israelis about the world – incurable moral corruption. And with Gaza bleeding and Israel corrupt, we go to war again, with our forces and our hostages still in the Strip.
And Israel rejoices: frightened, exhausted, but rejoicing. "Tehran burns," a main headline in Yedioth Ahronoth shouted this week, as a few hundred meters west of my home, buildings burned. A sick lion.
Where are we going? Or more precisely, where are we being led? Like a lamb to the slaughter, or a herd to a false victory.
Iran will not surrender, certainly not after the American-Israeli campaign of arrogance. The best possible outcome will be a new nuclear agreement, and even that will not be a happy ending.
What will be joyful in a country that has been scarred for 20 months in Gaza, and who knows how long in bomb shelters? What will be good, even if Iran forgoes its nuclear ambitions for now? A society and economy in ruins, with thousands of Gaza war criminals walking among us, a camp that is not united but is frighteningly uniform and a leader who gives interviews to his followers in a grotesque form of true journalism. What's important is that we assassinated two Iranian chiefs of staff in a week.
A sick lion.