Judging by reports in the Israeli media, the Iran war has already erupted. The heavy battles indicate both sides intend to fight to the bitter end. The war is not a military confrontation between Israel and Iran, but rather a bloody clash in Israel between former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the current government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
The opening salvo was fired in a seminal July 14 opinion piece plastered on the front page of the Netanyahu family bulletin — the daily Israel Hayom newspaper — headlined, “Iran is racing toward a bomb and the Bennett-Lapid government is silent.” The writer — opposition leader Netanyahu —went at Bennett guns blazing, accusing his successor of enabling Iran’s nuclear breakout and claiming that contrary to his own policy, Lapid and Bennett had made the US administration a “zero surprise” pledge, while he himself had consistently refused to bow to such American demands.