We are at war, therefore we are
Israeli rescue forces at the scene where an Iranian ballistic missile hit a residential area in central Tel Aviv, 28 February 2026
Orly Noy writes inn +972 1 March 2026:
The siren shattered the silence of Saturday morning across Israel. Not to urge civilians to rush to shelters, but rather to announce the outbreak of war itself — almost like a triumphant fanfare. After more than a week of nerve-wracking uncertainty, tossed between tense anticipation of a war we were told repeatedly was unavoidable, and faint hopes that diplomacy might yet prevail, it was finally upon us.
“You can’t step in the same river twice,” goes the saying by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. But apparently you can destroy an enemy you already proclaimed destroyed. Only eight months ago, following the ceasefire with Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “in the 12 days of Operation Rising Lion, we achieved a historic victory, which will stand for generations.”
It turns out this “historic victory” did not last even a single year, let alone generations.
This time, the attack came with an added objective: liberating the Iranian people from the oppressive rule of the ayatollahs. For it is well known that one of Israel’s central roles in the Middle East is to rain freedom upon the peoples of the region with fighter jets and bombers.
Suddenly, Iranian lives have become very dear to Israeli hearts; so dear that they are willing to spend long nights in bomb shelters, knowing that they will face heavy casualties on their own side, provided our pilots deliver good news of freedom — or at least the assassination of Iran’s leadership and the destruction of Revolutionary Guard infrastructure and nuclear facilities.