“Take the win,” President Biden reportedly advised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone attacks against Israel sputtered shambolically to an ignominious end.
As the world waits on tenterhooks for Israel’s response, two things seemed clear. It would be political suicide for Mr. Netanyahu to take the president’s advice, and it would be national suicide for any Israeli prime minister to do so. Mr. Biden is primarily worried about his re-election, a cause he conveniently if sincerely conflates with the survival of democracy in the U.S. and of freedom in the world. Israel is worried about something more tangible—the survival of the world’s only Jewish state.