"Behold, a nation that arises like a young lion and exalts itself like a lion. It will not lie down until it has eaten its prey and drunk the blood of its kills."
I want to emphasize that. The very name of the operation spoke to the need to finish the enemy. Not have a "ceasefire" with the enemy when the enemy is on the back foot. This is *intolerable*.
If you want to be independent make your own arms and ammunition. But if you’re dependent upon US military aid remember that he who pays the piper calls the tune…
I fully understand your frustration. Unfortunately, Israel is always fighting a “war of self-defense”, not the war of eradicating evil. Moreover, nothing about Trump’s recent policies suggests that he would really be interested in committing to this. His method is Peace Through Spectacle, not Peace Through Strength. And he’s actually not different from previous administrations-just look at common patterns, rhetoric aside.
One more thing about the shtetl mindset. We should have seen that this wasn’t going anywhere when we saw prominent Israeli and Jewish intellectuals tweeting “thank you, Mr President” and discussing Tucker Carlson. For some reason, their mindset is constantly focused on Western public opinion all the time. They really think that Israel depends on the West somehow, and since we both live in democracies public opinion create political reality.
If I could say anything to Bibi, it would be: keep bombing. Humiliate Trump publicly - this is what he hates the most. And what exactly is he going to do? He won’t cut weapon supply. He’s already unpopular. He will publish angry tweets and will join - because the alternative will make him look even weaker. Trump always caves in under pressure. He’s afraid of those who doesn’t care about him and doesn’t need him.
Of course, Bibi won’t hear me and won’t listen to me, but he would if it was spoken by the majority of Israeli public. For that, they need to change their mindset. But it won’t happen either as long as Tel Aviv puts gigantic ads with “Thank you, Mr President” in the streets. This is pure paganism.
As someone from Ramat gan who is now living in a hotel because my apartment was hit, I pray that you are wrong. I expect the Americans to negotiate an unconditional surrender. I hope I am not naive. I am not sure more bombs would have changed anything. However your analysis is power and impossible to ignore. Thanks.
Dear, WE WILL NEVER EVER LEARN , YOU DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR MURDERER, NEVER. THIS TACTIC IS VERY OLD. MOHAMMED DID AND HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH AND NOW IRAN. THEY STAB A KNIFE IN YOUR BACK WHEN YOU ARE THINKING IT IS OK. AM ISRAËL CHAI!!!
I don't see this as a failure by Israel. Netanyahu came under extreme pressure from Trump, a pitifully shallow and stupid man obsessed with trivialities, to give up so he could claim credit for a ceasefire. We don't know what he threatened Netanyahu with. Netanyahu has done more than any other leader in decades to weaken Hamas and Hezbollah, precisely because he stood up to Western pressure to pull his punches. If he didn't stand up to Trump this time, the circumstances must have been extraordinary.
By most estimates, the airstrikes Israel did carry out delayed the nuclear program by two to three years. They bought time. The theocracy in Iran will fall eventually. The will is there -- some of the past anti-regime protests in Iran were among the largest protest demonstrations in world history. It can't be expected to happen immediately. People won't throw themselves against the bayonets until they feel there is real hope that it will achieve something. But Israel hit a lot of targets that were part of the theocracy's apparatus of repression. Its grip on the people is a lot weaker now than it was two weeks ago.
And we don't know that Israel's campaign is really over. Trump is mercurial and easily distracted. It wouldn't take much -- one serious Iranian attack on a US target of any kind would probably do it -- for him to drop his objections to further Israeli action against the nuclear program. Netanyahu isn't going to abandon the most important military operation of his career unfinished if he can possibly avoid it.
I understand your anger. The problem is that you are part of a small country, with a small population and that can outfight your foes who are generally disorganised and unprepared for your attacks: these are tactical victories but they never amount to a strategic win.
To win strategically you have to give something up: you have to find an accommodation with the Arabs and that includes over Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's existence relies on the good graces of industrial powers (today that means the United States) providing the equipment for Israel to fight. This is rapidly coming to an end.
Demographic and political shifts over the next decade will mean Israel will be forced to confront an anti-Israel coalition between MAGA and the left of the Democrat Party, and that is before what is happening in Europe.
I do not pretend that this is fair. Life is not fair. You feel like the world is mistreating you. Hate to break it to you but you are losing the strategic game of building alliances and connections and ceding the ground to the Palestinians. You wiped out the Iranian high command and lost the war of minds in the majority of the world.
Sun Tzu said "the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." It seems that Israel is embodying the opposite where the art of war is never matched by the art of political solutions.
It’s a tough call. I’m frustrated for Israel and happy for America and myself. On the plus side Israel now knows it can dismantle the Iranian air defence at will.
If the bombing of Fordo was effective, then their nuclear aspirations are set back at least 10 years. Hopefully.
