Amid the limited reliable information emerging Friday about Israel’s reported retaliation, insistent official silence in Jerusalem, and the military censor’s requirement that any allegation and detailing of an Israeli retaliatory strike be attributed to overseas media reports, it appeared that the government had indeed taken that advice to heart.
After days of protracted war cabinet discussions, visits by foreign leaders urging caution, and innumerable consultations with the United States, it would appear that the reported Israeli response was far more symbolic than damaging — designed to send messages, preserve alliances, avoid any further escalation in the short term, and keep a focus on the strategic, indeed existential, imperative of ensuring that the regime in Iran does not attain a nuclear weapons capability.
The response also appears to have been designed with a greater government awareness than in recent months of the central importance of Israel’s relationship with the United States — and specifically with a Biden administration that rallied to Israel’s defense on Saturday night, that is maintaining the vital flow of military assistance for the war against Hamas and other defense needs, and that a very few hours before the reported Israeli strike single-handedly prevented UN recognition of Palestinian statehood.
The symbolism of the reported Israeli strike was unmistakable: Five days after the sole Israeli military target hit by Iran’s direct onslaught was the Nevatim Air Force Base, which sustained minor damage, Israel is said to have targeted an Iranian military base at Isfahan. According to the former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, the base in question is a kind of Iranian “equivalent to Nevatim” — an air base, used by combat aircraft and military transport planes, likely with air defense systems. READ MORE
