Is the Purim War of 2026 the final curtain for Israel’s modern Persian foe?
The senior Iranian leadership who gathered at 8 a.m. on Shabbos morning likely thought that they’d lived to fight another day. Despite the vast aerial and naval armada assembled on their doorstep, another tense night had ended with only breakfast on the horizon.
First, Thursday night had passed without an Israeli strike of the kind that it had unleashed in last June’s 12-Day War. Then Friday night had passed without American stealth bombers unleashing their deadly payloads over the vast country.
So, as the sun lit up the skies of Tehran on Saturday — the first day of the Iranian workweek — Ayatollah Khamenei and his senior security officials knew that they were safe, at least until nightfall. The Americans and Israelis, they knew, never struck in daylight.
Or so they thought — because one six-decade-old historical lesson had escaped them. On June 5, 1967, at 7:45 a.m., as Egyptian pilots concluded their dawn patrols and headed for breakfast, the Israeli Air Force struck in an opening blow that changed history.
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