Their missiles launchers are easier to build and much harder to hit, and I don’t know where the war was going. Fordo couldn’t be hit by the IAF so it was either the USAF or crash land a jet full of Sayeret Matkal and fight the whole way into the complex and then rig it for demolition.
The last attempt to do that by the Brits was a spectacular failure against the Vemork Heavy Water Plant in Norway during WWII.
The only long term solution to Iran that I see is regime change. Can the Mossad change to engineering a royalist coup?
IF so, then I think it probably was the right decision. But that’s a big “if”. Was the IDF getting somewhere over Iran? At least the news I heard suggested otherwise.
And maybe someone in the Knesset could focus their efforts on finding somewhere else for the Arabs to live who don’t want to be a part of Israel, so Judea and Samaria can be annexed, and the main part of the “war” over.
Because I honestly fear some PM might try to accept the Two State Solution if there is enough pressure from Washington.
I will say this: as a British Zionist with US citizenship: accepting US aid is a poisoned chalice, and it’s increasingly poisoning the well in the US, too.
And the next round in <20 years needs to start with a ruthless decapitation strike. I’d say like ‘67, but given it might well be against Egypt I don’t want to risk saying anything prophetic.
States barter with evil because their survival depends on appeasing factions, not annihilating threats. Fordow and Natanz will be rebuilt, as you fear, not despite the state but because of it. Every ceasefire, every half-measure, seeds the next war
On your last post you called my call for private defense “rationalist,” yet you defend a doomed state intervention. That’s the irony. State action, rooted in coercion, is destined to fail, betraying your own plea for “sovereignty.” Free individuals, acting rationally, could have pressed the fight to its end, unbound by bureaucracy or foreign agendas. Your faith in the state ensures the tragedy you dread: a mushroom cloud, born of its compromises.
This operation was called עם כלביא. The verse that it's from (Numbers 23:24) says this:
הֶן-עָם כְּלָבִיא יָקוּם, וְכַאֲרִי יִתְנַשָּׂא; לֹא יִשְׁכַּב עַד-יֹאכַל טֶרֶף, וְדַם-חֲלָלִים יִשְׁתֶּה.
"Behold, a nation that arises like a young lion and exalts itself like a lion. It will not lie down until it has eaten its prey and drunk the blood of its kills."
I want to emphasize that. The very name of the operation spoke to the need to finish the enemy. Not have a "ceasefire" with the enemy when the enemy is on the back foot. This is *intolerable*.
Very sad.
If you want to be independent make your own arms and ammunition. But if you’re dependent upon US military aid remember that he who pays the piper calls the tune…
I agree, we need to stop accepting the US aid.
I fully understand your frustration. Unfortunately, Israel is always fighting a “war of self-defense”, not the war of eradicating evil. Moreover, nothing about Trump’s recent policies suggests that he would really be interested in committing to this. His method is Peace Through Spectacle, not Peace Through Strength. And he’s actually not different from previous administrations-just look at common patterns, rhetoric aside.
One more thing about the shtetl mindset. We should have seen that this wasn’t going anywhere when we saw prominent Israeli and Jewish intellectuals tweeting “thank you, Mr President” and discussing Tucker Carlson. For some reason, their mindset is constantly focused on Western public opinion all the time. They really think that Israel depends on the West somehow, and since we both live in democracies public opinion create political reality.
If I could say anything to Bibi, it would be: keep bombing. Humiliate Trump publicly - this is what he hates the most. And what exactly is he going to do? He won’t cut weapon supply. He’s already unpopular. He will publish angry tweets and will join - because the alternative will make him look even weaker. Trump always caves in under pressure. He’s afraid of those who doesn’t care about him and doesn’t need him.
Of course, Bibi won’t hear me and won’t listen to me, but he would if it was spoken by the majority of Israeli public. For that, they need to change their mindset. But it won’t happen either as long as Tel Aviv puts gigantic ads with “Thank you, Mr President” in the streets. This is pure paganism.
Absolutely right. This goes back to the moral collapse of Hasbara.
As someone from Ramat gan who is now living in a hotel because my apartment was hit, I pray that you are wrong. I expect the Americans to negotiate an unconditional surrender. I hope I am not naive. I am not sure more bombs would have changed anything. However your analysis is power and impossible to ignore. Thanks.
My goodness, so sorry to hear about that. I hope you will manage to get back home ASAP. I also very much hope that I am wrong.
I fear that you are right. I wish you weren’t but that would be wishful thinking.
There are no moral leaders, only politicians.
Dear, WE WILL NEVER EVER LEARN , YOU DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH YOUR MURDERER, NEVER. THIS TACTIC IS VERY OLD. MOHAMMED DID AND HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH AND NOW IRAN. THEY STAB A KNIFE IN YOUR BACK WHEN YOU ARE THINKING IT IS OK. AM ISRAËL CHAI!!!
