Netanyahu: with one bound he's free - for now
It stretches credulity to think that he didn't know what Iran's reaction would be to the attack on its Damascus consulate
The old fox has pulled it off again.
One minute Benjamin Netanyahu has the West on his back for razing Gaza to the ground. The next US and British warplanes, not to mention Jordan and possibly France (with intelligence assistance from Saudi Arabia), are riding to Israel’s rescue knocking out hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones.
You’d have to be very cynical to believe that the Israeli leader deliberately put his own people in harm’s way in order to provoke the Iranian attack and ease the pressure he faces over Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza.
Equally you’d have to be peculiarly blinkered not to see that Netanyahu’s Damascus gambit - and Iran’s predictable response – has distracted attention from the killing in Gaza and patched up Israel’s fraying relationship with America.
Sympathy has switched – overnight – from Palestinian civilians short of food, emergency healthcare, fuel and water to Israel under attack from Iran’s theocratic regime. In a sense, things have gone back to basics. Israel’s survival is back in the number one spot.
In the cold-hearted calculus of international relations, preventing a war between the Jewish state and an Islamic republic that wishes to destroy it, which then spreads threatening the world’s oil reservoir, is a higher priority than the fate of Gaza.
The Israeli attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus on 1 April marked an unprecedented escalation. Senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders died in the attack.
It’s worth unpacking this: Israeli warplanes attacked an Iranian diplomatic mission in the capital of a neighbouring country- Syria. This is sovereign Iranian territory however Israel wishes to define it. This while Israeli forces were deployed in Gaza following the October 7 massacre by Hamas. They were also simultaneously engaged in a war of attrition with Iran’s other proxy Hezbollah in northern Israel.
Some have portrayed this as hitting a ‘target of opportunity’. Revolutionary Guards operating in Damascus co-ordinating attacks on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah would have been on a standing hit list. Maybe they were.
But is it conceivable that such a spectacular operation in the current circumstances would have been carried out without the Israeli leader’s personal approval?
Equally plausible is that Netanyahu was looking for a way to distract from the war in Gaza where more than 33,000 Palestinians have died. He reasoned, correctly, that Israel’s survival and the threat of a wider conflict trumped the fate of the Palestinians.
Either way he finds himself, if not exactly off the hook, with some room for manoeuvre. Seen from Jerusalem Israel’s historic allies have stopped carping at his tactics and rallied round. Netanyahu will hope that this lasts until November’s US presidential elections and the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
Israel’s war cabinet has met to decide what its response to the Iranian attack should be. Its allies are urging it not to strike back. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) insists it must. Deterrence sits at the heart of Israel’s military doctrine. The fact that it has failed spectacularly is unlikely to change the mindset.
The Iranian attack appears to have been aimed at Israeli air bases. It was nevertheless substantial and marked a strategic shift in Tehran’s war aims. The fact that it largely failed underlined Iran’s military weakness. But it also underlined that, if it wants to, the Islamic republic can reach Israel with long-range missiles.
It’s conceivable that Netanyahu will try and ‘trade’ abandoning or minimising a retaliation against Iran (which considers the matter ‘closed’) for permission to launch an assault on the southern city of Rafah in Gaza.
As many as 1.5 million people are living in tents and makeshift shelters there, after fleeing fighting farther north. The US has warned Israel not to proceed without a clear plan to protect civilians. Netanyahu insists that several Hamas battalions are hiding in Rafah.
With Netanyahu, now deeply unpopular among Israelis, the game is all about survival. His own. He faces criminal charges for corruption. His security doctrine based on dividing and suppressing Palestinians has failed. Were an election to be held today his Likud party would be swept out of power.
By relying on ultra-religious parties to prop up his coalition he has prolonged his time in power. But he has also made a rod for his back. What drives the Religious Zionist Party is not immigration or economics it’s Jewish supremacy and naked anti-Arab racism. It’s what has driven Israel further and further to the right.
Netanyahu is an illusionist. He speaks of ‘ total victory’ against Hamas when he knows – because that is what this country’s history tells you – that’s a pipe dream.
There is no day after plan for Gaza. There isn’t really a plan about Iran other than the assumption that war between the two countries is inevitable.
It’s ironic but entirely understandable that the US (and the UK) were comfortable going into battle for Israel against Iran - and would no doubt do so again – but are not prepared to do the same over Ukraine. Russia is a nuclear power. Iran is not – yet.
But make no mistake: the odds on a big war have shortened thanks in part to the great manipulator.