Why Netanyahu Decided to Strike Iran Now
Friday, Israel launched a major attack on Iranian nuclear sites and arms facilities and targeted many of its main military officials. In retaliation, Iran launched dozens of ballistic missiles in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday evening. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said that strikes “would continue for as many days as necessary to suppress this threat.” In response, President Trump, who had recently declared that he wanted to renegotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran – during his first mandate, he retired from the original nuclear agreement signed during the Obama administration – expressed strong support for the Israeli attack, saying: “I think it was excellent. We have given [the Iranians] A chance and they didn’t take it. They were hardly affected, very hard. . . . And there is more to come.
Friday, I spoke by phone with Aluf Benn, the editor -in -chief of Haaretz. During our conversation, which was published for duration and clarity, we discussed Netanyahu’s motivations to order a strike, how the Prime Minister uses his understanding of Trump to continue his own program and what this attack means for the future of the region.
Why do you think it happens right now, in June 2025, rather than earlier or in the future?
First of all, Israel has been at war with the Iranian “resistance axis” for almost two years now. Second, Israel, for over twenty years, has designed and preparing a plan to attack Iran under successive leaders. During most of this time, it was in charge of Netanyahu, but military leaders have long thought of dismantling Iran’s nuclear installations in the same way that Israel bombed a nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, then in Syria in 2007. In both cases, these nuclear programs were considered to be existential threats to Israel, and the objective was to delay to destroy the main nuclear facilities.
The idea of bombing Iran has existed for two decades. He culminated around 2012, under Netanyahu then the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, but they were arrested by the Obama administration, which finally signed an agreement with Iran to limit his nuclear program. At this stage, some of the Israeli security and intelligence leaders thought that Israel should not go a horseman alone and never attack Iran without American consent and previous knowledge. In 1981, Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister, bombed the nuclear reactor near Baghdad without telling the Americans. And that created a tension between the two governments for a while. But, in 2007, Ehud Olmert told George W. Bush a reactor that was built in the Syrian desert at the time. It was a secret installation. We shared intelligence with Bush, and Bush thought for a while to attack with American forces. But then the Americans decided not to do it, and they simply let Israel destroy the installation. Israel did not take responsibility for the strike for almost a decade so as not to embarrass Bashar al-Assad and to force him to reprisals.
Discretion is not the case today. This attack is very visible and follows two exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel last year, in which Iran retaliated in April for the assassination of one of its generals in Damascus. They pulled all kinds of drones in response. But their attack failed because Israel was protected by a coalition that included One hundred [the U.S. Central Command]. And then in October, once again, there were missile attacks by Iran and an Israeli attack that managed to dismantle the Iranian air defenses. This was followed by the collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad regime in Syria, the two main allies of Iran in our environment. And that opened the way and opened the corridor for a possible attack on nuclear installations. But they waited for Trump to give the green light.
There had been concerns among other Bellician Israelis that Trump would not give the green light to this strike because he wanted an agreement with Iran. But what you seem to say is that a crucial thing that has changed is, in fact, the timing and the Trump being in office.
First of all, the operational opportunity to have an open corridor due to the abolition of Iranian aerial defenses in October, and the Russians did not reconstruct Iranian stocks and systems thereafter. And then there was the subsequent defeat of Hezbollah by the FDI, the decapitation of its leadership, the destruction of most of its strong ballistic force, then Assad Falling. So now you can deploy a great strength to destroy the targets in Iran. And recently reported that Israel had finished his preparations and that Netanyahu was pushing an attack on Iran. There were different signs, such as Trump’s public opposition, even as recently as this week, but clearly Netanyahu spoke to him in advance.
And today Trump has been very favorable.
Under this presidential support, we have something that is crucial, and it was one of the last decisions of Trump’s first mandate, which was to include Israel in One hundred. This allowed Israel to be part of the American regional air defense and missile defense system. Israel is therefore not based on American bombers and American soldiers on the ground, but you have coördination, coöperation, intelligence sharing, and Cetera.
It seems that Netanyahu has a fairly good understanding of Trump in terms of Iran and Gaza. Trump will say that he wants to conclude an agreement with Iran. He will say that he wants a cease-fire in Gaza, but whether it is his duration of attention or his lack of worrying about it, he will not really put pressure on Israel to prevent what he wants to do.
In Gaza, there have been a lot of criticism of what Israel has done. But overall, historically, America gave Israel a free hand compared to the Palestinians. It was always different on regional issues, where America always had the last word, even when it followed what Israel wanted. As Trump’s decision to leave the nuclear agreement in 2018 – she has always had the last word. And, in this case too, Trump wanted an agreement. If the Iranians had accepted the American terms to stop the enrichment of uranium, they could have had an agreement. Trump gave them time, then they didn’t respond, so Israel attacked. In the same way, Israel begged a ceasefire with Hezbollah in the North and Hezbollah head of Hezbollah at the time: “No, we will support our brothers in Gaza, and we will continue to shoot Israel and keep this second front open.” They could have been saved.
You could say that Israel could have stopped war in Gaza, and it could have helped the region too.
Certainly. But Netanyahu is still attached to the final occupation of Gaza and the destruction of the Palestinians. . . Hamas, and finally hunt the Palestinians from there, and follow what he calls the Trump plan: simply give the ground to the seaside resorts and the Israeli colonies. It is always the official Israeli policy in Gaza.
Is Israel now the attack on Iran to abandon Gaza or, on the contrary, use the defeat of the resistance axis to conclude the occupation of Gaza and the ethnic cleaning of the Palestinians? This remains to be seen.
By reading your newspaper, it is very clear to me that many people believe that Netanyahu extends the war in Gaza for its own political reasons and that you cannot separate war from Netanyahu’s personal desires. Is this the case here?
Well, first of all, with the attack on Iran, there is a very strong support in Israel, at least within Jewish society – I would say a virtual consensus. We wrote an editorial saying: “Do not go to war”, but it is a minority position, and it will be an even smaller minority if Israel succeeds in destroying the Iranian nuclear program and forcing Iran to capitulate in one way or another, or if there is an Iranian regime change. But, in addition to that, one of Netanyahu’s capacities throughout the war, even when he and his management are unpopular and are still late in public-owner surveys, was to pursue popular policies. The policy of destruction and even the partial occupation of Gaza was very popular, to punish Hamas for what it did on October 7. The policy of attacking Iran is extremely popular, and there is no real opposition to this in Israel. The opposition was only the fear of alienating the United States, or the fear that such an operation is too risky to succeed.
