Almost every war begins with a tragic series of miscalculations. Nations get fooled into not understanding the gravity of their actions, and sometimes, the whole world pays the price. Today, three hours before this moment, Iran made a blunder. It fell into a trap that it believed it had to enter. This moment is neither a beginning nor an end to a longstanding war between Iran and Israel.

Iran has consistently called for, planned for, and longed for the utter destruction of Israel. Why? I don’t know. The Iranian people and Israeli Jews generally get along and have great educational systems, a sense of family, and millennia of history and culture. The motives for Iranian animus I don’t understand. However, the pattern of destructive hostility and their enrollment of Sunni Hamas, along with the Shiah Houthis, Hizballah, and their own Quds Force, have effectively surrounded Israel with powers bent on Israel’s destruction.

Only this week, Argentina found Iran, along with its proxies, Hizballah and Islamic Jihad, guilty of being state sponsors of terror and labeled Iran a terrorist state because of their bombing 1992 of the Israeli Embassy, killing 22 people, and the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center that killed 94. This is a long-simmering conflict. When Iran began calling for the annihilation of Israel and developing a nuclear program, Israel responded by assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, sabotaging their nuclear program, and, with America’s help, planting the Stuxnet computer virus into their nuclear labs.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists swarmed over the border between Gaza and Israel and slaughtered men, women, and children – young people at a music festival and babies in arms. They raped, tortured, and abducted civilians and even local Palestinian and Bedouin Arabs.

Hamas knew that Israel would respond pretty much as Israel did—with overwhelming violence. This has been the well-known and advertised strategy of Israel: Disproportionate retaliation in order (in theory) to deter further violence. Hamas, understanding the response, was setting a trap. They knew Israel would enter their trap. Israel also understood that this was a trap, that they had to respond, and that responding would cost them in world opinion and support—as well as further loss of Israeli lives. They believed that they had no choice. Even knowing it was a trap, they entered with predictable and tragic results for the Gazans.

Hamas had perverse incentives. Not interested in peace or a two-state solution, they believed that with Saudi Arabia moving towards regularizing relations with Israel, they were losing stature and had to reclaim leadership in the Resistance. Hamas knew that they gained status with every Israeli they killed, and they gained power with every Gazan who was killed. After October 7, Hamas called for a ceasefire—knowing it was an impossible demand for any government, no less Netanyahu’s, to take.

Israel fighting in three dimensions—the air, on ground level, and in tunnels—wreaked destruction. Refugees were driven from the north of Gaza to the south and the theoretically safe area of Rafah. Israel might have believed that they had cleared out the north, but they are finding, like the American counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, you can clear, but if you don’t hold, all you have done is kill people and destroy buildings.

Now, with a million Gazans in Rafah, Israel says that it must take Rafah. Hamas wants nothing more than for Israel to kill more Gazans, particularly women and children, violently. Again, Israel knows this is a trap, and Netanyahu insists that he must go into the trap.

What else could BiBi do? Well, he could bait a trap for Iran.

Israel struck the Iranian Consulate in their diplomatic compound in Syria. The Consulate was adjacent to the Iranian Embassy, which, with the legal doctrine of extraterritoriality, is technically Iran. The Consulate is not legally Iran, but in this case, proximity counts.

Iran had to respond and, like Israel, even knowing it was a trap, they responded today by attacking Israel and not with proxies or with the vagueness of the attack coming from south Lebanon or Syria but from sovereign Iranian territory. The attack on Israel was disproportionate and consisted of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles and targeted Israel itself. With such a clear return address, Israel, according to the futile and cruel rules of international warfare, must respond against Iran’s actual territory.

Every interest has done exactly what their adversaries have wanted them to do. All were drawn into obvious traps and entered them willingly. So, is this the end of the Israeli-Iranian War? Of course not. Will this now-hot war likely escalate and spread further with more killing, destruction, and human tragedy? Most likely.

Will this make Gaza safer? No. Will it make Israel more secure? Of course not. Will it do anything beneficial for the people of Iran? Not a chance.

Cui Bono/Who benefits? In the short run, it puts off Netanyahu’s date with accountability for his utter failure to protect Israel or to pursue a policy that had a chance of freeing the hostages. It also removes the threat of America trying to put conditions on military aid because what is needed to fight Iran and hold off the Houthis and Hamas can’t easily be kept out of the war with Hamas.

This is now officially a regional hot war. Iran fired their missiles, rockets, and drones, then announced that it’s done, and Israel mustn’t retaliate—like Hamas calling for a ceasefire on October 8. There is no chance of that.

So, what will happen? We’ll know when we find out if Israel’s inevitable retaliation will be proportionate to the damage Israel suffered (very little) or, as usual, disproportionate to send a message. “Disproportionate “is not my word but Israel’s stated policy.

Whatever one’s moral calculus, it hasn’t brought peace to Israel or a state for Palestinians. It brings only escalation and death.

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