While Tehran probes with missiles, Jerusalem is in a bind

Summary

TEL AVIV, Israel — The beaches of Tel Aviv stayed crowded, and volleyball continued on the sand, while missiles flew toward Israel and sirens sounded in the country on Sunday evening and early Monday. This represented Tehran’s first direct strike since the fragile ceasefire that followed the spring escalation. Israeli officials said that missiles were intercepted or landed in open areas, with millions of residents sent to shelters as sirens sounded across the north. The attack followed an Israeli strike on Hezbollah-linked targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs. In response, Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles toward northern Israel. The confrontation continued into the early hours of Monday morning, after Israel retaliated against Tehran, hitting military targets in the country. Recommended Stories “The Iranians are doing whatever they can to make us all — you as journalists, as civilians, policy makers — [think] that they are strong,” said Dr. Eyal Hulata, Israel’s former national security adviser and longtime Mossad official, at a meeting in Tel Aviv. The missile launch, according to Hulata, serves a dual purpose: It signals to the international community that Iran retains offensive capacity, and domestically that the regime commands power even after suffering devastating losses. “It is very clear that neither the Americans nor the Iranians want to resume a full war. If the Iranians wanted to resume a full war, there would be fireworks all the time,” he said. “Instead we have one drop, flying all the way from Iran to here and the end of the war. Iranians know that [if it was more] there is nothing the Americans will be able to do to prevent the IDF from attacking. This is why they have so far refrained from firing heavily. They fired at the Kuwaitis, they fired at Emirates, and at others. They haven’t fired at us because they know that this will ignite a chain of events that is beyond their control.” But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also faces constraints. Israel has long insisted that Iranian attacks require a military response. But Washington is strongly pushing in the opposite direction. Reportedly, President Donald Trump has urged Netanyahu to avoid retaliatory strikes, arguing that another round of escalation could jeopardize U.S.-Iran diplomacy and a broader regional arrangement. But Israel has ignored the warnings from the President, who spoke to multiple American outlets about it. Trump also criticized the Israeli strike in Beirut that preceded the Iranian launch and, in an interview with the Financial Times, said Netanyahu would have “no choice” but to accept a U.S.-brokered Iran deal if it were to come about. “What Israel is worried about is the precedent that Israeli action in Lebanon leads to Iranian response into Israel directly,” Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a Senior Researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Washington Examiner. “Even if it is a symbolic move, it’s a very unpleasant point for Israel, because it establishes that the response to Israeli action in Lebanon will be attacks from Iran.” This, according to Israeli former officials and analysts, is a course of events Israel wants to avoid. Jerusalem would rather keep the two theaters separate and sees it as unwise for the American leader to have drawn lines between the two. The latest exchange between the two countries stretches back to Feb. 28, when Israel and the United States launched coordinated strikes against Iran, targeting its nuclear and ballistic missile program and hoping for a potential regime change. Having survived the surprise all-out Israeli-American assault, Tehran treats endurance as victory. Yet that posture of strength masks an acute domestic fragility. The attacks on Iran came when the regime was arguably at its weakest point in years, with discontent driven by a deteriorating economy and its brutality. For Iran, a deal represents the only pathway to domestic relief, restoring legitimacy and proof to its own population that the leadership is capable of governing. “This is why they don’t want to resume the war. They definitely prefer a deal,” Hulata explained. “They cannot be portrayed to their people as conceding to the Americans, they have a balance to keep.” WEAKENING PUTIN, UKRAINE TAKES THE FIGHT TO ST. PETERSBURG Trump, meanwhile, appears focused on putting out the smaller fires while a deal acceptable to Washington or Tehran remains out of reach. But as Trump insists on the talks, broader concern among many in Israel remains that an agreement reached under pressure could lower tensions in the short term while leaving Iran with much of what it wants. “There is this sort of risk that we see now for escalation that [Donald Trump] constantly has to monitor,” Sasson-Gordis said. “This is not an ideal position to be in. On the other hand, it might be even worse if the Iranians get everything they want out of this.” That leaves Israel in a bind. If it keeps responding to Iranian strikes on its territory, it risks being blamed for disrupting Trump’s diplomatic push and further alienating an ally.