On June 22, American B-2 bombers dropped hundreds of tons of explosives on three nuclear sites in Iran—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Right after President Trump announced that the pilots were out of Iranian air space, the world started to learn the details of Operation Midnight Hammer, the extraordinary American mission to neutralize Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. News coverage started immediately—and some of the most incisive and careful analysis appeared outside of the legacy media. Some of the best news coverage in English could be found at the Free Press, the Daily Wire, and the Call Me Back podcast.

 

Rather than bring on the guests who’ve already offered up their analysis in those venues, we thought it would be valuable to have a series of conversations on dimensions of this war—not only Operation Midnight Hammer, but the last two weeks beginning with the Israeli airstrikes on Iran—that take up some of the deeper, less immediate concerns. War is violent and bloody. But war is also a teacher, and it reveals things about the nations who wage it.

 

“Living Through History: Learning from the Twelve-Day War” is a series of conversations from the Tikvah Podcast at Mosaic and featuring its host, Jonathan Silver. These include a discussion with Rabbi Meir Soloveichik on what the war reveals about providence and Jewish history; with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour about what the war reveals about the clash of civilizations; with the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, about what the war reveals about the U.S.- Israel relationship at this moment in Zionist history; and with Victor Davis Hanson about what the war reveals about the American interest. Today you can listen to the first, with Rabbi Soloveichik.