Israel was right to restrain Iran strike before US elections - opinion

I happened to wake up just before 2 a.m. last Saturday and switched on the radio to Reshet Bet’s hourly news broadcast.

A sleepy news presenter reported that we were finally on our way to attack Iran, in retaliation for the 180 missiles it launched at Israel on October 1. “We,” of course, referred to the Israel Air Force, and 100 fighter planes were on their way to attack 20 targets in Iran, traveling more than 1,600 km. away from their bases in Israel.

By the 7 a.m. news, a more alert news presenter stated that all our planes had returned home safely after completing their mission successfully.

In time, we shall undoubtedly learn more details regarding what was destroyed and where, while the Iranians will report on any coincidental destruction caused, and innocent civilians killed. 

In such cases, these are usually minimal, because of the nature of the targets and their locations.

In the current war, the air force has been engaged in daily direct strikes that are carried out in mostly civilian areas, where the targets are specific persons. 

These are invariably military and political leaders of the two terrorist organizations we are fighting – Hamas and Hezbollah, or weapons caches and/or the headquarters of these organizations.

According to Palestinian sources 42,000 Gazan men, women, and children have been killed and 10,000 are missing under rubble that has not been cleared since October 8, 2023. 

The number of children killed is reported to be anywhere between 11,000 and 19,000. Whatever the exact numbers actually are, aerial attacks have been involved in many of the incidents in which not only Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were killed, but also innocent civilians.

It should, however, be pointed out that the IDF usually calls on the Palestinian inhabitants of buildings that are about to be attacked from the air or by ground forces, to evacuate the designated locations.

THESE FIGURES are behind the latest “scandal” in Israel concerning presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s comments during a closed election rally she held with students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on October 17. 

Harris told the students that she is committed to their interests and welfare. 

A pro-Palestinian protester then hurled back at her: “What about the genocide, billions of dollars? 42,000 people are dead, 19,000 children are dead, and you won’t call it a genocide.” 

Harris’s impromptu response was “What he’s talking about, it’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real, and I respect his voice”.

The argument that erupted in Israel around this exchange concerned whether Harris meant that she respected what the protester had said about genocide, or what he had said about the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza in general, and that of children in particular. 

Undoubtedly, Harris could have dealt much better with the issue in real time, had she specifically rejected the claim of genocide. But she didn’t.

Nevertheless, Harris has never claimed Israel is committing genocide – the systematic extermination of a whole people or race. 

However, she has often claimed that too many innocent people are being killed in the Gaza Strip, and that there is an unbearable humanitarian problem developing in the Gaza Strip that Israel ought to address. 

Journalist Chen Liberman, appearing on Niv Raskin’s morning news show on October 20, was scolded by the host and silenced by the other participants on the show’s panel, for justifying Harris’s comments. 

Channel 14’s Patriots, a current affairs show, openly supports Donald Trump’s candidacy for president and has called on Israelis with American citizenship to register and vote for Trump. It also attacked and demeaned Liberman for her left-wing “treachery.”

REGARDING THE number of Palestinians killed by our forces, and especially the number of children killed: If a similar proportion of Israeli children (in proportion to the total Israeli population) were killed in the war, the figure would be 95,000 children. 

To put this figure in perspective, according to the figures published every Independence Day by the Defense Ministry, from 1960 to May 2024 some 25,000 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in Israel’s wars as well as in other incidents of violence between Arabs and Jews. These are figures worth thinking about.

I am not accusing Israel’s Air Force pilots of being directly responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, though perhaps greater efforts should be made by the IDF to try to avoid such occurrences. 

A sincere discussion on the issue isn’t made any easier with Israelis who argue that there is no such thing as an “innocent Palestinian,” not even a child – just as there are many Palestinians who view Israeli children as nothing more than future IDF soldiers raised to fight the Palestinian people and deny their rights.

BUT REGARDING the successful attack by the Israel Air Force on Iran in the early hours of Saturday morning: Many Israelis were disappointed that Israel had not hit Iran much harder “to teach the Iranians a lesson,” and that we had conceded to the prodding of the Biden administration to avoid hitting any nuclear or energy installations.

The government was right to restrain the attack. We cannot risk a full-scale war with Iran at the moment.

Refusing to submit to the US administration’s prodding at this stage would be viewed as a rebuff to President Joe Biden and evidence that Trump’s claim that “Bibi doesn’t listen to Biden,” is true. 

Something like this just isn’t done 10 days before a presidential election.

The writer worked in the Knesset for many years as a researcher, and has published extensively both journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her most recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members - A Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Routledge.