Israel May Have No Military Option Against Iran
Haaretz / Gideon Levy
15-Dec-2010


The home front's weakness should teach us that Israel apparently has no military option. This is a much more fateful lesson than all the fire's other lessons, and it should be dealt with. The apocalyptic descriptions of a missile attack on the home front if Israel attacks Iran or Lebanon appear even more apocalyptic in light of Israel's conduct when handling a medium-sized forest fire. Discussions on our future, therefore, should move to the arena that Israelis favor: the security arena.

Leave aside human rights and the occupation, don't worry about morality and justice, forget about peace as a leftist delusion and ignore the Palestinian problem. The issue is Israel's security interests, perhaps even existential interests.

The next wars will be home-front wars. This time the Israeli home front will be hit in a way we have never experienced. The first Gulf war and the Second Lebanon War were only the movie trailer for what could happen. An attack of thousands of missiles, as predicted by experts, will create a reality Israel will find hard to withstand. It isn't equipped for it, as we saw on the Carmel, and it isn't prepared for it, as we saw in the Lebanon war.

Any Israeli leader, even an adventurist and a former commando, should understand that the attack option is not really an option. It's true that we succeeded in a few bombings in the past, but nothing lasts forever and the Scuds against us won't always be hollow. A tho... >>>

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