Fwd: Israel faces dilemma in its response to Iran’s attack

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Also: Five-year-old Palestinian girl shot; Jordan’s FM on CNN; Saudi Miss Universe

View In Browser April 15, 2024     Restraint or retribution? Israel faces dilemma in its response to Iran’s attack       Nadeen Ebrahim and Jeremy Diamond This handout photo shows the Israeli war cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holding a meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 14. Portions of this photo have been blurred by the source. (Ariel Hermoni/IMoD) Israel has yet to agree how to respond to the Iranian attack over the weekend that saw more than 300 projectiles fired at its territory in the first direct military confrontation between the Islamic Republic and the Jewish state.     Israel must balance international pressure to show restraint on the one hand, while searching for an appropriate response to an unprecedented attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now has to weigh his right-wing coalition’s call for a strong reaction against the risk of further international isolation for Israel by widening the war without international support.     Israel’s war cabinet on Monday remained determined to respond to Iran’s attack for what Iran says was retaliation to a suspected Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus on April 1. Despite pressure from allies not to escalate, the cabinet is now debating the timing and scope of the response, two Israeli officials familiar with the deliberations told CNN.     Analysts say that Israel has few options, and each of those options comes with a price for the Jewish state, especially as it is already embroiled in a brutal six-month war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and is confronting various Iran-backed militants in the region.     A direct attack on Iran would set yet another precedent. While Israel is believed to have conducted covert operations in Iran over the years, often targeting individuals or facilities seen as a threat to its security, it has never launched a direct military assault on Iranian territory.      “We are definitely in a new phase, and a very dangerous phase of the Israeli-Iranian confrontation,” said Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. “Iran has certainly tried to change the rules of the game with Israel... We might expect more rounds of direct attacks in the future.”     While Israel may find it hard not to retaliate, he said, it may not conduct an immediate “full scale military attack against targets inside Iran” as Tehran has vowed to retaliate with an even bigger response than the attack launched over the weekend.      “The preference in Israel has been to continue and concentrate on achieving our main objectives in Gaza, and not to open new fronts,” Zimmt told CNN.     Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, said it is unlikely that Israel will retaliate by directly striking Iran. But if it does, he said, the fallout will depend on the targets. Targets could include military assets or the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, he said. “Each and every one represents a different level of escalation.”     An Israeli official told CNN on Monday that among the military options being considered is an attack on an Iranian facility that would send a message to Tehran but avoid causing casualties. Israeli officials recognize that will be a difficult needle to thread, the official added.     Constrained by allies     Israel’s response may however be constrained by the fact that it acted as part of an informal coalition when fending off Iran’s barrage of missiles and drones, Tamir Hayman, Israel’s former head of military intelligence, said on X.     The attacks were thwarted with the help of allies including the US, UK and France, as well Jordan.      “This is effective and important, but it will limit the freedom of action in response,” Hayman, who now heads the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, said on Sunday. Western and Arab allies of Israel have been discouraging it from responding to Iran’s attack.     US President Joe Biden and senior members of his national security team have told their Israeli counterparts the US will not participate in any offensive action against Iran, according to US officials familiar with the matter. Biden sought to frame Israel’s successful interception of the Iranian onslaught as a major victory — with the suggestion that further Israeli response was unnecessary.     Domestic political considerations     Israel is also likely to take domestic political considerations into account. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the most right- wing coalition in the country’s history, and keeping that government from collapsing would require appeasement of hardliners.      