How the Israel-Iran rope-a-dope ends

My father's boxing lessons taught me that a fight with the neighborhood bully must conclude with a knockout – and now is our chance

By Michael Oren

Evenings after coming home from work, my father taught me how to box. The only Jewish kid in a working-class neighborhood, I was being bullied by a slightly older antisemite who was very good with his fists. I wasn’t. So my father, a former amateur lightweight, dug up his old Everlast gloves and trained me always to lead with my left, again and again, distracting and exhausting my opponent to the point where he let his guard down. Then you deliver a roundhouse right – “the haymaker,” he called it – a knockout punch straight to the jaw.

I’ve been thinking about my father’s lessons throughout this year of seemingly endless war and the decades of conflict before it. Israel’s enemies, it occurs to me, have been leading with their left. The limited war with Hezbollah in 2006 and then those with Hamas in 2008, 2012, and 2014 – all were designed to deplete us and wear away our international legitimacy. The onslaught of October 7 was a singularly agonizing jab, but still only a left. The right has yet to be landed. The knockout punch, the haymaker, is the Iranian nuclear weapon.

Avoiding that blow required preemption. “Lunge first,” my father instructed me. “Strike fast with all your strength. Don’t let the other guy recover.” Israel, tragically, has yet to deliver that blow. Instead, we have focused on deflecting the enemy’s repeated lefts while the Iranian nuclear program enriches enough uranium for multiple bombs. Not even the recent revelation of Iran’s extensive role in the training and financing of Hamas’s October 7 attack altered Israel’s fixation on the lefts.

Iran’s haymaker is coming, and the only question is whether Israel is prepared to deliver ours first. Can Israel, in classic boxing fashion, use Iran’s strategy against it? Will Israel emulate Muhammad Ali, the greatest pugilist of all time, in adopting the tactic of “rope-a-dope?”

Though not taught to me by my father, “rope-a-dope” was known to all sports fans of my generation. Ali would simply put his gloves up, covering his face, and let his opponent pound them repeatedly to no effect. Finally, with the challenger utterly fatigued, Ali would inflict his lethal right. An eight-count would follow, concluding with a bell.

Israel, too, could play rope-a-dope with Iran, parlaying its proxies’ attacks while wearing down the Ayatollahs’ resources. We could also lead them to believe that we’re concentrating solely on their left jabs and ignoring their impending right. We could lull them into a worn-out sense of security and then, unexpectedly, deliver the knock-out.

My father’s lessons worked. When next accosted by the Jew-hating bully, I suggested that we fight like gentlemen and challenged him to a match. We each got a pair of the Everlasts and started to box. Hackneyed as it sounds, he never laid a glove on me. Rather, I let him tire and fluster himself blocking my lefts until I could exploit his unguarded face. The bell – had there been one – pealed my victory.

I recalled that experience while reviewing our many rounds of conflict with Iran. They cannot conclude with a tie. My father, of blessed memory, would tell us, as he once assured me, now is our chance to strike. We may not get another.