Israel faces a moment of reckoning in its decades-long clash with Iran

The decisions that Israel’s war cabinet takes in the hours and days ahead about what comes next in its now open shooting war with Iran could represent a pivotal moment in the history of the conflict in the Middle East.

From Iran’s view, its unprecedented overnight drone and missile attacks on military targets in Israel represent a settling of scores that should not trigger further military escalation.

But for many Israelis, Iran’s actions amount to an outright declaration of war.

Should, as the United States and other Western nations are reportedly urging, Israel accept the so-called “off ramp” Iran claims it has offered, or will Israeli leaders forge ahead with further military escalation against the Islamic regime, possibly hitting targets in Iran itself?

The early indications are that Israel’s government is strongly leaning toward the latter.

“This is something that will have to have a major response,” said Likud Party Knesset member Hanoch Milwidsky, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You cannot have an attack like this left untreated,” he told the BBC Sunday morning.

Iran gave advance warning

While the attack by Iran’s military on targets in Israelwas certainly a first, it was also not a surprise — nor did it appear designed to inflict maximal damage.

The country’s Islamic regime had given plenty of notice that something significant was about to happen, and Israel had days to prepare its population and to beef up its air defences.

Even after the first drones were launched, Israel had hours to take measures to shoot them down.

Israel’s military says 99 per cent of the missiles and drones were intercepted and that the few that did get through inflicted only minimal damage on a military base in the country’s south.

Objects are seen in the sky above Jerusalem after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel on Sunday. (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

While Israel and Iran have been waging a shadow war against each other for decades, the trigger for this latest escalation came two weeks ago after a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, which killed two senior Iranian military commanders.

The attack annihilated the building and killed 16 people, including two civilian bystanders, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israel has not officially claimed responsibility — nor for any of the other assassinations or precision strikes it is suspected to have made on targets in Iran over the years — but Israeli leaders have also not denied they were behind it.

Israel weighing next steps

Typically, Iran has taken military action against Israel at arm’s length, usually through the various proxy armies it supports in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

But analysts say Israel’s blatant destruction of a supposedly off-limits diplomatic building fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict between the two enemies.

“Israel crossed the line by attacking the Iranian consulate in Damascus,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst with the Crisis Group in Washington, D.C.

“Iranians believe unless they retaliate in a meaningful way, they would severely damage their regional deterrence and Israel could target any Iranian official anywhere in the region and might even take the next step by targeting Iran on their own soil,” he told the BBC’s World Service.

A statement issued by Iran’s Permanent Mission to the UN said the drone attack amounted to “legitimate defence” and it now considers its immediate conflict with Israel “resolved.”

But in Israel on Sunday morning, Netanyahu’s war cabinet was meeting to determine its next steps, and the indications all point to some kind of further military escalation.

“They see it as an escalatory attack that demands a response,”  said Julie Norman, an associate professor of political science and international relations at University College London.

There are multiple reports that U.S. President Joe Biden has told Netanyahu to back down, and if Israel proceeds with more military action his country will not have U.S. support for a counterattack against Iran.

U.S. fighter aircraft, along with help from British and Jordanian forces, played a significant role defending Israel from the Saturday night attack, but the U.S. has also told Israel it will not be drawn into a broader Middle East war.

A man walks past a mural depicting U.S. President Joe Biden as a superhero defending Israel on a street in Tel Aviv on Sunday. Israel says it and its allies thwarted 99 per cent of the more than 300 drones and missiles launched toward its territory overnight. (Leo Correa/The Associated Press)

The initial global support Israel enjoyed in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks in the country — in which some 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials — has since turned to widespread condemnation and accusations that Israel’s military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian casualties in Gaza.

More than 33,000 people have been killed in the territory since Israel launched its military offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and human rights agencies accuse Israel of deliberately trying to starve Palestinians to death in order to put more pressure on Hamas to surrender.

Attack has ‘reoriented the conflict’

For months, Israel had resisted pressure by the U.S. and other Western countries to reduce the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, to increase the amount of humanitarian aid being delivered and to push harder for a ceasefire with Hamas.

But it took Israel’s killing of six international aid workers with the charity World Central Kitchen earlier this month before the Americans finally told Israel that its future support was conditional on Israel taking concrete steps.

Norman, the King’s College analyst, says the possibility of a dramatic escalation with Iran represents a critical moment for the United States and its ability to apply leverage to Israel.

“The U.S. military has to be aware and involved with decision making in a way Israel felt they did not have to be in Gaza,” Norman told CBC News in an interview,  noting that the U.S. has hundreds of its soldiers in harm’s way stationed at bases in Iraq and northern Syria.

“There are so many more troops would be likely implicated by any decision Israel makes to escalate further with Iran.”

Palestinians who were displaced by Israel’s military offensive on southern Gaza make their way along a road in central Gaza as they attempt to return to their homes in the north, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, on Sunday. (Ramadan Abed/Reuters )

For Palestinians besieged and hungry in Gaza, the escalation with Iran also has profound implications.

“Hamas is eager to see regional chaos and will wait and hope for the worst,” veteran analyst Aaron David Miller with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., wrote on social media.

“Gaza has been relegated to the back burner.”

Indeed, within hours of the Iranian attack, Hamas issued a statement saying it had rejected the latest ceasefire and hostage deal proposed by Israel.

Hamas has insisted it wants a permanent ceasefire in the territory before agreeing to return dozens of Israelis captured on Oct. 7. Israel has refused.

“I imagine our attention will be back to Gaza soon — but to some degree this [attack by Iran] has reoriented the conflict,” said Norman.