Netanyahu has come under intense criticism at home for not being able to prevent the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and his inability to secure the release of the more than 100 hostages that remain in Gaza.     Pinkas expects any retaliatory decision by Israel to be heavily influenced by Netanyahu’s far-right coalition and the prime minister’s own needs for political survival.      “With Mr. Netanyahu, it’s all about politics and his own survival, and the maintenance of his coalition and his desire to broaden the war to distance himself from October 7 and the Hamas attack,” Pinkas said.      “So, in his mind, a regional conflict or a direct conflict with Iran is consistent with the fabricated narrative that he invented, that this (October 7) is not just a terror attack but part of a much bigger confrontation and campaign,” Pinkas said.      In Israel, Pinkas added, the public doesn’t want to open another front, with troops still fighting in Gaza.      “People are still devastated and shocked over what had happened in October, so I don't think there is any public desire to escalate and open an entirely direct conflict with Iran,” he said.     Rescue workers search in the rubble of a building annexed to the Iranian embassy a day after an Israeli air strike in Damascus, Syria, on April 2. (Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images) 'International credit’     Ahead of the weekend attacks, Israel had become increasingly isolated on the world stage due to its conduct in the Gaza war, where more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed. Since the attack by Iran, however, its allies have rallied around the Jewish state and its right to protect itself.     Some Israeli politicians have called for the state to take advantage of the support gained after the attack to hit back.      Others have called for Israel to use the “international credit” to either attack Tehran or invade Gaza’s Rafah city, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering, and which Israel says is Hamas’ last stronghold. A planned operation in the city has been delayed amid a global consensus against it.    “We need to respond — and there are two good options: Either, we take advantage of the attack yesterday in order to attack Iran, or to come to an agreement with the United States to enter Rafah, and eliminate Hamas there,” Yaakov Amidror, former national security adviser to Netanyahu, told the Jerusalem Post on Monday.      Israel’s government is aware of the international support and goodwill from its allies and doesn’t want to squander that. At the same time, it recognizes that it cannot allow Iran’s first attack on Israeli soil to go unanswered.     Benny Gantz, a key member of the war cabinet, has pushed for a swifter response to Iran’s attack, two Israeli officials told CNN. He believes that the longer Israel delays its response to Iran’s attack, the harder it will be to garner international support for it, the sources said.      Others disagree, saying retaliatory action from Israel that escalates tensions would only further isolate the Jewish state, especially from Gulf Arab states that Israel seeks to normalize ties with.      Risking Arab ties     Arab states, including those that are friendly with Israel, have expressed concern about a potential escalation from Iran’s attack, but haven’t outright condemned it. Israel said that most of the drones fired from Iran were intercepted outside its airspace. Jordan shot down a number of those drones and faced criticism in the Arab world for the move. It has argued that it was done to protect its citizens and in response to violations of its airspace.     Despite its role in protecting Israel, however, Jordan has not shied away from chastizing the Netanyahu government. In an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi appeared to support Iran’s position that the attack was in retaliation to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus.      “Now I think the pressure is on Israel not to escalate and work towards the objective that we all share, which is de-escalating the conflict,” Safadi said on Monday, warning that Netanyahu seeks an escalation to shift focus away from the war in Gaza.     Israel has also been on a mission to mend relations with Arab states, some of which sit across the Persian Gulf from Iran, house US military bases and have come under fire from Iran-allied groups in the past. Those nations have played a delicate balancing act between ties with Tehran and with Israel, and are wary of the impact of a full blown Iranian-Israeli war on their own stability and oil exports.     “The last thing they (Gulf states) want right now is a conflagration that would raise oil prices, that would block the Strait of Hormuz,” Pinkas told CNN, referring to the world’s most important oil transit point. Relations with those states may be affected if Israel is seen as responsible for such an escalation, he added.    