Strategic Change: Iran and Israel

Sermon, Shabbat Korach 5785

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, Arizona

There is a famous old Jewish joke, from back in the days when people sent telegrams.  It goes like this.  What does a Jewish telegram look like?  Start worrying.  Details to follow.

In general, this is an appropriate way to receive news about Israel lately.  But the last two weeks, maybe not.

Boy, a lot has happened in the last week or so in Iran and Israel, hasn’t it? It’s challenging to keep up with the news from the Middle East and Washington, and to try to make sense of what may turn out to have been a pretty short 12-Day war.  Or, more accurately, a short episode in the much longer war between the murderous Ayatollah-led Islamist Iranian regime and Western civilization that is unlikely to end quite as quickly as some people in power seem to believe.

Of course, last Saturday night the US finally jumped into the Israel-Iran conflict directly by striking the Iranian nuclear weapons facilities with bunker-busting bombs and Tomahawk missiles.  This followed Israel’s devastating attack on a series of Iranian targets that severely damaged Iran’s nuclear weapons program, took out the leadership of its military, terrorist and nuclear weapons’ institutions, and demonstrated that Israel now has complete control of Iranian air space.  It didn’t stop Iranian ballistic missiles from striking Israeli civilian apartment buildings, homes and hospitals, however. 

Almost immediately after the American strikes on Iran, President Trump proclaimed, prior to any military analysis of the impact of the attack, that Iran’s nuclear program had been obliterated.  He also declared a cease-fire and pushed Iran and Israel to agree to it.  And now, apparently, the US is going to be meeting with Iran soon, while simultaneously trying to get more Arab countries to join the Abraham Accords and recognize Israel and open diplomatic and other ties.  Of course, the Arab countries that were petrified about Iran’s military might and wanted Israel as a counterweight may no longer be as concerned about the Islamic Republic’s strength after its nearly no-show performance in this war against Israel.  Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations might not feel the need to jump into an agreement with Israel right after publicly decrying its successful attacks on Iran, while privately helping it.  It’s tricky, you see?

Wow.  That’s a lot for an American to keep in her or his head all at once, isn’t it? 

You know, whenever I’ve been in Israel—which is close to 20 trips, and I’ve lived there twice, once for a year—I’m always impressed by the fact that everybody who has an educated opinion about the Middle East—which means everyone there—always says, at some point, “It’s complicated.”  Man, it is.  And with the pace of developments now moving at high intensity warp speed, it is nearly impossible to see where it’s all heading, if anywhere in particular.

So here are a few observations from a non-politically trained rabbinical observer.  Take them for what they are worth, knowing the source.

First, Israel is in an almost incredibly better position in terms of security and strategic positioning now compared to where it was on say October 8, 2023, when Hamas terrorists were still murdering Israelis in southern Israel and carrying hostages off into Gaza.  To refresh our memories, at that point Israel’s security services and military had been surprised by Palestinian terrorists and had just allowed the worst atrocities to be committed against Jews since World War II.  Israel’s sovereignty and survival were threatened.  Israelis were forced into bomb shelters throughout the country, south and north.  250 hostages were held under Gaza in tunnels by Hamas’ Palestinian terrorists.

In addition—and it’s important to understand this—in the fall of 2023 Israel was surrounded by a terrorist ring of fire funded and coordinated by Iran and its Islamist Ayatollah-led regime.  Hezbollah in Lebanon was firing rockets regularly at northern Israel, a great deal of which had to be evacuated, and it was considered a far more dangerous enemy than Hamas in Gaza, with tens of thousands more rockets and a much more sophisticated military organization.  The authoritarian dictator Bashir al Assad’s regime in Syria had Iranian units on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights threatening and attacking Israelis, and funneling rockets and many other munitions to Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon.  Houthis in Yemen began firing rockets at Israel too, from far to the south.  And above all, Iran threatened daily to annihilate the Jewish state and murderously commit genocide against all its citizens.  Iran was working rapidly towards developing nuclear weapons, according to nearly everyone responsible, and doing so in facilities that were sophisticated and hard to even find.

Without even considering the international support Hamas Palestinian terrorists were receiving for committing war crime atrocities ranging from murder to arson to torture to mass rape, and the antisemitic wave of protests that immediately sprung up around the world, Israel itself was apparently in a terrible strategic position, perhaps the worst it had been in since the Second Intifada of the early 2000s, or even the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

It's a little less than a year and nine months since that time, much less than two years.  Well, a lot has happened.  First, while Hamas retains some level of operational terrorist control over what’s left of Gaza, its senior leadership is dead, most of its terrorist fighters are dead, its ability to rain rockets down on Israel is gone, and it has helped turn its “homeland” into a wasteland. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been not only decapitated but nearly destroyed by Israel’s shockingly effective Mossad-led campaign.  Hezbollah may return as a serious threat, but it is primarily licking its wounds and trying to figure out how to keep control over Southern Lebanon now.  The brutal Assad regime in Syria collapsed, after half a century in power, and the new government there is intent on expelling all Iranian influence, ending the flow of Iranian terrorism and munitions through Syria.  And Iran itself has been pounded and shocked, its senior leaders, with the exception of the lamentable Ayatollah, are all dead, and its nuclear weapons program has been set back dramatically.

