Well done, Israel!

Once again, Israel has seized the opportunity, read the cards correctly, and acted to severely damage the military and strategic capabilities of one of our enemies. This time it was Iran, the “Head of the Snake” as former prime minister Naftali Bennett likes to say ever since he coined that term some years ago and urged that action be taken to defang Iran’s capacity for destruction.

Whether or not one likes our current prime minster, one has to give credit to Bibi for authorizing this action and to our military and intelligence units for pulling it off successfully. Today’s raid: (a) eliminated the top four leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by hitting them where they slept, and we knew where they slept; (b) took out the head of their air force; (c) killed a number of the scientists responsible for Iran’s nuclear program; (d) did significant damage to their ballistic missile arsenal; and (e) successfully attacked a large portion of their nuclear production sites, although it is too early to tell how massive was the actual damage.

While there is no doubt that Iran will attempt to retaliate for this, and we are already under an emergency alert at least through Saturday night, it was worth the risk.  After all, it also eliminates much of their capability to support their regional proxies many of whom we effectively disabled as well, over the past year.  Those include eliminating the Hezbollah threat in Lebanon, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and significant damage to the Houthi’s strategic strike capability as well.

Effectively, under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu with little or no interference from the current US president, Israel has been able to flex its muscle to achieve impressive gains across the region.

As for whether or not the US provided any support in this morning’s raid, it is difficult to tell.   President Trump earlier in the week commented that he hoped we would not do what we did today as there were ongoing discissions with the Iranians about yet another agreement on nuclear control even though the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) this week said that Iran’s nuclear program was in a state of non-compliance.  But all of us knew one thing for sure.  If this morning’s raid went well Trump would try to claim some its success for the US, but if it had not gone well the White House would have said they warned us not to do this but we did not listen,

For those who have been critical of Netanyahu and his handling of the events of the last 20 months of war resulting from the atrocities of October 7^th, what has happened geopolitically as a result of decisions he has taken is worthy of praise.  Nevertheless, this does not negate the fact that he has been in power much too long for a healthy democracy to thrive an has still not taken responsibility for the security failures that allowed October 7^th to happen.

In addition, the war with Hamas rages on and almost 50 hostage remain in Gaza, some dead and the others probably close to that Ias well.   One wonders why a leader who has been able to so successfully overwhelm all of our other enemies in the region, still finds it impossible to end the war with Hamas and bring the remaining hostages home.  Of course we know the answer to that question as well which is clearly a product of the makeup of his governing coalition.

Finally, for those who will, once again, say that only Bibi can lead us, only Bibi can accomplish this and only Bibi can give us security, they are wrong.   For the 77 years of our existence fate has always found the person or persons who could lead us and bring us to the next level of progress.  Saying that nobody else can do this becomes reality as it discourages others from trying to lead.  If Bibi were to leave the scene and make room for others, we would see plenty of capable people ready to meet the challenge.  I have no doubt about that at all.

But today was a great day for us…..Am Yisrael Chai…..The people of Israel live!!