More on the crisis in the Middle East  Iran’s attack on Israel almost seemed designed to fail. When it launched its killer drones from its own territory some 1,000 miles away, it was giving Israel hours of advance notice. The operation was highly choreographed, apparently designed to minimize casualties while maximizing spectacle, writes Tamara Qiblawi.   As chaos ensued after thousands of Palestinians were turned away from returning to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, a 5-year-old girl was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers, her mother said. Video shows a man carrying Sally Abu Laila, who was bleeding from her head. Almost all the ballistic missiles and drones Iran launched at Israel were intercepted and failed to meet their mark, highlighting the formidable, and multi-layered missile defense deployed by Israel and its main ally, the United States. Here’s how Israel and allied defenses intercepted more than 300 Iranian missiles and drones. China has voiced “deep concern” over escalating tensions in the Middle East after Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, raising the prospect of a wider conflagration in a region where Beijing has pledged to play peacemaker and promote its own security vision. The question now is whether China can play a role in avoiding all-out war.  What to watch Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told CNN’s Becky Anderson that the world should not lose focus of the West Bank and Gaza, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using the fight with Iran to "dilute that pressure" and take attention away.  Listen Iran strikes Israel. Will Israel return fire?  On Saturday, Iran launched a barrage of missiles toward Israel from Iranian territory in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus earlier this month. US air defenses jumped in to intercept some Iranian drones in defense of Israel. In this episode of the Tug of War podcast, CNN’s Clarissa Ward examines what the dramatic escalation could mean for the region and ongoing war in Gaza.      Tug of War has been nominated for a Webby Award in the News & Politics category. Please click on the link and vote for us.  Around the region Contestants pose onstage during the 2023 Miss Universe pageant on November 18, 2023 in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Hector Vivas/Getty Images) The Miss Universe Organization is disputing a flurry of what it calls “false and misleading” reports of Saudi Arabia’s participation in its 2024 pageant — news that, were it true, would have marked the Middle Eastern country’s debut.    “No selection process has been conducted in Saudi Arabia, and any such claims are false and misleading,” the pageant said in a statement provided to CNN and released on its official website.    In social media posts shared to Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, among other platforms, on March 24, Saudi Arabian model and veteran beauty queen Rumy al-Qahtani wrote that she was “honored” to be competing at the Miss Universe pageant, and noted that her apparent selection marked a first for her home country. The post featured images of her wearing a sequined evening gown, glamorous tiara and sash embroidered with “Miss Universe Saudi Arabia.”    Al-Qahtani’s announcement was widely shared on social media and in news reports; it remains on her social media profiles despite the Miss Universe pageant now challenging its veracity. (In videos shared on her TikTok page since the pageant’s statement was released, al-Qahtani does not address the issue.)    “We do not know the reason why Miss Rumy al-Qahtani announced her candidacy, but if she wants to participate in the Saudi Arabia pageant, she will have to go through the same selection process as every other candidate,” a Miss Universe spokesperson told CNN.    Al-Qahtani could not be reached for comment.    The pageant’s statement noted that more than 100 other countries will be represented at the 2024 Miss Universe competition, which will be held in Mexico in September. This year will mark the first Miss Universe with no upper age limit set for its contestants — in previous years, those competing were required to be between the age of 18 and 28.    By Alex Rees    Read the full story here.   Thanks for reading Meanwhile in the Middle East. What did you think? Send us any thoughts and feedback to meanwhil...@cnn.com   You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up for Meanwhile in the Middle East. To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or sign up to manage your CNN account   Learn more about the CNN app |  Get CNN web alerts  |  Sign up for a free CNN account   ® © 2024 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. 1050 Techwood Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30318

