US President Joe Biden and Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have held a much-anticipated 30-minute phone call \u2013 believed to be their first contact since August \u2013 which included discussions on Israel\u2019s intended retaliation to Iran\u2019s missile strike last week.<\/p>\n
The White House described the dialogue as \u201cdirect\u201d and \u201cproductive\u201d, and said Biden and Netanyahu had agreed to stay in \u201cclose contact\u201d in coming days. Vice President Kamala Harris also joined the call.<\/p>\n
Speaking shortly afterwards, Israel\u2019s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said its attack against Iran would be \u201cdeadly, precise and above all surprising\u201d.<\/p>\n
Two forces are at work. One is Joe Biden\u2019s reluctance to see the US dragged into a war with Iran that it believes would be unnecessary and dangerous.<\/p>\n
The other is a strong sense among some in Israel that they have an opportunity to deal a body blow to Iran \u2013 their mortal enemy.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s offensive against Hezbollah has energised Israelis who were desperate to break out of the grinding war of attrition on their border with Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Lebanon, for them, felt like success and progress, a stark contrast to the position in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Despite Israel\u2019s onslaught on Gaza which has killed at least 42,000 people, most of them civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been able to deliver his two war aims \u2013 the destruction of Hamas and the recovery of the hostages.<\/p>\n
Hamas is still fighting and still holds around 100 hostages, many of whom might be dead.<\/p>\n
The damage done to Israel\u2019s enemies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, has produced in some Israelis an urgent conviction to go further and mount a direct assault on Iran.<\/p>\n
For them, a devastating air attack on Iran is a seductive prospect.<\/p>\n
Top of the target list for many Israelis are the heavily fortified sites, some driven deep into mountains where Iran houses nuclear facilities that Israel and others fear could be used to make a bomb.<\/p>\n
President Biden has made clear the US opposes the idea.<\/p>\n
The US believes Iran is not about to make a nuclear weapon. An attack could push them to construct one.<\/p>\n
One of the most prominent voices in Israel pressing Netanyahu to ignore US wishes is former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett who says Israel must not hesitate to act against what he calls the Iranian octopus.<\/p>\n
He told me that it was \u201cthe 11th hour\u201d.<\/p>\n
Like the opposition politician and former general Benny Gantz, Bennett believes Iran is weaker than it has been for decades because of the damage done to Hezbollah and Hamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially Iran was defending itself with two arms, Hezbollah and Hamas. They were sort of its insurance policy against a strike,\u201d Bennett says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now both of those arms are pretty much neutralised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett sees the moment as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do real damage to Iran\u2019s Islamic Regime.<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cHere\u2019s the thing. The strategy with Iran \u2013 ultimately it\u2019s not going to happen tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to accelerate the demise of this regime. This is a regime that will fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, the likelihood that they\u2019ll use it in order to save the regime is high. And that means that they\u2019re going to turn the whole Middle East into a nuclear nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett recalled two Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities he believes made the Middle East much safer \u2013 in Iraq in 1981 and\u00a0Syria in 2007.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t like it,\u201d Bennett says. \u201cBut we saved the world from [Bashar al-] Assad with nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the thankless job of taking out the nuclear facilities of the worst regimes in the world. Everyone likes to criticise us, but we\u2019re doing that job.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if they get that bomb, it\u2019s everyone\u2019s problem. It\u2019s not our problem. I want to see how Londoners will feel when there\u2019s an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear bomb. We cannot allow that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran and Israel have been in direct conflict since April, after Israel assassinated leading Iranian generals with a\u00a0big airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Syria.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s retaliation was a missile strike on Israel. The escalation has continued.<\/p>\n
The latest came on Tuesday last week in response to Israel\u2019s assault on Iran\u2019s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, and\u00a0the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah.<\/p>\n
Iran\u00a0unleashed a huge ballistic missile attack<\/a>, and Israel\u2019s prime minister vowed to hit back.<\/p>\n President Biden was reluctant to restrain Israel in Gaza. And has \u201curged\u201d Israel to minimise harm to civilians in Lebanon. But he has been adamant that Israel must not answer the Iranians with a strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n The US believes Iran is not about to make a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n President Biden has said Israel must defend itself \u2013 but not by attacking Iranian nuclear sites \u2013 or its oil industry.<\/p>\n The US fears getting dragged into a war it doesn\u2019t want. And there are concerns that if Iran can ride out an attack it will go for broke to produce a nuclear warhead for its missiles.<\/p>\n The next phases in this spiralling war depend on the extent of Israel\u2019s retaliation \u2013 which may come any day now.<\/p>\n The post The two forces at work on Biden-Netanyahu phone call<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post The two forces at work on Biden-Netanyahu phone call<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US President Joe Biden and Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have held a much-anticipated 30-minute phone call \u2013 believed to be their first contact since August \u2013 which included discussions on Israel\u2019s intended retaliation to Iran\u2019s missile strike last week. The White House described the dialogue as \u201cdirect\u201d and \u201cproductive\u201d, and said Biden and Netanyahu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}