Is Iran Planning an Attack to Bring Down Netanyahu?

Iran may be planning a preemptive strike on Israel as Israel’s October 27 election approaches.

That's the assessment of Brigadier General (Ret.) Amir Avivi, the founder and CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF). Avivi noted on October 14 that Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir recently canceled a planned trip to the United States because of a heightened alert level, and that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Mossad, and Shin Bet are on full readiness. High-ranking officers in the General Staff and Northern Command have told Avivi that there is evidence that Iran and other enemies of Israel want to interfere in the election, specifically to bring down Prime Minister Netanyahu's government. He explained the Iranians' likely calculation:

They’re very, very scared and deterred by [Netanyahu]. They see what happened in the last three years. They know that the overall strategy is to bring down the Iranian regime and dismantle the whole Shia axis. They see the proactivity and determination, and they don’t want this to continue. They are looking for ways to impact the elections in a way that will be favorable for them.

A surprise attack, following the two times Israel and the U.S. surprised Iran, would be a form of revenge. But Avivi says that because the two allies are monitoring “very, very, very closely every movement in Iran,” he thinks the IDF is prepared to deal with the threat.

Iran’s proxies still present a danger. Hezbollah is reportedly rearming in Lebanon, and Hamas is trying to rebuild its capabilities. The Jerusalem Post reported on October 14 that Israeli military officials say Hamas’s military wing is attempting to strengthen its forces.

If that weren’t enough, the Netanyahu government is also warning about a new threat from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Last week, Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “The IDF is preparing for a scenario in which the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus turns its weapons against Israeli settlers and IDF forces in Judea and Samaria and in communities along the Seam Zone.” Avivi noted that the PA has 60,000 armed personnel who are supposed to deal with internal security, but that they could use these weapons to attack Israel. He warned:

If they try to do that, I think it will end with the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority and the complete destruction of other capabilities. But having said that, and even if [the Israeli government] approved plans, this doesn’t mean that we’ll necessarily have, at the right time, the intelligence that they’re going to do something, because this kind of attack, especially when talking about the personnel of the Palestinian Authority, might be spontaneous. It might be something that will start without any prior intelligence, and this worries me. It’s very hard to be ready for something that might be spontaneous, and therefore the question is: do we wait, or do we actually do something more proactive and start dismantling before?

That’s not all, of course. Terror attacks remain a big concern. Following the attempted hijacking of a flydubai flight last month, Israel is worried about attacks targeting other airplanes, embassies, tourists, and Jewish communities around the world.

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Ynet reported Wednesday that Israeli officials said there is unlikely to be an Israeli preemptive attack on Iran before the election. The outlet quoted an Iranian official as saying, “There is an understanding that without a U.S. ground operation, there is no chance of achieving anything different or new. Repeating more of the same before the U.S. elections would be a political disaster for Trump.” However, Avivi is not ruling out preemptive Israeli action in Iran or elsewhere, saying: “If we have the intelligence at the right time, we will attack first. We will do a preemptive attack, so we might see, before the election, some kind of preemptive attack, whether it’s in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Judea and Samaria, the Mossad, somewhere in Europe, or I don’t know where."

As Israel faces this array of threats, Americans who question the U.S.-Israel alliance should remember that Israel’s enemies also hate and threaten the U.S. The PA celebrated Al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the U.S. In 1983, Hezbollah attacked the United States Marine Barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American service members. Hamas has called for attacks on the U.S. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard plotted to assassinate President Donald Trump in 2024.

It should be obvious why Victor Davis Hanson says, "I support Israel for one reason: It is in the interest of my country, the United States.”

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are once again respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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