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

PressTV

In my humble opinion when devoid of even an iota of taqiyya, an essential element at a time of war, when it’s of great strategic importance to deceive the enemy, if anything, Iran's ”retaliation “ was more of a face-saving, symbolic gesture which fell far short of the first salvo that would have wiped half of Tel Aviv off the political surface of the Middle East map, the blitz that would have raised a few nuclear clouds over Dimona and sent some shivers down the spines of some of the ultra orthodox in Netanyahu’s coalition, as they scrambled forcover, as it is written, “ A person should never stand in a place of danger and say: “A miracle will be performed for me!”

A hypothetical question, and we’re not talking about a suicide-bomber mentality now:

Would the war cabinet of ”God’s Chosen People” with a sense of entitlement / self-preservation or impunity go and bomb the Chinese, the North Korean or the Russian Embassy somewhere, anywhere, killing more than a dozen senior staff including two of their top generals , and after that return safely back to their soon to be built temple to sacrifice a few bulls to their God, accompanied by petitionary prayers to Him, that there should be no repercussions for that which their hands have done?

Always worth checking out : Alexander Mercouris

“Israel Is Trying To Start A War With Iran”

# It’s worth noting that Israel did not “ win” The 2006 Lebanon War

Netanyahu's war cabinet is fully aware that since the 7th of October Hezbollah has wreaked tremendous damage on the Israeli Forces and much of their military infrastructure, not to mention some of their major installations which Hezbollah has successfully targeted in Northern Israel. The war cabinet has accurate data and more detailed information about this than they are willing to reveal to the general Israeli public and the Israeli electorate, perhaps because it would not be good for the the fighting morale , especially of the war weary conscripts and other volunteers. The war cabinet is also more than aware of Hezbollah’s stockpile of more than 100,000 lethal missiles, more than enough to overwhelm multiple iron domes and to cause a lot of havoc in Israel's main high-tec hub, Tel Aviv. 

If ceasefire and peace don’t come soon, Hezbollah - Israel tensions could escalate    

Could Biden think of backing Israel In an expanded Middle East war?

It’s the kind of question AIPAC could be asking him behind the scenes

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

       Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

       For promis’d joy!

At this point, if Israel resists temptation and does nothing in further retaliation and escalation, all should be quiet on all fronts. But if Iran’s little satan should cease to believe that “discretion is the better part of valour”, then, with regard to the inevitable, upcoming Israel vs Iran the well-wishers could consider the following 

# Colonel Douglas Macgregor  is asking, Will Israel Go Nuclear?

# Scott Ritter on the forthcoming Israel - Iran showdown

A future-looking overall picture 

# “Greater Israel” Then and Now: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East (according to Michel Chossudovsky)

# “Greater Israel” Then and Now: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East ( according to other sources 

Anyone among those who really care about Israel should be worried about Israel’s

forthcoming response to Iran’s effete attack the other day, as a so-called response to Israel devastating Iran’s (according to International Law) Iran’s sacred & sovereign diplomatic territory in Damascus, in which Israel completely destroyed the consulate building and wiped out the entire staff there - sixteen people altogether - including two top Iranian Generals, one of them a Brigadier-General in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. 

Would Israel even accidentally, in the name of “friendly fire” do that to a US consulate anywhere, wipe out sixteen of their staff including two American generals, one of them a Brigadier-General, without an apology? 

Once upon a time, in those primitive days, long before the invention of weapons of mass destruction such as the thermo-nuclear bomb, there was a little shepherd boy David - he who - according to legend slaughtered 200 Philistines in order to divest them of their foreskins which he handed over to King Saul, the first king of Israel, as a downpayment of the required dowry for his daughter Mical, David’s intended bride. 

Since then the aforementioned David’s Tehillim/Psalm 23  “The lord is my Shepherd , I shall not want “  -  that bitachon -  has been reverberating and resonating down the corridors of recorded time, in the hearts of the faithful, in the tabernacles, temples, synagogues, churches, in the holy see of the Vatican and not least of all rendered here by Buju Banton & Morgan Heritage.

Since then - after all the trials and tribulations, the persecution of the Jewish people through the ages, fast forward to today when as a result of her megalomania, the so-called chosen nation - twice the size of Gambia - has been punching way above her weight division - and right now everybody knows the answer to this question: In the military division, what would the so-called “chosen nation “ be without the protection of Uncle Sam and Uncle Sam’s allies, and without Uncle Sam’s veto at the United Nations?

Today, the Jewish nation loves to boast that she is the only oasis of democracy in the middle of the vast deserts where there is no democracy but plenty of Human Rights abuses, and true or false, according to the Torah’s Exodus 19: 5 - 6,

“And now, if you obey Me and keep My covenant, you shall be to Me a treasure out of all peoples, for Mine is the entire earth. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of princes and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel."

And now, God’s special people is a nation of endangered species heavily dependent on Uncle Sam, for protection…

Before Israel embarks on some spectacular revenge attack on Iran they could seriously consider what else they could be up against in the region , starting with defending themselves against 

# Iran’s Military Might 

# Hezbollah’s stockpile of  missiles

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

Mazi Cornelius,

The big powers(including China and Russia)will always protect Israel with everything they have, be it UN Security Council Veto, sophisticated weapons supplies, intelligence sharing, Missile Defence technology, etc. They do this in varying ways.

