April 17, 2024
By Zvi Bar’el
Israel is still convinced that the image of the mad man will ensure its security.
There’s no act more unnecessary and dangerous than the blind vengeance that the government of Israel is so determined to take against Iran. But one can’t ignore the fact that it was Israel that set off this chain of events when it assassinated Mohammad Reza Zahedi, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force in Syria and Lebanon.
It’s even more important to recall that this assassination, as important as it was, might not have happened if not for the preconceived notion that Tehran would not respond.
After all, it restrained itself after the killing of its nuclear experts, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the nuclear program; the head of intelligence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Syria last December; the coordinator of relations between Iran and Hezbollah a month later, not to mention dozens of other Iranian scientists and officials over the years.
Iran, of course, is to blame. It had gotten Israel accustomed to assuming it will be “deterred” or at least is restrained. Just as Hamas had accommodated itself to Israel’s existence and would never start an all-out conflict, and just as Hezbollah adheres to the principle of reciprocity with Israel and plays by certain rules.
Then suddenly, as U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew famously said, “The bastards changed the rules and didn’t tell me.” Israel, which knows exactly where every senior Iranian official sleeps and in which car Ismail Haniyeh’s children and grandchildren drive, becomes clueless when it comes to analyzing and understanding the enemies’ intentions.
Israel knew that Hamas was planning an attack, but simply didn’t believe it would go through with it. Likewise, Israel heard Iranian leaders say loud and clear that this time they would respond forcefully, but still didn’t grasp until almost the last minute that Tehran was talking about a direct attack of a massive and unprecedented nature.
Now, it seems, the anger building up in Israel since the Iranian barrage isn’t about the attack itself, which was successfully thwarted, but about Iranian insolence and, above all, the resounding intelligence oversight that failed to predict the consequences of Zahedi’s killing.
This affront demands a response, Israeli leaders insist. Without a strategy, revenge is a tempting alternative. Without it, Israel will lose deterrence, not to mention its honor at home and in the community of nations. This is a rare opportunity to hit Iran so hard that it never forgets. But what deterrence and what honor is this government talking about?
Despite the terrible disaster on October 7, and the failures it exposed, Israel is still convinced that the image of the mad man – a country that foams at the mouth, strikes out uncontrollably in every direction, and destroys and kills indiscriminately – will ensure its security.
But it’s precisely the same vengeful madness that has made it a leper. Its inner weakness, created and nourished by the prime minister, is what has undermined its deterrent ability.
Israel owes a huge debt not to deterrence and prestige, but to the United States and the unexpected support of moderate Arab countries, which cooperated to thwart the Iranian attack. Now, to their core, they realize that they have fallen into a vicious circle of tit-for-tat that Israel is planning.
But in the eyes of the government and much of the army brass, a successful defense and the thwarting of the Iranian attack cannot be considered an achievement if it isn’t followed up by revenge. Just the opposite is true: Effective defense is an essential part of deterrence and security, much more so than savage revenge.
After all, if we had on October 7 the defensive shield and countermeasures demonstrated this past weekend, Israeli history would be very different.
And here’s the absurdity: Despite the fact that taking revenge in Gaza failed to fulfill the goals of the war, the public – which is ready to swallow the insult and stop the war in Gaza in order to free the hostages – does not hesitate to swallow the lie that revenge against Iran is the only way to ensure the security of the country.
Emma Olive 