“Israel has the obvious legitimacy to assault Iran,” mentioned Yaakov Amidror, a former main normal and nationwide safety adviser in Israel who’s now on the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Technique and Safety.
“The opposite possibility is to say, we achieved what we needed by eliminating the Al Quds Pressure commanders in Damascus, the Iranian assault failed, so let’s do what we have to do,” he mentioned — which implies ending the marketing campaign in opposition to Hamas in Gaza and investing in preparations to tackle Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Each are good choices,” he mentioned. “Every has execs and cons. It’s a matter of choice.”
Overseas leaders, chief amongst them President Biden, Israel’s most vital supporter, have been urgent for restraint. Mr. Netanyahu has not publicly threatened Iran because the assault ended on Sunday morning. Different Israeli army and political leaders say they wish to protect and strengthen, not jeopardize, the alliance of Western and reasonable Arab international locations that, for the primary time, got here collectively to repel the Iranian assault and defend Israel.
The Iranian assault has given Israel a burst of worldwide assist after months of censure and opprobrium over the scope of the killing and starvation in Gaza, and a few officers say meaning Israel ought to act in opposition to Iran solely in coordination with its allies.
“Israel versus Iran, the world versus Iran,” Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s battle cupboard, mentioned on Sunday, laying out the alternatives. “The strategic alliance and the regional cooperation system between us has been critically put to the check, and now’s the time for us to strengthen it. We’ll construct a regional coalition in opposition to the Iranian menace and precise the worth from Iran within the method and on the time proper for us.”
Israel’s choices vary from overtly placing Iran, symbolically or with full power, to not retaliating in any respect, a concession that specialists say Israel might leverage to encourage additional worldwide sanctioning of Iran or the formalization of the anti-Iranian alliance.
There’s a precedent for doing nothing: In the course of the Gulf Conflict of 1991, as Iraq lobbed Scud missiles at Israeli cities, Yitzhak Shamir, then Israel’s hawkish prime minister, exercised restraint on the urging of the Bush administration to protect the American-led coalition with pleasant Arab states.
Israel might additionally orchestrate some form of cold cyberattack or revert to the methods of its yearslong shadow battle with Iran, counting on spy craft and covert actions in opposition to Iranian pursuits, inside or exterior Iran, with out claiming accountability for them.
