Always Look on the Bright Side of Cyber-War

Like the kinetic type of war, I suppose cyber-war can usually do no more than buy time for other factors to take hold rather than provide the victory itself. And while the threshold of deciding to wage cyber-war is surely lower than shooting war, you have to admit that the advantage is that there is no shooting.

Israel is waging cyber-war with Iran right now:

Israel is apparently involved in a Cyber War with Iran, one that receives little official publicity. Not even all the damage is publicized, as a lot of the damage is undetected (often for a long time) by the victim. While Iran has made the most noise about this Cyber War, Israel is doing the most destruction. Israel wants to keep it that way, and keep it quiet.

Given the stated importance to Israel of preventing Iran from going nuclear, I think that the ability to wage war in cyber-space may have prevented an actual shooting war in physical space. If the cyber-option wasn't available, would Israel have used the bombing option by now?

I know people like to say Israel couldn't do it, but that is wrong. They couldn't do nearly as good a job as we could, and they just aren't confident that they could succeed. But if they think they have no choice but to try a bombing attack or to see if they can live with Iranian nukes, Israel will bomb Iran.

Cyber-war is surely better than shooting war. Until it isn't, of course.