By Jacob Nagel
Now is the time to implement one of the major changes in Israel’s national security strategy that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began in 2017-2018 – by punishing not only those who attack Israel directly, as the IDF and Shin Bet have done in recent days against the PIJ in Gaza – but also the actors who fund and send them under the expectation that they would be treated with impunity: i.e. Iran. The punishment does not have to be immediate or direct, as this could have the region spiral into all-out war. There are many ways to punish and weaken Iran indirectly, including from the inside by, for example, supporting the protesters taking to the streets of the Islamic Republic.
Brigadier General (res.) Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a visiting professor at the Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. He previously served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security advisor and head of the National Security Council (acting).
