Rising Lions: Israel’s Attack on Iran
Friday June 13, 2025 – Friday June 13, 2025 – י״ז סִיוָן תשפ”ה
Rising Lions: Israel’s Attack on Iran
Israelis were awoken at 3 am Friday to country-wide sirens urging them to head to safe rooms and shelters. Israel carried out a massive attack on Iran dubbed Operation “עם כלביא” (“Am K’Lavi”) – “Rising Lion” – taken from the biblical verse of Numbers 23:24,1 and chock-full of symbolism. Our regular newsletter this week deals with seemingly more mundane issues and focuses on the internal Jewish question of how we as a Jewish people and as Reform Jews struggle to be accepted, with an emphasis on the recent hate speech against Reform Jews in Israel’s Knesset. After the game-changing events of the past 12 hours, that seems like a distant and alternate reality.
Israel is awaiting a response, which the Iranians have vowed will be severe.
There will no doubt be those who rush to condemn Israel’s actions and see them as aggressors, and those who rush to Israel’s defense, as Iran has been behind nearly every major terrorist attack for the past four decades, including the funder and backer of the October 7th massacres. Iran has been the source of armed proxies throughout the region, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen, who have wreaked havoc on Israel and threatened to cause regional and even global harm. No independent sovereign State should have to live under constant threat of annihilation, and Iran has not softened its determination to destroy the Jewish State. Its behavior through the continued development of its nuclear and ballistic capability has only reflected its determination.
While we may never fully know the full extent of the calculation and reasoning behind last night’s timing, Prime Minister Netanyahu justified his latest military campaign by saying that Iran was a “clear and present danger.” And Iran was indeed enriching uranium to worrisome levels. It’s believed to be just weeks from having enough fissile material to make several bombs.
What we know so far is that Iranian state television confirmed that the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, was killed in Israel’s strikes. Also killed was Mohammad Bagheri, the commander-in-chief of the military and the second-highest commander after the supreme leader, according to the Israeli army and Iranian media, as well as several other top security officials and nuclear scientists.
Israel attacked the Natanz nuclear facility, with its many subterranean levels, which is thought of as the beating heart of the Iranian nuclear program. The Israeli military said it had “caused significant damage” at Natanz and hit an underground compound housing centrifuges.
The Israeli military says 200 warplanes participated in the overnight attack in Iran, dropping hundreds of bombs across the country and striking over 100 targets. The attack on Tehran was the biggest since the Iran-Iraq war decades ago.
The IDF, in an official statement issued soon after Israel began attacking Iran’s nuclear program, described the resort to force as a “preemptive strike.”
David Horovitz, Editor of The Times of Israel, asks,
“Why preemptive? Because, in the assessment of Israel’s security chiefs, Iran’s nuclear weapons program had advanced to the point of an existential threat, from a regime avowedly seeking to bring about Israel’s destruction. After years of vows to take military action, the IDF’s Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, in a statement to the nation, declared that the situation had “reached the point of no return.”
While we will still learn more about the Israel-U.S. coordination, Israel is operating under the assumption that the United States will have Israel’s back.
President Donald Trump initially said that “the U.S. will defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates,” hours after Israel launched airstrikes across Iran. This morning, in a post on “Truth Social,” President Trump commented on the Israeli strikes, saying he gave “Iran chance after chance to make a deal…but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done.”
Many questions remain, the most stressful of course is regarding the anticipated Iranian response, which they have vowed will be severe.
More Questions Than Answers
Many questions are up in the air, to which we do not have answers.
The immediate fear element is regarding Iran’s anticipated retaliation.
According to Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon, many in Israel suspect that Iran, fearing to look like a paper tiger, will respond far more forcefully than it did after Israel’s previous strikes in October 2024. Then, Iran sent over 300 drones and ballistic missiles, most of which were intercepted or landed in open areas, causing at least $40 million worth of property damage in Israel.
Beyond that we are struggling with many questions:
- How long will this last?
- What is Israel’s deterrence capability against an Iranian response?
- How much damage was actually done to Natanz and the Iranian capability to enrich uranium and to continue to develop an expanding ballistic missile program, which could themselves present a serious, if not existential, threat?
- How deeply is America involved?
- What will be the reactions of the international community?
In addition to the life and death matters, we are all watching closely the closing of schools and activities, amidst the prohibition for in-person gatherings, the airline cancellations, leaving many people stranded both in Israel and abroad, and the impact this will have on summer trips and tourism, and the long-lasting impact of war.
In the meantime, we offer our support and solidarity to the people and the State of Israel, and let us pray for a future where we can have power and restraint, and that the people of Israel can live in peace with its neighbors. As we read in this week’s Torah Portion, Behaalotecha:
׆ וַיְהִי בִּנְסֹעַ הָאָרֹן וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה קוּמָה יְהֹוָה וְיָפֻצוּ אֹיְבֶיךָ וְיָנֻסוּ מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ מִפָּנֶיךָ׃ (במדבר י:לה)
“When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O יהוה ! May Your enemies be scattered, And may Your foes flee before You!” (Numbers 10:35)
And let us pray:
יְהֹוָה עֹז לְעַמּוֹ יִתֵּן יְהֹוָה יְבָרֵךְ אֶת־עַמּוֹ בַשָּׁלוֹם׃ (תהילים כט:יא)
“May Adonai grant strength to God’s people;
May Adonai grant God’s people with peace.” (Psalm 29:11)
Stay tuned for answers to these questions and many others as we enter what we hope can be a Shabbat of Shalom.