Orly Noy writes:

We are now faced with the regional war of Gog and Magog that Benjamin Netanyahu has been so determined to ignite. Every one of us is now trying in horror to guess what the response will be to the recent assassinations — which our leaders are celebrating as a “brilliant achievement” of Israel’s sophisticated war machine — and whether our children will survive it. We are now contemplating the fate of the hostages, afraid to say what we know may be true.

So maybe now is a moment to stop and ask: was there really no other way? Was this sinking into a bottomless hell an inevitable fate?

An Iranian response to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran will come, as will a Hezbollah retaliation for the killing of its commander Fuad Shukr — even if their intensity or nature cannot be known. Masoud Pezekshian, the new Iranian president and the more moderate of the Islamic Republic’s candidates, pledged to distance himself from his predecessor’s belligerence and to return Iran to the path of dialogue with the West.

But the assassination of Haniyeh, immediately after Pezekshian’s inauguration, puts the president in a corner. He will now have to prove his leadership, respond to this blatant violation of his country’s sovereignty, and deepen his alliance with Hamas.

“Death-worthy” is probably the most well-worn phrase in Israeli public discourse to describe the recent assassinations. It is one among many justifications Israel has found for its uninhibited violence over the last ten months. But there is something terrifying about the fact that the question of whether or not someone is deemed “death-worthy” dictates our fate here more than whether we civilians are life-worthy. [Continue reading…]