“Hear that frantic whispering noise beneath the hum of the air-conditioners in this sweltering Israeli summer? That’s the sound of many Israeli insiders repeating over and over and over: Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

“If I were an Iranian, I would be very fearful of the next 12 weeks,” Efraim Halevy, the wise and wily former Mossad chief observed in an Israel Radio interview early this month. Well, what some Israelis in the know are saying amounts to, “Never mind the Iranians, it’s the Israelis who need to be fearful. And we are. We’re terrified. We’re terrified our leaders are drawing us into disaster.”

But there’s another sound, too — other voices just as frantic. Do it, they urge. Do it, before it’s too late. Confound the cynics who say that you, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, can’t make a decision at the best of times and are given to panic at the worst. Remember, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, that those who snipe at you are lesser men, cynics and cowards. Trust your judgment. This is the eve of ’67 again. The imperative is to act.

When Halevy spoke, there were actually about 14 weeks until the US presidential elections. Now there are about 10. Ten weeks before America votes. Ten weeks before the skies cloud over, and complex, distant air strikes become still more complex. Ten weeks. Count them down.”

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