Israel has reportedly sent messages to Iran through intermediaries that it intends to end the ongoing war within days — despite the fact that it has been accelerating its attacks and widening its targets this week.
The Times of Israel cited Israel’s Channel 12: “Israel has sent messages to Iran that Jerusalem is aiming for the air and missile war between the sides to end in days, Channel 12 reports.”
As Breitbart News reported earlier Monday, Israeli analysts on Army Radio had surmised that the country’s leaders had decided to wind down the war — possibly without an official armistice or deal, whether between Iran and Israel, or Iran and the United States. Iran does not have diplomatic relations with either country.
Reports suggested that the U.S. and Israel were considering a unilateral ceasefire, since the Iranian regime rejected the idea of a deal.
The Times of Israel noted that Israel could follow the approach it has taken in Lebanon, where a ceasefire ended the war in November. There is no official relationship between the two states, and Israel retains the right of action against Iran-backed Hezbollah and other terrorist groups that operate from Lebanese territory.
Iran has been at war, officially, with Israel and the U.S. for decades. It launched the current war when its proxy, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Hezbollah fired on Israel the next day and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen followed soon afterward, targeting Israeli civilians and Red Sea shipping.
Israel steadily rolled back those proxies before launching a surprise attack on Iran on June 13 (local time). After that attack, Israel suggested that the war against Iran might only last two weeks, i.e. until this Friday.
While expecting the war to wind down, Israel has also been expanding its attacks on the core institutions of the Iranian regime, hoping to create room for the Iranian opposition to emerge. “Regime change” is not a goal of Israel’s current war effort, but Israel aims to destabilize the regime and make its replacement possible.
Many Israelis will not consider the war over until all 50 hostages remaining in Hamas custody return home.
Iran fired ballistic missiles at two U.S. bases in the Middle East on Monday, but the missiles were intercepted by American defenses, and there were reports that Iran had telegraphed its attack to minimize the response, designing the attack as a face-saving measure rather than an attempt to damage the U.S. Depending on how the White House responds, Iran’s attacks could mark an ending to the war rather than an escalation.
An end to the war would mark one of the most stunning military successes in Israel’s history — and one of the most calamitous Iranian defeats. The Trump administration would also claim the war as a major success.
Not only would the president have fulfilled a campaign promise to stop Iran’s nuclear program — going back to his opening speech in Trump Tower in 2015 — but he would also have avoided a protracted conflict.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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