The Attack That Didn’t Get Underway: How Netanyahu Benefited from Trump’s Decision

The prime minister will not say this to U.S. President Donald Trump this evening, but the truth is that in Israel, there was a collective sigh of relief at the end of the week. This happened when it became clear that Trump is delaying the major attack he had planned against Iran.

Netanyahu and his circle had already concluded on Thursday that despite the resolute statements made that day, the president does not intend to attack soon. On Friday, and even more so on Saturday, it became clear that Trump is once again doing the opposite of what everyone in the world expected.

Netanyahu felt relief. Not because he suddenly pities that bunch of lunatics in Tehran. Exactly the opposite: Israel wants an ultra-devastating attack on Iran—one that will hit its national infrastructure and may even topple the regime.

On the other hand, for the continued wearing down of the American ayatollahs, they do not need us. Trump, at least as of the end of this week, still did not want to strike infrastructure. And in Israel, they did not want to join a campaign that even the defense establishment did not believe in.

Of course, if the president had asked, it would not be possible to say no. Even outwardly, Israel cannot be seen as less belligerent than Trump against Iran. Therefore, when it became clear that Trump himself instructed a “ceasefire,” and along the way released us from a series of steps—behind closed doors, satisfaction prevailed. We were not dragged into a confrontation in which we have no interest.

The explanation for the dragging

The bigger question, of course, is where things go from here. The media in the U.S. reports preparations by the U.S. army for special operations unlike anything before. On the other hand, stories like these have been published in the past and in the end did not happen in reality. In addition, it is clear that despite the outward display of victory, Trump inside the Oval Office has to decide between scenarios that are not comfortable for him.

Theoretically, he could reach a surrender agreement with Iran, but of course that will not happen. Even the options that remain are not exciting. There is the possibility of continuing to drag out time, as he is doing in practice already for three months.

The price of this middle-ground approach is a lukewarm interim result, which exacts an economic and political price together. A second possibility is to go out on that same major operation that the U.S. army is cooking up. However, here there is a risk of failure and a high price in human lives. Trump is sensitive both to the deaths of soldiers and to operational failures. Therefore, until today he rejected all grandiose plans that were offered to him. Indecision is the explanation for the up-and-down dragging that we see since the official end of Operation “Charon Af.”

The bluff of Mojtaba

As things appear in recent days, the Iranians will not leave Trump the choice of deciding which path to take. The bar of their provocations is rising day by day.

After they hit all their neighbors, in recent days the mullahs are threatening European countries. Yes, Bulgaria and Ukraine may be hit by drone attacks. This is how the lunatics who rule the people in the Iranian nation threaten.

Devout to the point of madness in their fanatic faith, and full of satisfaction that they have held out until now, the Revolutionary Guards are raising the stakes. As happened to such disturbed rulers so many times in history, even those in Iran are truly and sincerely convinced that no one can touch them.

Fact: the world continues to buy the bluff of the existence and its purported decisions of Mojtaba Khamenei for five months—his voice has not been heard, his face has not been seen, his handwriting has not been read, and there is even no evidence that he is still in this world. And yet Western intelligence cannot crack the bluff.

Still, the end of the balloon is to burst. One cannot know exactly what the meeting between reality and Iranian delusions will look like, but even that is close—closer than people think. Dictatorships fall unexpectedly; we learned that from history as well. The fate of the Islamic Republic will not be different.

Gaza gestures

What will Netanyahu say about all this? The truth is that we do not know. After all, even at the previous meeting between the two in February, it became known how much that meeting changed the face of history when it gave birth to the war against Iran. There is no doubt that this time too the prime minister will propose moves regarding Iran, but we will know their nature only in the future.

On the other hand, there is one move Netanyahu will present in order to please the king: the approval he gave the day before yesterday to begin, with the international force, the process of bringing it into Gaza. “To release air from the vent,” Netanyahu defined the move.

Trump and his people are pressing Israel day after day to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and Syria, and they also want to see “progress” in the Gaza arena. All of this is happening while Hamas has not fallen apart from its weapons, Hezbollah is alive and kicking, and Syria is under an unstable jihadist rule. In order to show Trump that Israel is doing “something,” Netanyahu will wave the cabinet decision to bring the ISF (the international force) into the Strip.

Although one can understand the rationale, this concession is wrong. Three years after the massacre, Hamas should have been a dead organization, and Netanyahu promised countless times that he would bring it to that state. And here is a creative proposal that brings us closer to the goal.

Yishai Spez from the “Otef Israel” forum raised a simple idea that does not involve renewing the war. Israel, says Spez, will cut the Strip along the axes of Netzarim and Kisufim. Thus, instead of one large bubble, Hamas will be left with three small, severed enclaves. Such a move will make it harder for it to rearm.

Such a creative step is preferable to a return to the concessions that Netanyahu approved in the cabinet at the beginning of this week. Since Hamas does not meet the basic condition of the agreement, Netanyahu has full legitimacy to offer Trump preferred alternatives.