Before Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei set out to conquer the Sunni Arab world in 1989, there were self-imposed rules that set real limits to Arab-Israeli warfare. In all the conflict between Israel and Arab states since May 1948, the world witnessed violence, saw civilians murdered, and heard countless expressions of hatred. But all that sound and fury obscured the rules that each side observed unilaterally.
At no point did Israel ever try to assassinate an Arab political leader, nor did any Arab state seek to kill an Israeli leader. Several Arab leaders were killed by fellow Arabs, and Israel lost one prime minister to a Jewish fanatic and a minister to a lone-wolf Palestinian assassin — but the prohibition of state assassinations was strictly observed.
Prisoners were also protected. In the 1948 war, both the Egyptian army and Jordan’s British-officered Arab Legion captured Jewish fighters of both sexes. These captives received Geneva convention treatment. They weren’t tortured, murdered, violated, or held as hostages to extract political concessions — as Hamas is currently doing and Hezbollah did in the past.
Similar restraint was practised by the Israeli army on a much larger scale in 1967 with its many thousands of Egyptian and Jordanian prisoners. Then, in 1973, when the Egyptian army captured Israeli prisoners along the Suez Canal, they were treated humanely. Afterwards, prisoners were swiftly exchanged with neither side seeking political concessions. The Syrian army, itself in perpetual and murderous internal strife, killed some of the few Israelis it captured in the 1973 war, abused more of them, and would not return them without extracting concessions. But this was very much the exception to Arab state norms.
All this changed when Iran’s Shia and Persian theocracy arrived on the scene in the early Eighties, very deliberately outdoing all Arab states in hostility to Israel — with total destruction its declared aim. Though refraining from directly targeting Israel, the regime funded and armed all its enemies from Lebanon to Yemen on an ever larger scale. Hezbollah received billions of dollars in armaments and salaries; as did Yemen’s Houthis, who have spent the past year attacking shipping in the Red Sea and launching ballistic missiles at Israel. In Iraq, the Shia Kataeb militia is also armed and directed by Iran.
The October 7 attacks changed the rules. And in April, Iran attacked Israel directly for the first time, by launching cruise missiles, armed drones and ballistic missiles, each the size of a tanker truck. With that first ever direct attack, Ayatollah Khamenei had crossed a major red line — but Israel’s unique ballistic missile defences intercepted almost all the ballistic missiles that might have caused any real damage. Israel’s retaliation was limited, sending a single attack drone that did destroy its target, an anti-aircraft missile launcher near a nuclear site. Was Israel’s restraint misunderstood as weakness? Iran doubled down on October 1 this year with a much larger missile barrage after the assassination of Hamas commander Ismaile Haniyeh in Tehran.
Pray for a Trump victory. That will put Israel and the US in a position to deal harshly with the Iranian regime and work on a very needed regime change in Iran. That would be the best chance for a lasting peace in the Middle East.
The fact that they didn’t go for Khark this time means it’s still available for a putative next time, which for now gives the Israelis arguably more leverage with both the Americans and the Iranians.
Let’s hope Trump gets elected.
However, I am not convinced by the idea of regime change in Iran, unless main trust is internal.
Let’s remember as well Obama support for overthrow of Mubarak.
At least in that case they stopped believing in “democracy” of Muslim Btotherhood and supported Sissi.
USA attempted it in last Iraq war and it did not improve Middle East, did it?
As one USA general said
“you can not drop democracy in a country from strategic bomber”.
Eventually someone needs to stop Iranian nuclear programme.
The current USA policy of appeasing Iran is not sustainable.
And still nothing is done to stop this ; if this isn’t ‘two tier’ support for Muslim terrorism, what is?…..
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zt1blFOchQM
and this too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMC_PnakZjc