Should Israel Strike First?
Is this period more like 1967, when Israel preemptively attacked its enemies? Or like 1973—when it failed to do so?
This article was originally published in The Free Press.
For more than two weeks, Israelis have been waiting for war. Immediately after the July 31 assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran pledged to retaliate massively against Israel.
So far the main event hasn’t happened. Talks for the release of the remaining 111 Israeli hostages in Hamas’s hands drag on inconclusively and Hezbollah rockets slam into the north, but it’s the fear of Iranian missiles raining down on our homes that most consumes Israelis. We are hoarding essentials and stocking our bomb shelters with canned tuna and bottled water. Nobody dares travel far from home. Nobody wants to get caught in their car, in the middle of a highway, when the sirens wail.
I’m a historian. So over the course of these long days and nights—part of them spent volunteering as an IDF reservist, helping to guard Kibbutz Kfar Blum near the northern border—I’ve found my mind looking back to Israel’s past. Specifically, I’ve wondered if the predicament we are facing now in 2024 is more like 1967 or 1973.
In other words: Are we living in a Levi Eshkol or a Golda Meir moment? Do we have a prime minister who will preemptively attack our enemies? Or one who won’t take the risk?
Levi Eshkol was Israel’s prime minister in May 1967, when the Egyptians ousted UN peacekeepers from Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, remilitarized them both, and closed the Straits of Tiran to shipping to and from Eilat. Joining Egypt in preparing to destroy Israel and cast its inhabitants to the sea were the armies of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Israel was surrounded and shorn of allies; France, its sole superpower backer, precipitously switched sides. The Arabs, unlike Israel, had oil.
When asked by Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban on May 26 whether the United States would back a preemptive strike against its assembled enemies, President Lyndon Baines Johnson repeatedly replied, “Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go it alone.”
The decision was up to Eshkol.
A wry, gray, avuncular leader—hardly the warrior type—Eshkol had to weigh the risks of not striking first versus the danger of forfeiting American support. By waiting for the Arab armies to attack, Israel’s very existence might be endangered. Egyptian tanks could be rumbling through Tel Aviv and the Jordanian flag flying over Jerusalem. On the other hand, if Israel struck first and failed, the country would be left utterly defenseless. No nation, not even the United States, would come to Israel’s aid.
For the three weeks still remembered by Israelis of that generation as Tekufat HaHamtanah—the waiting period of unbearable tension—Eshkol exhausted one diplomatic option after another. Then, finally, he decided.
On the morning of June 6, Israeli warplanes bombed hundreds of Egyptian fighter jets on the ground. The air forces of Jordan and Syria were incinerated next. Israeli ground troops soon charged into Sinai, Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, conquering all. Syria’s Golan Heights was the last to fall. Six days later, Israel had almost quadrupled the territory under its control—including, for the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Jewish world rejoiced. But what would President Johnson say? Would he punish Israel for its insolence—perhaps even sever ties?
LBJ did nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he admired Israel’s determination to stick up for itself. For the first time, an American president approved the sale of tanks and advanced jets to Israel and stood firmly beside it in the UN Security Council. Out of Eshkol’s gumption, the U.S.-Israeli strategic alliance was born.
Six years later, another Israeli leader, the wise yet tentative Golda Meir, grappled with virtually the same predicament. On the afternoon of October 5, 1973, Israel learned that Egypt and Syria were poised to launch a massive attack the following day. Would Israel act as it had in 1967 by preempting the enemy assault?
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger reminded Golda, as she was colloquially known, that she had not sufficiently cooperated with American efforts to mediate treaties between Israel and the Arab states based on the principle of territory-for-peace. If Israel struck first, Kissinger warned, it could not count on the U.S. for support.
Like Eshkol, Golda deliberated, but unlike her predecessor, decided against preemption. The following day’s onslaught overwhelmed Israeli forces, driving them back into Sinai and from most of the Golan Heights. Much of this territory was subsequently regained but at the horrific loss of more than 2,500 soldiers. And though President Nixon, all but incapacitated by the Watergate crisis, ordered the large-scale resupply of Israel’s military, neither he nor Kissinger expressed the slightest gratitude for Golda’s forbearance. By buckling to American pressure in 1973 and not resisting it as in 1967, Israel earned America’s contempt rather than its respect.
Today, Israel faces a hauntingly similar dilemma. We are again surrounded on all sides—not by Egypt and its allies but by Iran and its proxies—yet equally committed to our destruction. Our enemies trumpet their intention to strike us a painful if not mortal blow. The U.S. administration is once more reminding Israeli leaders of their rejection of its peace efforts and warning them not to preemptively strike. America will assist in defending Israel’s skies, the White House has stated, but not in penetrating Iran’s. Heavily dependent on American munitions supplies and diplomatic support, Israel has no choice but to take America’s opposition into account.
In place of Eshkol and Golda we now have Benjamin Netanyahu. In utter contrast to his bellicose reputation, the prime minister is in fact conflict-averse and often halting in approving risky military moves. Ordering preventive action against Iran and its militias would mark a sharp departure from his record. Though known to be a longtime admirer of Eshkol and a disdainer of Golda, he is more inclined, character-wise, to emulate the latter.
There are, of course, factors that distinguish Israel’s current situation from those of 1967 and 1973. Most complicating of these is the continuing war in Gaza and its toll on Israel’s resilience and morale. Though a majority of Israelis support an armed initiative to deter Iran and drive Hezbollah back from the northern border, the public is generally war-weary. Reservists have spent five months or more in active combat; some have been on duty since October 7. Families, businesses, and entire communities and regions of the country have suffered.
Then there are the hostages and Israel’s gut-wrenching need to secure the release of as many of them as swiftly as possible. By attacking Iran, Israel would doom the chances of achieving a hostage-release deal any time soon. Hamas head Yahya Sinwar wants nothing more than a regional conflict that would draw the remaining Israeli troops from Gaza and vastly increase international pressure on the Jewish state.
And so Israel waits and broadcasts its fears while Iran keeps threatening to pummel us. The U.S. continues to amass forces in the Middle East, but only for defensive purposes, while rejecting any suggestion of an Israeli first strike. If Netanyahu decides, as Golda did, to absorb Iran’s initial assault, he may gain the legitimacy to retaliate, but Israel might once again pay a prohibitive price and in the end earn only America’s contempt. But if he chooses the path of Eshkol, Netanyahu could thwart Iran’s planned aggression and gain America’s esteem.
Either way, Israel stands on the cusp of the all-out war its leaders have long labored to avert. Perhaps this is neither an Eshkol or Golda moment for Israel, but one that is gruelingly, nightmarishly unique.
The current crisis is an example of political leaders adopting wishful thinking instead of applying the lessons of the past to inform the present and enhance our wisdom. Israel's strong stance in the past has worked in that the Arab states of 1967 and 1973 are no longer belligerent. The same principle is still worthy.
What ever the decision I would not trust this administration. The anti-Semitism and anti-Israel runs deep. My thoughts, attack, attack, attack.