When a Rising Lion Turns Doves into Hawks

In January of this year, I was surprised when my friend Daniel Gordis asked me on his podcast, Israel from the Inside, whether Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. As an environmental guy, I had come prepared for questions like whether Israel should ban PFAS “forever chemicals” or cancel child allowances. But I was even more surprised by the swiftness of my answer: “Of course.”

I think about that discussion as I try to understand my response to the first two days of Israel’s military conflict with Iran.  It is consistent with that of many friends associated with the country’s peace camp. For instance, Yair Golan, the leftist chair of Israel’s Democrats party, did not hesitate to support the IDF’s surprise attack – locally known as the “Rising Lion” operation. What is it that makes many of us, who over the years embraced a dovish, conciliatory perspective on regional conflicts, so comfortable with Israel’s present war against Iran?

Before providing an answer, a fairly obvious caveat is in order:  Countries invariably know how they enter wars, but rarely know how they will actually end.  The early Israeli successes in taking out top Iranian military leadership and anti-aircraft capabilities have left citizens delighted, and hopeful that elimination of Iranian nuclear capabilities through force (or subsequent negotations) is possible.  But at best, such a view is aspirational. Any assumptions about the outcome of this conflict are clearly extremely premature.  At the same time, it is possible to weigh in on the remarkable initial national unity supporting the war and its objectives.

To begin with, Israel’s fight with Iran immediately returns us to the “David and Goliath” dynamics that informed Israel’s first thirty-three years. Until the 1981 “First War in Lebanon,” Israel had always found itself outnumbered in battles that it was forced to fight. It is true that the present war with Iran is fundamentally different from those early confrontations, with their multiple enemies and Israel’s genuine fear of annihilation. All the same, Iran has more than nine times as many people as Israel; its land area is seventy-five times larger; it is a oil superpower, who at its peak produced 10% of global petroleum.  And notwithstanding its predominantly “Shiite” ethnic identity, is part of the massive Muslim world that surrounds the Jewish state.

As anyone who finds themselves watching a random sports event with unknown contestants knows, there is an instinctive, human psychological tendency to support the underdog. The early stages of the war with Iran suggest that the profound Israeli anxiety caused by Iranian’s formidable military capabilities may have been exaggerated. Nonetheless, one need only look back at the Second Lebanon War in 2006 to remember how devastating Iranian missiles were when fired by Hezbollah, its ragtag proxy. After decades of rounds in Israel’s “asymmetrical” conflict with the Palestinian, where Israel was seen in the role of “bully”– suddenly the dynamics have changed.  Once again, we genuinely feel that we are the underdogs.

My own thinking on the moral justification of a war with Iran is probably informed by the magnificent mini-series Pachinko, which follows a Korean family in Japan during World War II. The episode about the horrors of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki left me unnerved. It reminded me that there is nothing in modern warfare even close to the horrors and death caused by atomic weapons, that can erase entire cities and leave large areas radioactive and uninhabitable for decades.

After October 7th, I take seriously Tehran’s doomsday clock—the public timer which counts down the time until the 2040 deadline, which Iran has set for Israel’s destruction to be complete. After Iran’s two unprovoked ballistic missile attacks on Israel in 2024, there is no doubt that this violent Islamic regime wouldn’t hesitate to use a nuclear capability to finish the job.

Those of us in Israel who continue to take seriously the Biblical directive to “seek peace and pursue it” still retain a visceral sense of Jewish vulnerability. Every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and for many on Tisha B’Av, we recall with graphic detail the perils of Jewish helplessness. I always come back to my great-grandfather, who reportedly was shot in his bed by the Nazis because he was too sick to walk to the city square for a “selection.” How lucky I am to be in a country that has rejected two thousand years of Jewish helplessness in the face of persecution and slaughter and opted for a different strategy.

Just as Zionism envisioned, the State of Israel completely changed the Jewish condition. Taking on Iran, as it raced to complete the weaponization of over 400 kilograms of enriched uranium so that it can destroy the Zionist enemy validates my decision, years ago, to throw in my fate with the state of Israel.

It is hard for people in the peace camp to acknowledge Bibi Netanyahu’s dominant role in initiating the Iranian attack. There is so much bad blood and so many “unforgivable” things he has done. But assuming that the outcome of the present conflict is favorable, I would give the Prime Minister the victory lap—under the assumption that taking credit for successes means that he also needs to take credit for failures—especially those of October 7th, which he so emphatically evades.

As someone who intuitively identifies with doves, I truly don’t see this war as one against the Iranian people. Unlike the Palestinians—who have never really warmed to Israel’s existence—I am old enough to recall a different time, when Israel and Iran were the closest of allies: two non-Arab countries with common interests, surrounded by an Arabic-speaking Middle East. Iran had so much confidence in Israel in 1968 that it agreed to help fund a pipeline to take its oil from Eilat to Ashkelon as a joint venture, saving its petroleum indjustry the expensive trip through the Suez Canal to Europe.

The very last El Al flight to leave Tehran Airport to Israel in 1979 had no seats and no people on it. At the time, Israel was establishing its “Hai Bar” species restoration program, returning animals that had become extinct locally to their original habitats in the Land of Israel. The fallow deer, a lovely and shy ungulate, had thrived in Israel until it was hunted to extinction (apparently sometime after the Crusader period). The last herd in the world was found in a remote Iranian nature reserve. The Iranian government agreed to have two males and two females transferred to Israel as part of the country’s captive breeding program. Today, fallow deer populations thrive in the Kziv Nature Reserve and the Judean Hills.

It is hard to imagine this sort of cooperation and trust between Israel and its most hostile adversary. But as obsessive television watching turns Israelis into armchair Iranian sociologists, it is increasingly clear that the Islamic regime has hijacked the people of Persia. Indeed, half of the country’s residents do not even consider themselves Iranian. Social media posts emerging from Iran contain an extraordinary level of appreciation for Israel’s operation and and widespread hope to soon be liberated. There is no reason why we cannot eventually return to the days of working together on common ecological challenges. This too offers some modest consolation during the dark days of war.