April 14th, 2024 - 18th Report: Iran

 

April 14th, 2024

Dear family and friends,

Report number 18: Iran

 

We’re interrupting our usual program for a short news bulletin.

April 13^th was Haim Peri’s 80^th birthday. As we stood in the cold Jerusalem evening, his grandson told us about him, about his second children’s book which was to have been published for his birthday but instead will remain in boxes, and about the sadness of marking his 80^th birthday while he’s still a hostage in Gaza. The next speaker mentioned the expected Iranian missile attack, and hoped it wouldn’t push aside the urgency of freeing them.

At 11pm the headlines were that Iranian drones were already flying towards us; soon they also told of cruise missiles. The pundits (correctly) estimated that ballistic missiles, which require only minutes to arrive, would be synchronized with the arrival of the drones and cruise missiles. Estimated time of arrival, they said: 2am.

At around 1am I deliberated going to bed, but decided to keep at what I was doing, mostly out of curiosity. It felt so weird, knowing that while I sat in my book-lined study, out in the dark hundreds of projectiles were hurtling towards us, and large numbers of pilots, system operators and others, all over the region, were searching the skies to shoot them down.

At 1:40 there was a loud crash, off in the distance. Then a second one. No sirens, so I figured whatever was happening must be beyond the edge of our siren-zone. A few minutes later there was a third crash, and I suggested it was time to go into the strong room. Only then did the sirens finally go off. We’ve often sealed ourselves in the strong room because of Hamas rockets, but this had a whole different feel. Hundreds of missiles, coming from a country far to our east – it felt uncannily like January 1991, when Saddam Hussein shot 39 rockets at us. Similar, and different. That was 1-2 rockets per evening. This was 330 all at once. Then we had American Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, which boosted the morale but were otherwise useless. This time we had the Arrow, and the David Sling, and the less relevant Iron Dome, and F-35s. I was a bit tense, but not really frightened. More curious, in a perverted sort of way.

We watched the TV news, listened to the pundits, and eventually understood the event was behind us and we went to bed. This morning we got up and went about our daily business as if nothing had happened. If there was anything unusual about the day, it was the hours we spent cleaning for Pessach, which is next week.

*            *            *

October 7^th reminded us that Hamas hates us so intensely they’ll do anything, and pay any price, to try and destroy us. It also demonstrated that if we’d had our act together, we would have rebuffed them with vastly less loss of life.

Since October 8^th we’ve seen that Hizballah also hates and is willing to shoot at us, but – at least so far – not at the price of Lebanon’s destruction.

On April 1^st we tested our ability to hit Iranians in Syria beyond the usual. We’ve been bombing Iranian arms shipments for years, occasionally killing mid-level officers. But this was different. The target was a high-level general. He wasn’t a cultural attaché. His job was to prepare our destruction. His actions justified his death. But I wondered if killing him was worth the gamble. Yesterday we learned that the Iranian determination eventually to destroy us includes the willingness to shoot a large and diverse barrage of explosives, from their own territory, onto ours. What was speculation is now certainty.

There are only three countries in the world that face such a threat. Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. We’re the only ones who for decades have been building a defensive, star-wars-like shield. Last night’s attack was unusual in the extreme – only Ukraine has ever faced anything similar. Our response was unique, and for years to come it will be studied by the kind of experts who study these things. Even the architects of our systems were astonished by their success – with 98.7% of the projectiles destroyed (five got through).

But of course, although our systems and the people who designed, built and operated them were wildly successful last night, we weren’t alone. The American-constructed Middle East Air Defense (MEAD) system, spread across the region, played a crucial role in showing where the drones and missiles were. System operators and pilots from many countries contributed to our defense. Americans, Brits, French – and also Jordanians, Emiratis, and apparently Saudis, Bahrainis and Qataris. A scenario that would have been simply inconceivable until quite recently.

We’ve been imagining a large-scale Irani attack for many years. That’s why we’ve been preparing for it. We have not been imagining a region-wide Sunni coalition stepping up to contribute to our defense. The Irani willingness to shoot hundreds of missiles at us, to really do it, will take some time to sink in. The Sunni coalition that stood on our side – that’s something our politicians and pundits haven’t even begun to process.

An hour after the attack, once the outcome was clear, President Biden got on the phone to Netanyahu to din sense into him. The politicians, the punditry, and the response on social media were united: Israel must, absolutely MUST, retaliate with great force. A source in Likud even informed reporters we should all stay in our shelters because it was going to be a long night, and presumably, a long week and month. Biden thought otherwise. He told Netanyahu the successful defense was victory enough, and there’d be no US support for any further adventures.

As the meaning of this sank in, our crazies set themselves apart from the hawks. Minister of Defense Yoav Galant, the hard-nosed former general who has been assuring us the only way to free the hostages is by destroying Hamas, stood himself in front of a camera and explained it was crucial we preserve and strengthen the coalition we were suddenly part of. Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir took to their social media accounts to explain the only possible thing we could do now is kill lots of Iranians, and then more of them, till the entire region quakes in its boots.

And Netanyahu? We wait to see.