Like many Arabs, Jews, and Christians in Israel, I now divide my days between ordinary life and repeated trips to our safe room. The rockets fired at us make no distinction between ethnic or religious backgrounds. And despite Iranian claims that their missiles are aimed only at strategic targets, there are no such targets in northern Israel where I live, yet we endure double‑digit rocket volleys on most days. The recent use of cluster munitions has only intensified the danger. I count myself among the fortunate; our home has a reinforced safe room, sparing us the need to run outside or downstairs to a shelter whenever the alarms sound.

Not only are we under attack, but from more than one source. A missile launched from Iran is a massive ballistic weapon, weighing up to 1,500 kilograms. The distance, more than two thousand kilometers, gives us a bit more time to reach shelter. Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon cause less direct and blast damage, but they arrive far more quickly, leaving little time for our interceptors to bring them down. Over time, some people have learned to identify the type of missile simply by the sound of the interceptor’s collision. For me, it is enough to hear the reassuring thud of interception and feel grateful for Israel’s defense systems. The reality remains stark though: if even ten percent of Iranian missiles were to strike their intended, mostly civilian, targets, the consequences could be catastrophic.

A frequent misunderstanding is the way the conflict is framed in cause‑and‑effect terms. Israel and Iran are often depicted as two regional superpowers locked in a struggle for dominance, each seeking to expand its political and military influence across the Middle East. The reality is asymmetrically different. Unlike Iran, Israel has no inherent interest in exerting control over other Middle Eastern countries including Iran. Its actions are reactive, responses to the aggressive policies pursued by Iran and its network of proxies. Comparing Israel to Iran is like comparing a victim’s response to a thief’s actions with Iran representing the thief who started the fracas, and Israel, the victim who responded. Israel has been drawn into a conflict it has no desire for. If Iran were to shift its strategic posture away from the destruction of Israel, Israel’s priorities would shift accordingly.  Furthermore, Iran’s actions are not an isolated phenomenon. They are reiterations of the ongoing refusal of Islamic fundamentalists and other Middle Eastern groups to accept Israel’s right to exist.

You can like or dislike President Trump or Prime Minister Netanyahu; you can trust them or distrust them. But when it comes to assessing the Islamic regime’s long‑standing ideological posture, you can trust what Iran’s leadership has openly declared for decades, its stated commitment to its ideology destroying Israel, killing Jews, and imposing their fundamentalist ideology in the Middle East and in the West. In this worldview, the destruction of Israel is only the first step in its broader strategy. Given this world view, it is also reasonable to assume that, if capable, Iran would continue advancing a military nuclear program as part of its broader strategic ambitions. Netanyahu and Trump are spot on in this regard by calling Iran’s ideology for what it is and acting to curtail it, not just for Israel and the US but also for the Middle East and Western Europe.

Nevertheless, frequently, supporters of the opposing side, as well as critics of Israel, often depict the intentions of Islamic fundamentalist movements euphemistically. This distortion whether deliberate or out of ignorance, persists even though the Iranian Islamic regime, along with its counterparts and proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, has consistently, explicitly, and unapologetically articulated their ideology of hate and destruction. Their declarations are not rhetorical exaggerations; they should be understood at face value. Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023, in retrospect, serve as a stark reminder that the barbaric atrocities committed against mostly Israeli civilians, were not spontaneous or incidental, but rather the deliberate implementation of principles laid out in their own covenant.

This dystopian agenda is pursued while ordinary Iranians—many of whom are religious moderates, secular, diverse, and eager for normalcy—are subjected to an imposed religious framework, a mismanaged economy, and the ruthless persecution of thousands who oppose the regime’s policies.

Another recurring misinterpretation is the tendency to reduce this conflict akin to an abstract geopolitical chess match. Analysts often frame events as moves on a strategic board, emphasizing regional power balances and long‑term calculations. While geopolitical analysis certainly shapes how each side acts and reacts, this narrow lens obscures the daily human cost of the war. In Israel, that cost includes not only the dead, the injured, and the physical destruction, but also the reality that millions of civilians must rush to shelters multiple times a day as missiles rain down. Average civilian Israelis who are mobilized need to don their military uniform to defend the country.

The suffering on the other side is even greater, yet Iran and Hezbollah continue to pursue provocative military policies that guarantee a coupled Israeli military response. However, this is not a chess game; it is a struggle for survival, lived in real time by ordinary people. Were pundits who portray themselves as impartial honest brokers were to experience life under the constant threat of enemy rockets, their commentary on Iranian and Hezbollah actions would likely be far less detached and more directed at attributing blame to the Islamic regime. In addition, any honest analysis should acknowledge that the devastation could end almost immediately if armed fundamentalist groups were to desist from pursuing their current course.

Long‑term stability in the Middle East depends on both de-legitimizing and curbing the power of armed Islamic fundamentalist movements whose agendas are rooted in expansionism and violence including Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah and Hamas. Against the pessimistic predictions of most pundits, the successful ceasefire brokered by President Trump in late 2025 demonstrated that outside intervention can reduce violence and open humanitarian channels, as it did in Gaza and Lebanon. But it also revealed the limits of such efforts. A central pillar of that agreement—the disarmament of Hamas and Hezbollah—was never achieved, and neither was Iran’s support of the ceasefire achieved. Furthermore, in the months that followed, Hezbollah and Iran pursued extensive rearmament, while Hamas remained only able to ruthlessly repress opposition to its rule but unable to rebuild.

War always carries the risk of spiraling out of control. Even so, while the timing of this confrontation may have been a matter of strategic choice, the underlying need to address Iran’s accelerating military buildup was not. The continued armament after the 12‑day war in June demonstrated that limited pressure would not produce a meaningful shift in Iran’s behavior. Sooner or later, the growing threat, the expansion of Iran’s missile capabilities, its continued pursuit of regional dominance, and the likelihood of improving nuclear capacities, had to be confronted even more forcibly. The current conflict is the result of that accumulated necessity rather than a sudden or impulsive decision. In this context one could even purport that perhaps this pre-emptive strike, if successful, will be the least violent way of stopping the Iranian regime.

In terms of what lies ahead, a safer future for the region requires more than US and Israeli interventions. It requires that European nations and moderate Arab states, no longer stand on the sidelines. Regrettably, many today are in a state of sanctimonious denial. West Europeans refuse to address head on the dangers of those Muslim immigrants in their midst who are inspired by radical Islamic fundamentalism. It is convenient for them that the US and Israel do their dirty work. However, even if they deny it, the writing is on the wall. They should be taking an active role in shaping an alternative path, one in which whoever governs Iran, abandons destabilizing military ventures and focuses on improving life for its own citizens. Religious Muslims can play a pivotal role by distancing themselves and publicly rejecting the fundamentalist’s extreme interpretation of Islam. Iran’s own history shows that such an alternative is possible. Despite the corruption of the Shah’s era, the country once flourished as a diversified vibrant, educated, and economically successful society. The stark contrast with ongoing dysfunction during the reign of the Ayatollahs underscores how much potential has been squandered under the current regime, and how much could be regained if Iran were governed by leaders committed to stability rather than confrontation.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)