Projectiles from Iran’s Tuesday airstrike on Israel fall above the city of Ashdod, seen from Hebron in the West Bank. Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images

Senior Columnist Rob Eshman October 1, 2024

I spoke to Nimrod Novik, once a senior advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now a fellow with the Israel Policy Forum, minutes after he emerged from his safe room in Ra’anana, just north of Tel Aviv, following Iran’s Tuesday airstrike on Israel.

“It was like never before, in terms of the frequency, density, proximity,” Novik told me of the strike, which killed one Palestinian in the West Bank, and came after weeks of devastating Israeli attacks on the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy of Hezbollah. “It was very, very loud.” 

The following conversation, about what this attack means and how Israel might choose to respond — especially given the unpredictability of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Novik refers to by his nickname, “Bibi” — has been edited for length and clarity.

What does Iran hope to accomplish from the attack?

They are boxed in. To do nothing may cause the disintegration of their entire system; I’m not sure that they were not worried about regime stability, when their weaknesses were so exposed. So on the one hand, they had to do something. On the other hand, I think that they have not internalized the potency of our air defense system. I’m sure that they are celebrating the very fact that they fired so many rockets. But I think this time, our response is going to be far more substantial.

Does that mean a direct attack on Iran?

I don’t see a way that we do not strike at Iran and inflict serious damage to security installations, with unavoidable casualties. After what they’ve done in the last few hours — and I’m not sure this is the last salvo — just as they fired directly at us, we will fire directly at them. 

Will Israel target their nuclear facilities?

When we struck back on April 14, we targeted and destroyed an air defense system that was protecting a nuclear facility. It was a signal that their nuclear facilities are not immune. But the next step of actually striking their nuclear facilities — I don’t think that will be an objective of Israeli retaliation. We need to show we’re not going to tolerate this, but we don’t want to trigger an all-out war.

Are you sure about that?

I’m a graduate of repeated failures to try and understand what Bibi wants. There’s suspicion that he wants to drag the U.S. into a confrontation and take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. I cannot say I fully share that suspicion. But when you run a war with no defined aims, with no clear picture of what you want to accomplish, you risk a fiasco.

I hope that folks in Jerusalem will listen to Tel Aviv, which is where the security establishment is, and to Washington, and be more careful than we were in the past, when we entered Lebanon for 48 hours and came out 18 years later. I don’t suggest for a minute that the war in the south was not absolutely justified when it was launched, or operations in Lebanon. Both were justified, but that’s good for the initial phase. 

Then comes the question, what is your exit strategy? We are sliding into an open-ended occupation in Gaza, because we have not figured out what happens when we’re done.

But isn’t the issue more clear with Iran? If you could get rid of this Iranian threat that backs Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, then you’re creating not just better conditions for Israel to exist, but also for peace to exist?

I would agree with that, if I thought for a moment that this is within our power. I hope that nobody in Jerusalem entertains the illusion that we can decide who runs Iran. We failed to do so much closer to home. We wanted to decide who would be the president of Lebanon in 1982, and the Syrians killed our candidate within 24 hours. An ambition to decide to change leadership or policy in Iran is really beyond our capabilities. And the same goes with demolishing the threat from Iran. I don’t think we can do that, and I don’t think we should. I think our objective should be ambitious, but more limited, and that is to instill in the Iranians the realization that challenging us can’t pay. 

And when there is an Israeli retaliation, what are the chances of a far more significant escalation on the part of Iran, much worse than what you just experienced?

I think they’ll need time to get their act together after everything we’ve done there. I think they will be thinking hard about what to do, given the combined effect of U.S., potentially regional allies, and Israeli capabilities, after the two experiences they’ve just gone through.

As I look at the last week, it really is striking to me that Israel could be so militarily successful with Hezbollah and Iran, and yet there was such an utter intelligence failure in Gaza.

Over the last decade or more, we were focused on the primary threats, which were Iran and Hezbollah, and invested enormously in the capabilities to deal with those two challenges. We fell asleep when it came to the lesser threat, Hamas. This strategy of feeding the Hamas beast on the one hand and undermining the moderates in the West Bank on the other trickled down from the political echelons into the security establishment, and then we had the notion Hamas was deterred. Had we invested 10% of what we invested in the north in the south, Oct. 7 would not have happened.

Israel seems to ignore the U.S. when it comes to ceasefire proposals, but rely on the U.S. when the crunch comes, like today. Is that a fair assessment?

On the one hand, you’re absolutely right. Bibi has ignored American, shall we say, advice, repeatedly, even on such issues as humanitarian assistance, and that was the easiest one to accommodate. Let alone when the U.S. said don’t do Rafah. And then don’t do a ground offensive in South Lebanon. And he ignored them all. 

But here is the catch. When it comes to the challenge from Iran, for the U.S. to show that there is any daylight between us and Washington only emboldens the Iranians and their proxies. So if you want to end up with some measure of regional stability, the last thing you want is to embolden the hostiles. Here is the guy who defies you consistently, and yet it is in your strategic interest to stand by him when it comes to the most demanding challenge, which is Iran.

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