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JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his War Cabinet are leaning towards ordering the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to launch a retaliatory strike against Iran in the coming days, according to Israel’s Channel 12 news.
A final decision has apparently not been made.
The War Cabinet is expected to convene again tomorrow.
But as war clouds form over the region, the stakes could not be higher.
This is a big deal.
I think that the War Cabinet is signaling that they will probably order a strike on Iran, but leaking word of their deliberations so the Israeli public can begin to prepare, and so that foreign governments — including the White House — are aware of the cabinet’s thinking process.
After all, according to the New York Times, President Biden has insisted to Prime Minister Netanyahu and to the Israeli people that Israel should not retaliate.
Therefore, the War Cabinet is trying to walk carefully, knowing that a decision to retaliate would be going against Biden’s expressed wishes.
I think President Biden is wrong to insist that Israel refrains from retaliation. Perhaps Biden means well. He doesn’t want to see the Middle East escalate into some massive new war between Israel and Iran.
But where Biden is wrong is that Israel is already in a massive regional war with Iran.
Israel is already being attacked daily by Iranian terror proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and, of course, terror forces in Syria and Iraq.
“Meaning well” isn’t enough.
Wishing for regional peace isn’t enough.
Biden is wrong to appease Iran.
The Iranian regime only understands force and the attack on Saturday night and Sunday morning against Israel was unprecedented.
Never in the 76 year history of modern Israel has the Iranian government ever directly attacked Israeli territory but Iran just did so with 320 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and suicide drones.
The good news is that Israel, the United States, Britain, France, Jordan, and other Arab nations helped shoot down 99% of those missiles.
But that brazen attack by Iran cannot go unpunished.
Biden is making it clear he doesn’t want us to fight, but the question is: Is he really tying our hands? That is, is he threatening behind the scenes to cut off all US aid, ammunition, and weapons resupply to Israel if we go to war with Iran?
I hope not. We should pray that that isn’t true.
Maybe Biden just doesn’t want us to retaliate, but would support us if we feel we must.
That’s the big question, and the big news tonight is that Israel’s War Cabinet is determined to take Biden’s concerns into consideration — but he’s inclined to retaliate one way or the other.
If there were ever a moment to launch a decisive attack to neutralize the Iran nuclear and ballistic missile threat, this would be the week.
As I write this, Israeli and international airlines are preparing to shut down all operations in and out of Israel because they expect a larger missile war to erupt any day now.
And remember, it’s not just Iranian missiles that Israel has to worry about.
Hezbollah, the terror force that’s backed by Iran in Lebanon, has 150,000 missiles aimed at us. So, this thing could get big, it could get apocalyptic, it could get devastating very, very quickly.
But what choice does Israel have? We’re already in this war, and we can’t allow Iran to attack us without there being a Israeli reaction, and a strong reaction at that.
I don’t think the Israeli government would survive politically if it doesn’t show a strong retaliatory action against the Iranian regime.
The question is: When and how?
I urge Christians all over the world to pray for the leaders of Israel to have the wisdom to know exactly the best way forward, and to be praying fervently and faithfully for the peace of Jerusalem.