On Monday evening, toward the very end of the Passover Seder – after the meal and the formal conclusion of the Seder and before the “‘fun songs” such as “Who knows One?” and “Had Gadya” – Jews around the world will recite a sixth-century poem called “It Happened at Midnight.”
This poem chronicles 13 miracles that befell the Jewish people at midnight. Were that poem to be written today, some might argue that what happened last Saturday night at around midnight – the sensational swatting out of the heavens of more than 300 Iranian drones and missiles aimed to kill, maim, and wreak havoc on the Jewish state – would be a good candidate for inclusion.
A night that felt surreal for all
While people may debate whether what happened that night was a miracle of the divine or technological variety – or both – most will agree that the night felt surreal. Part of the reason for this was that we were all watching it unfold in real time.
It was simply bizarre, sitting at home and tracking on television the projectiles flying in your direction designed to kill you and your family. It was like watching a bullet – with an estimated time of arrival – coming at you and leaving you to wonder if, when, and how Superman would be able to divert its trajectory.
No less astounding was the fact that in this particular case, in addition to the IDF intercepting the drones and missiles, so, too, did forces from the US, Britain, France, and Jordan. Yes, even Jordan, a country whose antipathy toward Israel has been on full display since October 7.
And the astonishing developments did not stop there.
Israelis woke up bleary-eyed Sunday morning, relieved that their cities had not been destroyed, and also amazed that the international community, which 24 hours earlier seemed to have turned its back on the Jewish state because of the war in Gaza, now showered it with support.
“Israel alone,” thundered the front page of The Economist only three weeks ago with a headline that did not age well.
Israel’s journey in seemingly no time flat from being castigated and vilified for defending itself by waging a war in Gaza during which – as in all wars – there are civilian casualties, to receiving words of support from all over the world was a whiplash-inducing flip-flop.
As the provocative title to Dara Horn’s 2021 book People Love Dead Jews hints, the world sympathizes with Israel and Jews when they are attacked; it’s just when the Jews go on the attack to defend themselves that the world’s support wanes.
That, too, became apparent as the outpouring of support from around the world following the Iranian barrage was accompanied by entreaties by our closest friends, including those who came to our defense, to “take the win” and not react in kind. In other words: turn the other cheek.
What then followed was also no less astounding: a loud public debate regarding whether and how Israel should respond, a debate that everyone felt free to chime in on.
One pundit joked this week that considering how everyone seemed to have an opinion on the matter, and how open all the government and military discussions on the issue had become, Israel might as well just hold a referendum on how the country should respond.
Considering all the input coming from around the world – the German and British foreign ministers arrived to lobby against a harsh response, and the US, according to Egyptian sources, said it will let Israel go ahead with a planned operation in Rafah if it agrees to only a limited response to Iran – the world would also, it appears, like a vote in this referendum.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a simple reply to this: thanks, but no thanks.
“I thank our friends for their support in defense of Israel, and I say this – support in both words and deeds,” he told his cabinet after meeting the British and German foreign ministers. “They also have all kinds of suggestions and advice, which I appreciate; however, I would also like to clarify – we will make our decisions ourselves. The State of Israel will do whatever is necessary to defend itself.”
Therein, of course, lies the rub. What is the best way, in these circumstances, for Israel to defend itself?
Should it take advantage of the situation to strike at Iran’s nuclear capabilities, setting back its nuclear program decades? Or should it, instead, strike at Iran’s oil facilities, something that would be a severe setback to the country’s already struggling economy.
Some say Israel should hit at the missile sites where the projectiles were launched last Saturday night, while others say it is a good opportunity to hit Iran’s drone manufacturing capabilities – a tit-for-tat response that would also be doing the world a favor since Iran is supplying the Russians with drones that are causing deadly damage in Ukraine.
STILL OTHERS, however, advocate taking a different tack altogether: harnessing this moment of world grace to enforce already existing sanctions on the country that could conceivably bring Iran to its knees and catalyze popular opposition to the government inside Iran.
