Prepare and deter
On Wednesday, Israel deployed the Iron Dome and other missile interception units, recruited a limited number of reserve soldiers from the Homefront Command and intelligence units, and opened the doors of gas mask distribution centers just a bit wider.
The other option was to rely on reason and the gut feeling that Syrian President Bashar Assad will do nothing, and broadcast to Israelis not to change their routine. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, and all options have their own cost.
The government chose to call up reservists, hand out masks and deploy air defenses. The advantage of this choice is clear: Assad cannot hope to surprise Israel and repeat the early days of the Second Lebanon War, when Israel seemed not to know what it was doing. And assuming he is a rational leader, Assad will be deterred from attacking Israel, especially after Benjamin Netanyahu hinted not so subtly that he would topple his regime should Assad fire missiles at Israeli cities.
The decision was correct, but every government and every individual needs to be aware of its cost: Assad may have been deterred, but part of the Israeli public has been seized by panic and a wartime gloom. What is imagined and expected creates a new reality, even if nothing has actually changed on the ground.
Labor's Isaac (Buji) Herzog, who on Tuesday presented himself as a candidate to head the Labor party, and who for over two years has had close relations with Syria's secular opposition, said the writing was on the wall. There were practical and moral reasons to forge an alliance with Syria's opposition. Not to send the IDF to the battlegrounds, but to take the side of Assad's enemies and provide them with political and humanitarian aid in greater amounts than they have received so far.
In retrospect, he was right. Practically, it was true at every moment throughout the civil war. Any added Israeli involvement could have dragged the IDF into Syria, which would not have been good for it.
Even now the picture is murky. The sides are playing poker. Assad's distant allies in Lebanon and Iran are promising to intervene in the battle as a reward should he attack Israel. Why Israel? Because in the anti-Semitic mindset, it is permissible to shed Israeli blood, and there is no one in the entire Arab world, not even the Israeli Arab voters of MKs Ahmad Tibi and Hanin Zoabi, who will stand up and say that this constitutes harassment by the axis of evil against the Jewish state. Integrity is not one of their goals.
When it comes down to it, U.S. President Barack Obama will most likely respond to international requests to moderate and slow down the attack on Syria. His attack will probably be a one-time measured affair that strikes him as a proportionate military response for the use of chemical weapons, but not more than that.
Israel must be ready. In my estimate, Assad's internal logic, inherited from his father, will take precedence over his desire for war, and no practical harm will come to Israel. But the state is not a private citizen. It cannot depend on a cruel tyrant's realization that it is not in his interest to expand the war to Israel. In the meantime, our nerves will continue to plague us.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו