Is this it? World War III? The end of the age and the fulfilment of prophecy? Given the prominence of Israel in the scriptures of the world’s most well-populated religions, and the many prophecies surrounding it, many people are tempted to attach elevated importance to anything that happens within a hundred miles of Jerusalem.Certainly, world leaders have warned incessantly about the dangers of 'escalation.' They may yet be proved right.However, this is not that day. .UPDATED: Tel Aviv suffers missile attack from Iran, barrage called 'ineffective'; Israel vows revenge.And, as of now, it’s important to take note of three things.First, initial reports indicate that Israel brushed off an attack involving 180 Iranian ballistic missiles with — astonishingly — only one casualty. This was an unfortunate Palestinian in the West Bank, which strictly speaking is not part of Israel, anyway.Too bad for that individual but in round terms then, the Iranian attack failed.Israel may well retaliate against Iran anyway — as of this writing, it has promised to — but thanks to the remarkable efficiency of the so-called Iron Dome interceptor system, this lacks the raw and bitter emotions of loss and grief that coloured October 7 last year. The default assumption is that Israel will retaliate by attacking Iran’s nuclear weapons plant. Certainly, Iran has offered them a perfect excuse and the temptation to deal with it once and for all must be enormous. (And surreptitiously encouraged by every national leader from Baghdad to Washington.) Still, Iran’s oil export infrastructure might be more immediately damaging, impacting as it would the country’s ability to earn foreign currency, as well as frustrating the gas-starved Iranian people.(And possibly drivers elsewhere: if Iran's export facilities are damaged, it will impact prices. Fill your tank tonight.)There is little point in speculation; we will know soon enough.The second thing is that any honest assessment undertaken by Israel’s enemies would have to recognize that they’re not very good at conventional warfare. The most harm to Israel that they have ever done did not involve tanks, armies or ballistic missiles, but terrorism. In contrast to the inconsequential results of today’s rocket barrage, several thousand Israelis have been killed over the years by suicide bombers, guns, knives, short range rockets and random acts of violence.Third, we have been here before.Those who track the gatherings of Gog and Magog thought the consummation of history was upon them in 1948, the year that the tiny, nascent state of Israel, spoken into existence by the UN, was surrounded by its enemies — that is, every Arab state in the Middle East.But they fought, they won and Armageddon was granted a stay.Same during the Suez Crisis of 1956, and in 1967 when Israel was surrounded by the combined forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq and trounced them all in less than a week — the Six Days War — and in 1973 at the time of Yom Kippur.And, there was the ongoing struggle with Hezbollah from 1985 to 2000, that led to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the ‘security zone’ it had established in the south of Lebanon. A few years later, an ill-conceived Hezbollah raid into Israel led to a three-week war and massive destruction in southern Lebanon. The uneasy un-peace that followed, endured until Hezbollah made common cause with Hamas last year, the day after the latter’s infamous raid on October 7.And so it goes on. No doubt those who live where pieces of shrapnel fall without notice from the sky have good reason to live in fear of the end of history.However, as Osama bin Laden said, people follow the strong horse. The events of today reveal that right now, Iran is not the strong horse.Israel is, and notably it has the practical support of the world's other strong horse, the US. President Biden could hardly have been more emphatic that Israel has the support of the US, and US warships shot down Iranian missiles. (In a happy irony, USS Cole was one of them.)Losing doesn't impress people. In fact it discourages them. So, whatever it meant to Iran's leaders to make a point by rocketing Israel, it didn't work. Meanwhile, nobody's calling to console the Iranians. Who in that part of the world wants to answer their phone these days, anyway?