The reason for this protection is that they find Zionism much more tolerable than Islamism and Zionism has proved to be a viable control button against Islamism in the Middle East region.

The Middle East region(all regions in fact) is of strategic interests to these big powers.

"I just say make I update you senior man"(as we usually say at Arugo Motor Park Owerri, Southeast Nigeria).

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)

--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, Institute Of Information Management Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Independent Information Management Practitioner.

More about him here: https://independent.academia.edu/ChidiAnthonyOpara

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Over here in Sweden, NATO’s newest member, geographically not so far from the Ukraine-Russia border, we have already been told by none less than The Supreme Commander of Sweden's Armed Forces that we must  “mentally prepare for war” 

We could also be on the brink of the first major war in the Middle East this century and this could easily lead to the Third World War which - of course - Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to win with a little help from Hashem & his Uncle Sam. He has probably had a prophetic vision that if any shit happens from Iran  then Iran and the rest of the Middle East including Beirut, will all be reduced to smoke and rubble like Gaza, that - God forbid - the skyscrapers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States will all come tumbling down like Humpty-Dumpty, whilst his Israel, a holy nation and ”the only bastion of Democracy and Human Rights in the Middle East” will be standing tall and straight, proud and unscathed, looking down with disdain at all the damage and debris surrounding him, after the dust of battle has finally settled down, for it is written Vayikra (Leviticus) - 26

“You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you; Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.”

In the meanwhile the post-Biblical history is unfolding on a daily basis :

Al Jazeera

# Information Clearing House 

# Mint Press News

# UK Declassified 

Google : Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah

ForeignPolicy.com : Israel’s Northern Front

Russia and Iran have been propping up the Assad regime for a very long time now

Latest news : The Golan Heights 

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Chidi,

Sometimes, I don’t know where your ideas are coming from. I am not sure that you are not the messenger of some other being who asks you to please relay certain ideas, comments and so forth. I can give you many instances of this. 

Is Zionism the hub of the capitalist wheel? In other words, if Israel disappeared would that be the end, not just of prophecy? 

I’m aware of your no to Boko Haram and your Islamophobic mindset and that you see the rest of the world through that prism. In my opinion you should  apply to take over from Mark Regev as the new spokesperson of Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing hawks 

 Let me deflect your attention for a while:

I am myself an amateur,  know nothing about economics, and only know a little about the first five books of Moses and the Holocaust. The Yom Kippur war went by almost unnoticed ( I was in Stockholm through it all) although I  had the best neighbours that I have ever had  - Jewish neighbours Kai and Eva-Britt Henmark  - Kai introduced me to Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim that year (1973), I was in Nigeria in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon and the dearth of news about that was appalling; I read about the Sabra and Shatila massacre, later, otherwise I have been following latest developments in the Middle East since January 1986 - to date - from the perspective of the two major antagonists. I still remember that year (1986) when doing an inventory of Muslim Organisations in Sweden, talking to Ahmed Rami of Radio Islam fame, and innocently asking him, on the phone, “What do you do?” to which he replied “ I don’t talk to Zionists!” I promptly informed him, “ I’m not a Zionist” and twenty minutes later, we were shaking hands in downtown Stockholm. 

Let’s start with this update: we are at the post-Zionist phase.

You do have a point there about “the big powers”. For those you refer to as adherents of “Islamism”, it is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala  the one and only that is the Big Power and they will tell you la hawla wala quwwata illa billah. 

On the whole, Iran’s great Satan and little satan are of a different persuasion.

Moreover, today, the USA is the largest oil producer, and this could mean that Joe Biden wouldn’t mind going to war, wouldn’t mind if Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to all traffic and wouldn't mind going to war against Russia, China, North Korea. 