There's a line in the Song of Songs 7:6 that keeps coming back to me:
מֶ֖לֶךְ אָס֥וּר בָּרְהָטִֽים׃...
...the king is held captive by its long locks of hair.
The Sforno comments:
ּּ
"The king is held captive by its long locks of hair," the Israeli king was bound to the commands of the government from the hands of the runners.*
*As in Esther 3:13. In this context, it means the commands coming from Rome.
This latest episode is just another example of how we only maintaine the illusion of independence.
I don't see this as a failure by Israel. Netanyahu came under extreme pressure from Trump, a pitifully shallow and stupid man obsessed with trivialities, to give up so he could claim credit for a ceasefire. We don't know what he threatened Netanyahu with. Netanyahu has done more than any other leader in decades to weaken Hamas and Hezbollah, precisely because he stood up to Western pressure to pull his punches. If he didn't stand up to Trump this time, the circumstances must have been extraordinary.
By most estimates, the airstrikes Israel did carry out delayed the nuclear program by two to three years. They bought time. The theocracy in Iran will fall eventually. The will is there -- some of the past anti-regime protests in Iran were among the largest protest demonstrations in world history. It can't be expected to happen immediately. People won't throw themselves against the bayonets until they feel there is real hope that it will achieve something. But Israel hit a lot of targets that were part of the theocracy's apparatus of repression. Its grip on the people is a lot weaker now than it was two weeks ago.
And we don't know that Israel's campaign is really over. Trump is mercurial and easily distracted. It wouldn't take much -- one serious Iranian attack on a US target of any kind would probably do it -- for him to drop his objections to further Israeli action against the nuclear program. Netanyahu isn't going to abandon the most important military operation of his career unfinished if he can possibly avoid it.
I understand your anger. The problem is that you are part of a small country, with a small population and that can outfight your foes who are generally disorganised and unprepared for your attacks: these are tactical victories but they never amount to a strategic win.
To win strategically you have to give something up: you have to find an accommodation with the Arabs and that includes over Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's existence relies on the good graces of industrial powers (today that means the United States) providing the equipment for Israel to fight. This is rapidly coming to an end.
Demographic and political shifts over the next decade will mean Israel will be forced to confront an anti-Israel coalition between MAGA and the left of the Democrat Party, and that is before what is happening in Europe.
I do not pretend that this is fair. Life is not fair. You feel like the world is mistreating you. Hate to break it to you but you are losing the strategic game of building alliances and connections and ceding the ground to the Palestinians. You wiped out the Iranian high command and lost the war of minds in the majority of the world.
Sun Tzu said "the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." It seems that Israel is embodying the opposite where the art of war is never matched by the art of political solutions.
It’s a tough call. I’m frustrated for Israel and happy for America and myself. On the plus side Israel now knows it can dismantle the Iranian air defence at will.
If the bombing of Fordo was effective, then their nuclear aspirations are set back at least 10 years. Hopefully.
Their missiles launchers are easier to build and much harder to hit, and I don’t know where the war was going. Fordo couldn’t be hit by the IAF so it was either the USAF or crash land a jet full of Sayeret Matkal and fight the whole way into the complex and then rig it for demolition.
The last attempt to do that by the Brits was a spectacular failure against the Vemork Heavy Water Plant in Norway during WWII.
The only long term solution to Iran that I see is regime change. Can the Mossad change to engineering a royalist coup?
IF so, then I think it probably was the right decision. But that’s a big “if”. Was the IDF getting somewhere over Iran? At least the news I heard suggested otherwise.
And maybe someone in the Knesset could focus their efforts on finding somewhere else for the Arabs to live who don’t want to be a part of Israel, so Judea and Samaria can be annexed, and the main part of the “war” over.
Because I honestly fear some PM might try to accept the Two State Solution if there is enough pressure from Washington.
I will say this: as a British Zionist with US citizenship: accepting US aid is a poisoned chalice, and it’s increasingly poisoning the well in the US, too.
And the next round in <20 years needs to start with a ruthless decapitation strike. I’d say like ‘67, but given it might well be against Egypt I don’t want to risk saying anything prophetic.
States barter with evil because their survival depends on appeasing factions, not annihilating threats. Fordow and Natanz will be rebuilt, as you fear, not despite the state but because of it. Every ceasefire, every half-measure, seeds the next war
On your last post you called my call for private defense “rationalist,” yet you defend a doomed state intervention. That’s the irony. State action, rooted in coercion, is destined to fail, betraying your own plea for “sovereignty.” Free individuals, acting rationally, could have pressed the fight to its end, unbound by bureaucracy or foreign agendas. Your faith in the state ensures the tragedy you dread: a mushroom cloud, born of its compromises.
https://x.com/trumpdailyposts/status/1937557272671969566?s=46
Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Israelis are sacrificed for the sake of a nobel peace prize.