On Monday, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer summed up Israel’s military achievements to date in the war against Iran: “They’ve lost their [nuclear] facility in Natanz, their scientists, and we’ve struck the facility in Isfahan.
“Their top military brass has been eliminated and a significant part of their launchers have been taken out as well. Their ability to manufacture launchers in the future has been destroyed.
“Iran is completely exposed and we have full freedom of action. This is an unprecedented achievement.”
But the cost has been an unprecedented level of destruction to Israel’s home front.
By Tuesday evening 400 ballistic missiles had been launched from Iran. Fewer than 10 per cent managed to penetrate Israel’s missile defence system, considered one of the best in the world, but the destruction caused by the projectiles with half-tonne or more warheads is at a different level to those launched by Hamas from Gaza or by Hizbullah from Lebanon.
As of Tuesday, 24 Israelis had been killed, more than 600 wounded and almost 3,000 have been left homeless. Israelis go to sleep fearing renewed rocket salvos in the night.
Despite the high cost, 83 per cent of Jewish Israelis support the war, research by Jerusalem’s Hebrew University has shown. In sharp contrast, 12 per cent of Israeli Arabs backed Friday’s strike on Iran.
“While Jewish Israelis largely see the Iran strike as unifying and justified even at high cost, Arab Israelis view it as divisive, dangerous and diplomatically unjustified – underscoring a profound gap in public sentiment across Israeli society,” the report said.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu indicated in a Monday night news conference that a ceasefire at this juncture would be premature.
“Of course they [Iran] want to stop. They want to stop, and to keep producing the tools of death. We gave that a chance. While they were negotiating with the Americans, the ayatollah was tweeting that Israel will be destroyed,” he said.
“Thanks, but we won’t be tempted. We want three central results: eliminating the nuclear programme, eliminating the ability to produce ballistic missiles and eliminating the axis of terror. We will obviously do what we must to achieve these objectives.”
But are these goals realistic?
It’s believed that without US intervention Israel will only be able to delay an Iranian nuclear bomb by two or three years. There is no indication yet that Tehran is willing to give up on uranium enrichment and to send its fissile material abroad, an outcome with would be similar to the deal that was struck with the late former Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy
Israel has no clear exit strategy and continues to hope that US president Donald Trump will either agree to use US long-range bombers to destroy the Fordow reactor, where most of Iran’s enriched uranium is believed to be stored deep underground, or provide Israel with the advanced bunker buster bombs to the do the job itself.
Recent comments by Trump calling on residents of Tehran to evacuate and reiterating that Iran needs to give up entirely on nuclear weapons indicate that he is no mood to compromise.
What’s clear is that Israel cannot be dragged into a war of attrition.
There is also the real danger that the longer the war continues the greater the chance of an Iranian missile causing scores of fatalities or striking a sensitive strategic installation.
Regime change is not an Israeli war aim, but Netanyahu, in an ABC News interview on Monday, did not rule out targeting Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, suggesting that such a scenario would “end the conflict” with the Islamic Republic.