One of the advocates of this approach is Udi Levy, formerly the head of the Mossad’s task force established to fight financial networks and industries supporting terrorist organizations. In a KAN Reshet Bet interview this week, Levy said that Saturday night’s attack presented a rare opportunity for “strategic economic action” against the Iranians.
Over the years, he explained, Iran created a global financial network that allows it to circumvent the various sanctions imposed on it. This system enables Iran to move money around and make purchases through a complex web of exchange companies and fictitious firms funneling funds to banks – 80% of these bank accounts being located in the UAE – which then makes it possible for Iran to purchase sanctioned items around the world.
The creation of this system, he said, answers a vital question: How has Iran been able to fund Hamas, the Houthis, militias in Iraq, Hezbollah, and its own nuclear program while under sanctions? The answer: via this intricate system uncovered two years ago.
“We know everything,” Levy said. “The names of the straw companies, the bank accounts, the number of those accounts, exactly how it works, and who are the people and companies behind it – everything.”
At a time when everyone from US President Joe Biden to the heads of the EU states meeting in Brussels are pledging to apply new sanctions on Iran – including on its missile and drone programs – Levy said that what is really needed is the implementation of those sanctions already in place. Everything else is performative.
“You don’t need new sanctions, you need enforcement, and an opportunity has presented itself where that same coalition that was involved in the amazing night where the missiles were stopped – that is the same coalition needed to take this economic step,” he said.
Shlomit Wagman, the former head of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Authority inside the Justice Ministry, agreed.
In an Army Radio interview on Wednesday, she said that coordinated economic measures can effectively “paralyze” Iran’s economy, which will curtail its ability to fund its proxies lashing out at Israel and harm its ability to develop its missile capabilities – capabilities that, she added, Saturday night demonstrated need improving.
“This is the opportunity, and the nations of the world are offering this to Israel on a silver platter, and this would be a strategic achievement Israel has dreamed of for years. I would recommend to the Israeli leadership to grasp it with two hands because it is a long-term strategic achievement that could be a game changer and change the region.”
One place where sanctions need to be enforced with much greater determination, she said, is on Iran’s oil exports. This was done in the past but has tapered off, as China is eagerly consuming Iranian oil.
The types of incentives that the US developed in the past to keep China from purchasing Iranian oil need to be employed today as well, Wagman said.
Iran’s exports of crude oil rose to a five-year high last year, with the vast majority – an estimated 90% – of the 1.29 million barrels produced per day going to China, according to Nikkei Asia. With the Chinese using their own currency to purchase the oil, and then the Iranians using that currency to buy machinery and electronics from China, the Iranians manage to skirt sanctions imposed by the world’s financial institutions.
Yet there is something else at play as well. The availability of Iranian oil to China means that there is more non-Iranian oil on the market, keeping oil prices down as war rages in the Mideast and Ukraine. The last thing Biden needs during an election year is an increase in gas prices as a result of a dearth of oil on the market, something that would happen were Iranian oil not available to the Chinese.
According to Levy, as the world is entreating Israel now not to act militarily against Iran, or to restrain its military response, there is an opportunity to come to the Americans and its allies and push back against that pressure with pressure of Israel’s own.
Israel, he said, could say: “‘Listen, you don’t want us to attack, so let us embark on a strategic step that is meant to paralyze the Iranian ability to fund their nuclear program, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas, the Houthis, and all their terror activities around the world.’ This could be done if that same coalition [that worked Saturday night] today freezes all the accounts and closes all the fictitious companies and cuts off Iran’s ability to engage in economic activity through the system it built up for years.”
It won’t be easy for some of these countries, he said, and there are significant financial interests at risk. But it also won’t be easy for Israel to forgo a major response.
A coordinated economic response and decision to enforce sanctions, he maintained, “would be the most significant blow that Israel and the West could place on Iran, with far-reaching ramifications. It would place Iran in a completely new situation: an inability to fund” its proxies.
This type of action, he said, would not be a response that would bring limited tactical gain, but, rather, something with long-range strategic impact. In fact, he said, “it would be Israel’s most significant achievement” since October 7.
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