Whilst you are at it, you could read the Chapter of the Quran entitled The Spider, Surah Al-'Ankabut - bearing in mind that the spider is the symbol of the United Nations. In one of his lectures, Hamza Yusuf  - an American Muslim expatiates on the spider as the symbol of the United Nations - if I remember correctly, that the spider encircles its prey, and  if I remember even more correctly, Hassan Nasrallah  - the secretary-general of Hezbollah and a very powerful orator indeed, is fond of saying that the Zionist entity is “weaker than a spider web”

You do have a point about the so-called “big powers”: The Soviet Union was the first to recognise Israel 

Many Israelis are from the former Soviet Union

As you well know, some of the more religious Jews were originally opposed to Theodore Herzl ,but the likes of  David Ben-Gurion Israel’s first prime minister and the early ideological kibbutzim were not…

The alternative to war is peace, and peace is a preferable alternative

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

Mazi Cornelius,

You and almost everyone here straitjacks me into poetry.

The information management aspect have been largely ignored.

Thanks.

-CAO.

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA]

Mazi Cornelius,

You and almost everyone here straitjacks me into poetry.

The information management aspect have been largely ignored.

Thanks.

-CAO 

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

Chidi :

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1522596468521570

Re - what you say that “The big powers (including China and Russia) will always protect Israel with everything they have”. We know that they also have machine guns. 

Here’s some speculation from an Indian channel: 

Will Russia and China Defend Iran Against Israel? | Vantage with Palki Sharma

( It’s amazing isn’t it that India, the world’s largest democracy goes to the polls today and there’s not even 1% of the excitement that trails the 2024 US elections which is so far away…

BTW, They should soon start a new course at Nsukka based on the PPE idea, this one to be promoted as PPI , the new tripos honours course in Poetry, Politics and Information Mismanagement - for profit. 

That’s right - as Emeka once said, the military takes over for one reason only : FOR PROFIT.

“The Military and the Monetary

They get together whenever they

Think it's necessary

They've turned our brothers and

Sisters into mercenaries

They are turning the planet, into a cemetery” ( Work for Peace ) 

What does Chidi think about this : World War Three Has Already Begun 

You think that you’re in the same straightjacket basket as Ishmael Reed shmiling here and feeling vindicated saying, “They dismissed my comments and said that I didn’t know anything about politics and should stick to writing novels”  - in your case that you should stick to writing poetry 

Neither the late IBK nor I am straight-jacketing your opinions into anything like poetry so please don’t think that you can escape or wriggle out of taking responsibility for what you say whether it’s arrant islamophobia or another a piece of public opinion disguised as a fact or a thought for today or just another example of information mismanagement, sordid anti-Semitic propaganda or subliminal advertising: 

This is not the ICJ 

This is an African

latest development court:

you stand accused. 

Do you plead guilty or not guilty?

You think that you can get away by quoting Yehuda Amital ? 

[cornelius...@gmail.com]

I asked , “You think that you can get away by quoting Yehuda Amital ?”

Correction: 

Not Yehuda Amital but Yehuda Amichai

Sometimes it’s ditto with Chidi Opara 👍

The incorrigible auto-correction thinks 

it’s more a case of mistaken reality, not 

stolen or mistaken identity and that’s why

that darned auto-correction always wants to trans-

substantiate Opara into Opera. I can hear Chidi 

(rub-a-dub style) singing the body electric

“Americano got the sleepy eye

But his body still shaking' like a live wire

Sleepy señorita with the eyes on fire” (Mexico

Bomb bomb bomb sang the Beach Boys and Senator John Mccain

Fast forward and behold your pals in Israel have been bombing 

Messiah Cyrus’s People in Tehran and Isfahan 

Bezalel Smotrich is not happy. 

Writing in Hebrew

the son of a gun

Is complaining that the bombing of Iran

has been “ feeble”

I’m sure that Chidi is left gaping

Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?

And wondering, what is Itamar Ben-Gvir

saying about the latest bombing :

Is it the end of the beginning (of the bombing

Or is it the beginning of the end (of the bombing 

Before we get to phase Apocalypse 11 starring 

Herzi Halevi directed by Francis Ford Coppola .

“Don't look now, don't heed the warning

It's really of no concern

Don't hear the sound, they're only just bombing

Anything left to burn”  ( Isn’t It About Time ?