Israel Security Cabinet to Meet on Iran as Biden Urges Restraint

Israel’s security cabinet prepared to meet Thursday evening to discuss how to retaliate against Iran for its missile attack last week as US efforts to influence the decision remained in question.

(Bloomberg) — Israel’s security cabinet prepared to meet Thursday evening to discuss how to retaliate against Iran for its missile attack last week as US efforts to influence the decision remained in question.

 A final decision on the timing of the strike will be made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, public broadcaster Kan said.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s first call with Netanyahu since August threw into focus his limited ability to influence the nature of what could be an imminent strike against Iran.

Biden has warned Israel against attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, which Tehran would view as especially provocative. US officials also worry that hits on Iranian oil infrastructure would push up energy prices and hurt the global economy.

Science Minister Gila Gamliel, a member of the security cabinet, said it would “make the right decision” to prevent repeat salvos from Iran. Israel may act imminently, she told Kan.

An aide to another security cabinet minister said he believed there would be a vote to authorize Israel’s retaliation. He requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue.

The US is pressing Israel to limit its response against Iran to military targets. It is also proposing a fresh round of economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic, according to people familiar with the matter.

A White House readout of the Wednesday phone conversation made no mention of a likely Israeli strike against Iran. Instead, it said only that Biden “affirmed his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” and “condemned unequivocally Iran’s ballistic missile attack” against Israel on Oct. 1.

The Israeli side didn’t release any readout, a possible sign of the tensions between Israel and the US, its major ally. Still, a senior Israeli official insisted the country is coordinating with the US over the planned retaliation against Iran.

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“Our attack on Iran will be deadly, precise and above all surprising,” Gallant, the defense minister, said on Wednesday. “They will not understand what happened and how it happened. They will see the results.”

Washington is aiming to give Netanyahu an off-ramp that allows him to resist calls for severe retribution from hard-line nationalists in his coalition, as well as some opposition leaders. There’s no guarantee he’ll take it, especially given that the Biden administration is reluctant to cut weapons supplies to Israel or take other measures that might force Netanyahu’s hand.

Iran’s attack was largely foiled, though one person in the West Bank was killed and millions of Israelis had to go into shelters. Some military bases were also hit.

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There are political concerns for the US. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is anxious to keep the conflict from draining support in battleground states ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Netanyahu, who has openly touted his close relationship with Republican candidate Donald Trump, has shown little interest in helping her, though he says he’s neutral.

“Escalation in the region helps Trump, which is also good for Bibi because it means not just four more weeks of unrestrained behavior, but four years of no American pressure,” Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group, said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

Ties between the US and Israel have grown more strained over the past year. Netanyahu has disregarded US advice time and again in charting Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis and saw about 250 taken hostage.

Biden’s administration has been frustrated at the extent of Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza, which has killed about 42,000 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The US has also criticized Israel for not letting enough aid into Gaza and tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Netanyahu from sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.

Israel started its ground incursion into Lebanon last week in a bid to degrade Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group that’s been firing rockets and drones on Israeli territory in solidarity with Hamas.

This week, Netanyahu called on the Lebanese people to “take your country back” from Hezbollah and said that if they didn’t, Lebanon could experience “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

On Wednesday, when asked about those comments, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “We cannot and must not see the situation in Lebanon turn into anything like the situation in Gaza. That would, of course, not be acceptable.”

The United Nations said Thursday that two of its peacekeepers were lightly injured when an Israeli tank fired toward an observation post in southern Lebanon. Ireland, which has peacekeepers in Lebanon — who weren’t among those injured — criticized the incident.

“Firing on peacekeepers can never be tolerated or acceptable,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said. “The Blue Helmet worn by UN peacekeepers must be sacrosanct.”

The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, said Hezbollah fired about 105 projectiles into the country on Thursday.

‘Bad Guy’

Biden and Netanyahu spoke after claims in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward that the US president used expletives to describe the Israeli premier. “That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy,” Biden reportedly said to one of his associates in comments that the White House didn’t deny, CNN said.

For all Netanyahu’s disregard of the US, he did heed American warnings after a similar Iran attack in April. He retaliated with a single, limited strike against an air-defense facility in Isfahan, Iran. That was after Biden had urged him to avoid a bigger assault.

“They’ll probably go against the military-industrial complex in Iran, probably not against the nuclear power complex, and probably not against energy,” retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis, who is now a Bloomberg opinion columnist, told Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday. “I think there’s about a one-in-four chance of a broader war in the Middle East that drags the US in. That’s uncomfortably high, but I’d still bet against a big sweeping war in the Middle East.”

—With assistance from Courtney McBride.