Is an Israel-Iran-America war imminent?

Michael Bauer has the best story about the looming Iran-Israel-America war. It’s about his two sons.

The weekend is coming, and the Israeli author’s sons are arguing about who should get to use the family car.

“I need the car on Friday,” says Bauer’s oldest son.

“No, I’ll need the car on Friday,” says his younger son, “unless there’ll be a war, and then I won’t need the car.” The older brother agrees: if there’s a war with Iran, he won’t really need the car, either.

The sold-out crowd at Beth Sholom Synagogue laugh. They’ve gathered on a cold Tuesday night to listen to Bauer, an engaging bestselling author, who teaches visiting Parliamentarians, politicians and others about the history of the Middle East during well-attended hikes through the wilderness.

Bauer continues, laughing himself. “The whole conversation was about who is gonna get the car,” he says, shaking his neatly-barbered head. “That’s what it is like [in Israel] right now. People are discussing the war as a technical issue, and it’s a bit weird.”

He continues. “There is a lot of trust in our [military] systems and the technology in the Iron Dome. That’s a lot of strength. And if you look at our list of enemies over the last two years, each one of them was defeated badly,” he says, referring to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Israelis, he says, are therefore not worried in the slightest about the - possible? likely? inevitable? - military confrontation between Israel, Iran and the United States.

But Bauer frowns. “There’s one battlefield we’ve completely lost, however,” he says. “And it’s the hearts and minds of young people all over the world.” (As the author of a just-released book on that subject, The Hidden Hand, I can say: Bauer’s right.)

Apart from that grim fact, Bauer says, the Middle East has changed dramatically since he last came to Canada to speak to the One Family Fund - an important Canadian charity that provides long-term emotional and financial support to those (whether Jewish, Muslim, Druze or Christian) who have lost a family member to a terror attack in Israel. In the year that has gone by, he says, Israel - always strong - has grown even stronger, militarily and regionally.

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