04/15/24

Good morning! It’s Monday, April 15th.

It is both tax day and national laundry day.

So congrats boring people – you’ve got yourself a whole day of stuff!

And now, the news.

Iran Launches Rockets into Israel

-via AP News, CNN, CNN, NPR, ECFR, NBC News, NPR

Just one story today because it’s a big one.

Late Saturday night, Iran launched 120 ballistic missiles, 170 drones, and more than 30 cruise missiles into Israel, in an attack that lasted around five hours.

Let’s talk about how we got here, and what we know about what happens next.

First – how did we get here?

Iran and Israel have been engaged in a shadow was for decades, but it wasn’t always this way. In fact, in 1984, Iran was the second Muslim-majority country, after Turkey, to recognize Israel as a sovereign state.

However, in Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, their new leader pursued a policy of standing up to what they saw as “arrogant” world leaders, and in this time the United States became known, in Iran, as “Great Satan,” while Israel was known as “Little Satan.”

There’s a lot at play here but prior to the revolution, Israel owed Iran about a billion dollars for trade and supplies. In 1979, Israel decided against paying that bill and granted legal indemnity to Israeli companies that were also in debt to Iran.

Iran has actually been suing Israel for that money since the 80s. As recently as 2015, a Swiss court ordered an Israeli petroleum company to pay $1.1 billion to Iran, which Israel still refuses to do.

In the post-1979 world, all official relations between Israel and Iran were cut off. Since then, both sides have dug in and aligned themselves with other countries.

In the late 80s, Iran began to gradually support groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as a way garner their own security.

Hamas acted alone in their October 7th attack against Israel, but many believe it wouldn’t have been possible without Iran’s support of Hamas through the decades.

And that attack, and Israeli’s subsequent response, has only made things worse between Iran and Israel.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel since October 7th. Houthi rebels in Yemen, also supported by Iran, have fired ballistic missiles at an Israeli town as well as attacked shipping vessels in the Red Sea since the attack.

So Iran’s been in the mix, but kind of by proxy.

Which brings us to April 1st, when an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital killed two of the country’s top commanders, as well as five military advisors in Iran’s military and political organization.

Iran promised retaliation, and that came in the form of Saturday night into early Sunday morning’s attack.

All but a few of the drones and missiles were intercepted by Israel and allies – allies that include the United States.

There is currently only one known casualty – a seven-year-old girl who was struck by shrapnel.

So where do we go from here?

Well, the bummer is that, as of this recording, the answer is… unknown.

Israel’s war cabinet met on Sunday but it was not clear what they will do in response.

In an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Israel’s ambassador to the UN said that Iran’s attack “crossed every red line,” while Iran’s ambassador called the attack a “necessary and proportionate” act of self-defense after the April 1st airstrike.

The Biden administration said that, while the U.S. will continue to defend Israel, it does not envision being a part of any offensive operations against Iran.

Biden has also spoken with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and urged him chill, essentially telling him to take the W – because, as a reminder, 99% of the drones and missiles were blocked.

Amidst all of this – while thousands of displaced Palestinians attempted to make their way back to their homes in Northern Gaza on Sunday, Israeli troops fired upon them – killing five and injuring 23 others.

I don’t know where we go from here, and anyone that tells you otherwise is either a time traveler or lying. Don’t get me wrong, people know more than me. A lot of people do, that’s not that surprising. But right now, this moment, is a tenuous one and unless you’ve got the phone number to leaders in Hamas, Iran, or Israel, right now all we can do is hope against hope that cooler heads prevail.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

This will be one of big stories for the day. The other is, of course, the start of the first criminal trial for any former president as Trump starts his hush money (better name pending) trial. Jury selection begins today.

I’m proud of laundry. When done well, it smells great. When done poorly, it’s still clean clothes. Very important.

But more than that… because you are also very important… I’m proud of you.