Biden to Israel: If You Strike Back at Iran, You’ll Do It Alone
In the hours following Iran’s attack on Israel, President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would not support any Israeli counterattack or any offensive operations against Iran. The administration is concerned that any Israeli response would lead to a catastrophic regional war.
Israel has always hit back against its enemies. However, alongside Biden, many of Netanyahu’s advisors are urging “strategic patience.” They don’t want to take the nation’s focus away from the war against Hamas and the efforts toward releasing hostages. Nor do they want to set off a larger Middle East conflict without the support of allies like the U.S., as well as more moderate Arab countries like Jordan, who also helped defend Israel.
The New York Times describes the strategy this way:
The Iranian attack has given Israel a burst of international support after months of censure and opprobrium over the scope of the killing and hunger in Gaza, and some officials say that means Israel should act against Iran only in coordination with its allies.
“Israel versus Iran, the world versus Iran,” Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s war cabinet, said on Sunday, laying out the choices. “The strategic alliance and the regional cooperation system between us has been seriously put to the test, and now is the time for us to strengthen it. We’ll build a regional coalition against the Iranian threat and exact the price from Iran in the manner and at the time right for us.”
As of yesterday evening, Israeli television was saying the war cabinet had decided to hit back “clearly and forcefully.” I don’t know when this will be or what it might look like. But God knows. As we wrote in What’s Next?, our book about the Israel-Gaza War:
God retains perfect control over the speedometer of history. Praying for peace yet expecting tribulation, we can trust Him with Israel’s destiny and the world’s future. God alone sees the end from the beginning. Despite rising tensions, He steers history surely and steadily down the road towards the ultimate restoration of all things in Christ.
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