It has been another strange two days in Israel. It began a few minutes before I woke up, early on Monday morning, when the quiet of the dawn was abruptly broken by a rocket that directly struck a house on a Moshav in central Israel. Most of the residents of the home made it to the safe room in time, and were only lightly wounded. The grandmother in the multi-generational home, however, was not as lucky. While her wounds are not life-threatening, they are serious. No Iron Dome was in place to protect the area, since the Army does only deploys batteries when they believe there is going to be an attack — and this early morning strike was not expected. When I heard the news, I was sure we were headed toward another war.

This week was the first time in six years that residents of the center of the country were wounded by a Hamas rocket. This happened ten days after a missile landed on a Tel Aviv suburb— after which, the government decided it was convenient to accept Hamas’s absurd claim that the missile had been fired “by mistake”. A rocket had been fired at Beersheva a few months ago, which Hamas also insisted was a “mistake.” All of these attacks happened after we had effectively turned the other cheek in November, when 500+ rockets hit the South, because Prime Minister Netanyahu had said Israel had a to deal with a much more time-sensitive problem on the Northern border.

I believed that even though Netanyahu was in Washington, and despite his inherent caution to act, this time, taking merely symbolic action would not suffice. When Netanyahu announced he would cut his Washington trip short, it seemed even more apparent that we were headed toward war. By the afternoon, my scheduled appearance on i24News to cover the White House meeting was canceled, as studios moved to cover war preparation on their broadcasts.

As the sun began to set, Israeli aircraft started their bombing runs, in response to the morning attack. However, it quickly became clear that what was happening was a carefully choreographed show. Israel, once again, attacked empty buildings. As the night wore on, more and more buildings were blown up, and yet, there was not one report of a single Hamas member killed or wounded. Within a few hours, after Hamas fired a few missiles at the communities surrounding Gaza, ceasefire talks began — and by the time Netanyahu ended his meetings in Washington, and set out for Andrews Air Base, this round of hostilities was effectively all over. Israel had hit dozens of empty buildings and military posts; posts that had been bombed repeatedly over the past year.

Netanyahu ultimately decided that two weeks before the election it was less risky to be accused of doing little to deter Hamas than to enter into a war; a war whose beginning is easy to predict, but whose outcome can never be assured. Netanyahu had hoped to have a great moment with Trump in the White House, gaining the gift of US recognition of the Golan.

Unfortunately, during those same moments Netanyahu was in the White House, missiles were falling on the towns around Gaza, and the Israeli Air Force was in the midst of bombing Gaza.

Before getting on the plane back to Israel, Netanyahu complained to Israeli reporters that the signing of the US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan did not get more coverage.

Upon returning to Israel, the man who is officially Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and Foreign Minister did not call a meeting of the security cabinet. Netanyahu did not speak to the Israeli public to explain the decisions he made. Netanyahu relied on his satellite speech to AIPAC, in which he falsely stated that the Israeli response to Hamas yesterday was the hardest attack on Gaza since the last war — as the only words the Israeli public would hear from him about the confrontation with Gaza

The events of the past two days will cost the Likud at the polls, and no doubt strengthen the extreme right. How much, remains to be seen.
NOTE: Of course, everything I wrote here needs to be read taking in account that since I started writing there has been another exchange of missile and air attacks between Israel and Hamas.