If I were the Houthis in Yemen I’d be worried.

As of now—and mind you, things can change so quickly—Israel is the dominant military and intelligence power in the Middle East, and there’s no close second, even though there are far richer and far larger nations all around it.

Israel is winning all of these wars on the battlefield, some hard-fought at a high cost, others quickly and stunningly.  But that, of course, is not the whole story. 

The second salient point to remember is that Israel is losing the public relations battle around the world badly.  While few of the many public protestors said much about the collapse of Hezbollah or the Assad regime, somehow, the same people who seek a “free Palestine from the River to the Sea” now support the horrific Islamist regime in Iran, which has been chanting for the destruction of America for 45 years.  That same Iranian regime, in slightly different forms, has also been trying to destroy everything it hates about western values everywhere else for four and a half decades: it seeks to wipe out democracy, free speech, equality for women, the right to protest or assemble, a free press, everything that’s intrinsic to a free society. 

In Iran itself, the Islamist leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran are widely hated and deeply feared.  The mullahs are not popular in Persia.  Their economy, in spite of huge oil reserves and giant oil industry and a sophisticated higher education system and a good deal of scientific sophistication, is a disaster.  The Iranian regime’s leaders have murdered many of their own citizens, tortured their own citizens, imprisoned their own citizens, and brutally suppressed all dissent and protest.  And of course, the terrorists they fund around the world have murdered people in many other countries.

So, watching huge crowds assemble to protest against US action against the Iranian Islamist terror regime, holding virulently anti-Semitic signs and supporting this horrific Iranian theocracy, in London, New York, Paris, Athens, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Sydney, and the Netherlands is disturbing.  Apparently, people have a very hard time understanding that this Iranian Islamist regime is simply evil, perpetrates evil on its own people, and exports evil all around the world.  Its closest allies are Russia, North Korea, and China, authoritarian regimes that share weapons and perhaps torture techniques with Iran.

And now in the streets of American cities—and when the kids go back to college, we will see it on campuses too—protestors are waving Iranian Islamic Republic flags and chanting anti-American slogans and associating it all with Israel, and Jews, whom they have decided to hate.  And these brave protestors see the Palestinians and Iranians as similar victims of evil western colonialism—which they are not, of course, but good luck convincing the protestors otherwise. 

In other words, Israel is winning wars but stands a pretty good chance of losing much, if not most, of the public. 

There was a brilliant article in the Atlantic magazine this week by a Gaza Palestinian, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, entitled “Pro-Palestine Activists Fell for Iran’s Propaganda.”  Among other carefully worded wise things he says of the protestors supporting “Iran” is that by protesting in support of the regime, “they offer succor to a ruthless theocratic regime that has ground its heel upon its own people and brought misery to the entire region for nearly half a century.” 

He blames both Hamas and Iran for destroying the Palestinian opportunity for statehood, for fomenting the Second Intifada that ended the Osla process, for embracing terrorism, hatred and mass murder and now for leaving his own land in ruins and his people destroyed.  He is an intriguing figure trying to forge a better way, one that leads to peace and civilization, not endless terrorism, war and destruction.  He would make a credible leader for a new Palestinian organization that could figure out a way to make peace and build a real future. 

My friends, I don’t have full solutions for any of this, of course.  No one does. We don’t know if regime change will take place in Iran—the Ayatollah Khamenei is 86 years old, hiding in a tunnel or bunker somewhere now, but that still doesn’t mean things will necessarily change, does it?  And a new Iranian regime might not be better than the current horrible one.

As far as Israel goes, on balance, it’s much better to win the war and lose the public relations campaign, rather than lose the war and win the PR, right?  But we have to be cognizant of both in this world of instant information and instant disinformation. 

This week we read of the great rebellion of Korach, who challenges authority for no reason better than his own egotistical desire to be the boss.  He fails, and brings destruction on his own people.  It is a lesson that, sadly, people need to learn again and again.  But perhaps at some point they can learn that the only real result of provoking war against a superior enemy is self-destruction.

I think we are now close to the time when Israel, having thoroughly defeated its most implacable enemies, moves to establish actual peace in the region.  I certainly hope so.  It is surely time for Israel to work on its international reputation in a more coherent way, and to do so out of its obvious situation of strength.

May the coming weeks prove to be less adventurous but even more productive at producing a lasting peace for our homeland of the heart, Israel, and for the region of the Middle East, and for the world.