In my column from the initial days of the war with Iran, I wrote that I \u201cwillingly accept\u201d the repeated trips to the bomb shelter day and night in my suburban Tel Aviv apartment building \u201cin the hope that the defeat of the current Iranian regime could transform Israel\u2019s security and geopolitical situation for the better.\u201d (And once we\u2019re out of the shelter, the colds that my neighbors and I have been spreading among us should also end.)<\/p>\n
I still hope that the defeat of the regime is possible, but roughly three weeks into the war, it hasn\u2019t happened and it\u2019s unclear when \u2013 and how \u2013 the war might end. In the round that Israel and the United States fought against Iran in June of last year, President Donald Trump suddenly halted the fighting on the 12th day of the war and, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declared victory. Trump announced that Iran\u2019s nuclear program \u2013 the ostensible reason for the war \u2013 had been obliterated.<\/p>\n
But nine months later, we\u2019ve been told that the Iranians haven\u2019t given up on its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon and that it resumed production of ballistic missiles, which pose a threat to the civilian populations of Israel and Arab countries in the Gulf region. I and most other Israelis hope that the current round will be conclusive. If it is, the benefits for Israel would be transformative.<\/p>\n
Iran is the source of a huge amount of evil. In addition to its direct threat to wipe out Israel, Iran\u2019s major proxies \u2013 Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon \u2013 have waged the longest war that Israel has ever experienced. If the current war ousts the Iranian regime or at least plants the seeds of its collapse, it could place Israel on a trajectory to transform its security situation as long as it also addresses the national aspirations of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Without support from Iran, Hezbollah would be bereft of its major funding source. The militia group built an independent army that is stronger than Lebanon\u2019s national military. But its persistent habit of dragging the country into wars with Israel, to further the interests of Iran, has brought disaster upon Lebanon. In a departure from prior policy, the current Lebanese government has called for Hezbollah to be disarmed.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s easier said than done. But it\u2019s another indication that the interests of Israel and the Arab countries are converging. Both the Israeli and Lebanese governments want Hezbollah defanged and the entire Middle East wants Iran defanged.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the war with Iran remains open to question as I write this, but there are several rays of light on the horizon. First of all, Israel\u2019s military prowess in the war has been dazzling. Trump called the Israeli air force the second most powerful in the world, after the U.S. Air Force. That\u2019s quite a feat for a country of 10 million people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis may be the first time since the Second World War that Washington has had an equal partner with which to share the burdens of war,\u201d New York Times columnist Bret Stephens noted.<\/p>\n
And, as always, Israelis are resilient. The past two-and-a-half years since Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack have been very difficult, but they have also brought out some of the best of the country\u2019s national traits. If we needed any further proof, it came last week with the results of the latest World Happiness Index, based on the years 2023 to 2025 \u2013 which in Israel were marked by mass anti-government protests followed by nonstop war. Despite it all, Israel maintains its ranking as the eighth happiest country in the world.<\/p>\n
Cliff Savren is a former Clevelander who covers the Middle East from Ra\u2019anana, Israel. He is an editor at the English edition of Haaretz.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In my column from the initial days of the war with Iran, I wrote that I \u201cwillingly accept\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1660,41,16159,16153,996,16152,461,16158,1655,1665,1741,1658,16147,1411,16145,16149,100,16150,1743,34,218,1656,1651,37,1653,10796,16146,1659,1189,16151,1650,16156,16157,16155,49,1652,498,13087,81,1740,1654,9572,10801,1671,13146,1657,501,10804,16154,16148,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-36143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-arab-israeli-conflict","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-book-of-esther","11":"tag-branches-of-linguistics","12":"tag-conflicts","13":"tag-cultural-assimilation","14":"tag-culture","15":"tag-eliezer-ben-yehuda","16":"tag-foreign-relations-of-israel","17":"tag-gaza-israel-conflict","18":"tag-government-of-iran","19":"tag-government-of-israel","20":"tag-hadassah-medical-center","21":"tag-hamas","22":"tag-haredi-judaism","23":"tag-hebrew-language","24":"tag-hezbollah","25":"tag-human-communication","26":"tag-international-relations","27":"tag-iran","28":"tag-iran-israel-war","29":"tag-iran-israel-military-relations","30":"tag-iran-israel-proxy-conflict","31":"tag-israel","32":"tag-israel-related-controversies","33":"tag-israel-palestine-relations","34":"tag-israeli-system-of-government","35":"tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","36":"tag-jerusalem","37":"tag-jews-and-judaism","38":"tag-judaism-and-warfare","39":"tag-language","40":"tag-languages","41":"tag-linguistics","42":"tag-middle-east","43":"tag-military-of-israel","44":"tag-palestine","45":"tag-palestine-region","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-of-iran","48":"tag-politics-of-israel","49":"tag-politics-of-palestine","50":"tag-politics-of-palestine-region","51":"tag-politics-of-the-arab-world","52":"tag-politics-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict","53":"tag-politics-of-the-middle-east","54":"tag-purim","55":"tag-society-of-palestine","56":"tag-sociolinguistics","57":"tag-supreme-court-of-israel","58":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}