Israel's War Rages, the Civilian Toll Mounts and the Ayatollah Regime Endures
The Israel Defense Forces operated in a cemetery on Friday. First, the soldiers expelled the residents of neighboring villages. That created a one-time opportunity to raid the cemetery. The helicopters took off at dawn, and the infantry walked on the gravestones. A Lebanese collaborator who had been abducted guided the troops, and the air force attacked. It's not clear how many people were killed.
It's also not clear whether commandos from the military rabbinate participated in the operation, or whether the soldiers were part of a special IDF search unit, with proven experience in doing significant service among graves. Just a few months ago, the army searched a single mass grave in another cemetery, in the destroyed Gazan town of Khan Yunis, and removed hundreds of bodies.
This time, the operation was a failure. The remains of Ron Arad, the air force navigator downed over Lebanon in 1986, weren't found, so Israel was spared a tearjerking campaign about the navigator who returned – about how the account had been closed, history had spoken and justice had been done.
This was the only failure in the war to date. All the rest consists of dizzying success stories. U.S. President Donald Trump is amazed, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth saluted, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth and Channel 12 television are cheering. And Israel, exhausted and wrung out, is nodding in acquiescence with the last of its strength, in submissive silence.
Once again, the war is supported by a decisive majority of the public. It's really beautiful to watch so many planes taking off through tears – "I love you, terminal." But nobody has any idea where the planes are headed.
Meanwhile, the bodies are piling up, and a heavy price has been exacted from the other side. Roughly a million people have already been expelled from their homes in Lebanon; they are wandering about in cars filled to the brim or on foot. Over the last two years, Israel has displaced some three million people. It's hard to digest that number – three million people whom Israel has cast out of their lands, their homes and their lives.
The Israel of population transfers has struck again, and it plans to continue this work in the West Bank as well. A human rights group in Iran has already reported 1,348 people killed, 87 percent of them civilians, among them 194 children and teens. And this is just the beginning.
Where are the planes heading? To a decisive victory over Iran and Hezbollah. But what do the mass expulsions and the indiscriminate destruction have to do with winning? What's the connection between Iran's nuclear and ballistic capabilities and the bombing of its civilian airports? Or its universities? The Gaza doctrine is back, in spades. Israel and America are bombing, and neither of them knows what the point is.
Toppling the Iranian regime would be viewed as an important and significant achievement. The Middle East without a fundamentalist Iran would be a better place. Of course, it would be better still without the Israeli occupation regime, but that's not under discussion.
Meanwhile, there's no sign that the two attacking powers are getting any closer to an achievement in Iran. Like Hamas, the ayatollahs' regime is alive and kicking, even after all the glorious assassinations. Trump will choose the next supreme leader, and Defense Minister Israel Katz has already said that he will be assassinated, too.
But neither of them has said how long America, and especially Israel, can bear the burden of this war. Another month? Another year? And then what?
Israel's shattered society has stood up to it well so far. Its aerial and civil defense systems have also functioned superbly. They deserve our thanks and appreciation more than the pilots doing the bombing do.
Nevertheless, our society seems unlikely to be able to bear these insane living conditions for long. And in America, the midterm elections are approaching, while public grumbling is getting louder. What does any of this have to do with the price of potatoes in Idaho?
The interim balance after the first week is an impressive military success for fans of the genre of oohing and aahing over bombings, but zero diplomatic achievements. The war is getting bogged down. More than a dozen countries are already involved, and Europe is being threatened. And the horizon is getting further and further away.
Trump will accept nothing less than unconditional surrender and humiliation. The same is true of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And this almost certainly guarantees that nothing at all will be achieved. These lines were written in a bomb shelter.