April 30, 2024: Iran launched over 300 hundred UAVs and ballistic missiles at Israel on April 13th. This was in retaliation for an April 1 Israeli air strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed two senior IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) leaders. Iran retaliated with an unprecedented direct attack on Israel using missiles and UAVs launched from Iran rather than just using the usual Iran-backed proxies of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Israeli air defenses, American aircraft and warships, British aircraft and Jordanian aircraft and air defenses offshore destroyed all of the Iranian UAVs and missiles headed for inhabited areas in Israel. The Jordanians took down Iranian drones violating Jordanian airspace. British jet fighters operated from a base Britain has long maintained on the island of Cyprus. It only takes 40 minutes for an aircraft to fly from the Cyprus base to Israel. Despite the hundreds of UAVs and missiles launched at Israel, the only damage done occurred at an Israeli air force base in southern Israel. The damage was described as minor and there were a few civilian casualties, mainly from the debris of intercepted UAVs and missiles falling to the ground.

After their attack was concluded, Iran said that their retaliation was over. The implication was that if Israel retaliated it would be an unjustified act war. Iran might just appeal to the UN and world opinion to declare Israel the aggressor.

Meanwhile Iran-supported groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and various other terror groups like ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) were ordered to attack Israel. Iran is so desperate to destroy or weaken Israel that it cooperates with extremist Arab Sunni Moslems, who rarely cooperate with each other and often attack members of the minority Shia Islam factions like Iran.

Iran is unique in that it is a nation of Indo-European people living in a region dominated by Arab Sunnis and a relatively small number of Israeli Indo-European and Semitic Jews. Hatred of Jews and Christians is an old custom in the region which is changing as more affluent Gulf Arabs seek to do business with the even more affluent Jews of Israel and Christians of Lebanon. These new attempts to establish cooperation were disrupted by Hamas, a Sunni Palestinian group that has been around since the 1980s and recently sought to drive Israelis out of Gaza, an area that Hamas ruled for nearly two decades and, until October 2023, only occasionally attacked Israel. Hamas radicals convinced many Hamas Gaza Palestinians to attack Israel and seek to replace Israel with a Palestinian State.

That effort failed but some residual violence is still taking place outside Gaza, in the Palestinian Left Bank territory, which holds three million Palestinians ruled by corrupt leaders who, when it is in their interest, encourage Palestinians to attack Israelis. Shia Iran rarely gets involved with what goes on in the Christian and Sunni Palestinian Left Bank. Iran does sponsor Hezbollah, a large Shia Arab militia in southern Lebanon that frequently fires rockets, supplied by Iran, into Israel. Iran has long been content to just support Hezbollah and use the militia to engage in any mischief Iran approves of. Hezbollah also collects information about Israeli activities for the Iranians. Israel knows this and only bashes Hezbollah a bit while obtaining information about Hezbollah and Iranian activities in the area by using informants, often Lebanese Christians who do this so they can obtain refuge in Israel if they are threatened in Lebanon.

Espionage and efforts to revive ancient animosities have become common activities in Lebanon, which has been a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-national state for centuries. Iranian interference is not appreciated by the locals because the Iranians are active in an effort to promote violence against Israel. The locals realize this is a bad idea because the Israelis are the best armed group and militarily powerful group in the region. Israel also has the Americans and several European nations as trading partners and allies. As an old saying goes, choose your friends carefully and your enemies even more carefully. This attitude has been practiced for thousands of years in the Middle East and applies now more than ever.