Israel cannot afford a hot war with Iran

Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel is an escalation from the fiery but ultimately empty rhetoric we are used to from Tehran. In different times and with a different prime minister in Jerusalem than the gun-shy Benjamin Netanyahu, it is the kind of inflammatory move that could have provoked a much graver Israeli response than last night’s events are likely to. However, Israel can neither afford nor does the current leadership particularly want a hot war with Iran at this point. Of course, it is already in such a war, indirectly at least, since the Islamic Republic was the guiding hand behind the October 7 massacre. But there is a larger consideration to the north, in the form of another Iran proxy, Hezbollah, which is more heavily armed than Hamas on several orders of magnitude. Hassan Nasrallah’s forces have been rattling their sabres even louder than usual over the past few months.