What Israel’s latest attacks tell us about Netanyahu’s next move

Israel’s ground invasion of Lebanon is nearing the end of its second week, as Israel’s war enters its second year. Calls for a ceasefire have grown following an airstrike in Beirut on Thursday night and the wounding of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Friday, for a second day of military fire Israel.

A new offensive is taking place in Jabalia, northern Gaza, despite repeated calls for an end to the conflict there. Israel’s allies also called for restraint as the country prepares to retaliate against Iran after last week’s ballistic missile attack.

However, Israel will continue to follow its own path and resist this pressure, because of three factors: October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu and the United States.

It was January 2020 when Iranian general Qassem Soleimani landed at Baghdad airport on a night flight from Damascus. Soleimani was the head of Iran’s notorious Quds Force, an elite, secretive unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps that specializes in operations abroad.

The group – whose name means Jerusalem and whose main rival is Israel – is responsible for arming, training, funding and directing overseas proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and beyond. again. At the time, Soleimani was perhaps the second most powerful man in Iran, after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

When Soleimani’s convoy left the airport, it was destroyed by missiles fired from drones that killed him instantly.

Although Israel provided intelligence to help locate its archenemy, the drone belonged to the United States. The assassination order was given by then US President Donald Trump, not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I will never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down,” former President Trump later said in a speech referring to the assassination of Soleimani. In a separate interview, Trump also suggested that he had expected Israel to take a more active role in the attack and complained that Netanyahu was “willing to fight Iran to the last American soldier.”

While Trump’s account of events is disputed, it was believed at the time that Netanyahu, who praised the killing, was concerned that Israel’s direct involvement could incite a coup. large-scale attacks against Israel, directly from Iran or its proxies in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories. Israel is waging a shadow war with Iran, but each side is careful to keep the fighting within certain limits for fear of provoking the other into a larger-scale conflict.

Just over four years later, in April of this year, the same Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israeli jets to bomb a building in the Iranian diplomatic complex in Damascus, killing two Iranian generals among others. .

Then in July, Israeli Prime Minister authorized the assassination of Fuad ShukrHezbollah’s top military commander, during an airstrike on Beirut. According to a new book by Bob Woodward, the current US president’s reaction was reportedly to curse him, who claimed that President Joe Biden was aghast that the Israeli prime minister was preparing to escalate a conflict that the White House trying to cause. ends in many months.

“You know, the perception of Israel around the world is increasingly that you are a rogue state, a rogue actor,” President Biden is said to have said.

This same prime minister, considered too cautious by one American president, was then criticized by his successor for being too aggressive.

What separates these two periods is of course October 7, 2023 – the bloodiest day in Israeli history and a catastrophic political, military and intelligence failure.

What binds these two moments, however, is Netanyahu’s defiance of the will of an American president.

Both of these factors help explain how Israel continues to pursue its current war.

Israel’s most recent wars ended within weeks, as international pressure grew to the point where the United States insisted on a ceasefire.

The ferocity and scale of Hamas’s offensive against Israel, the impact on Israeli society and its sense of security, has meant that this war has always been unlike any other recent conflict.

For the US administration pouring billions of dollars worth of weapons into Israel, the death and suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza is deeply unpleasant and politically damaging to the administration. For America’s critics in the region, the superpower’s apparent inability to influence the largest recipient of US aid is puzzling.

Even after US jets participated in repelling Iranian attacks on Israel in April – a clear sign that Israel’s security is guaranteed by its larger ally – Israel continues to block efforts to change the course of its war.

This summer, Israel chose to escalate the conflict with Hezbollah without first seeking US permission.

As Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu has learned from more than 20 years of experience that American pressure is something he can endure, if not ignore. Netanyahu knows that the United States, especially in an election year, will not take action to force him to deviate from his chosen path (and believes that, in any case, he is also fighting America’s enemies). .

Especially when it comes to the latest escalation, it would be a mistake to assume that Netanayhu is operating outside the Israeli political mainstream. If anything, The pressure on him will be harder to strike harder at Hezbollah, as well as Iran.

When plans for a ceasefire in Lebanon were put forward by the United States and France last month, criticism of the proposed 21-day ceasefire came from the opposition and main left-wing groups in Israel as well as right-wing parties.

Israel is determined to continue its wars now, not only because it feels it can withstand international pressure but also because Israel’s ability to withstand the threats it faces has changes after October 7.

Hezbollah has for years declared its goal of invading the Galilee in northern Israel. Now that the Israeli public has experienced the reality of gunmen entering homes, that threat cannot be contained but must be eliminated.

Israel’s perception of risk has also changed. Long-standing notions of military red lines in the region have evaporated. Several actions have been taken over the past year that until recently could have led to a full-blown conflict, dropping bombs and missiles on Tehran, Beirut, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israel assassinated the head of Hamas when he was a guest of the Iranians in Tehran; it also killed the entire leadership of Hezbollah, including Hassan Nasrallah; it assassinated senior Iranian officials inside diplomatic buildings in Syria.

Hezbollah has fired more than 9,000 missiles, rockets and drones at Israeli cities, including ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv. Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen have also launched large rockets at Israeli cities, which were intercepted by Israeli defense systems as they reentered the Earth’s atmosphere above central Israel. Iran has launched not one but two attacks on Israel in the past six months with more than 500 drones and missiles. Israel has invaded Lebanon.

In the past, any of these could have sparked a regional war. The reality is that none of that changes the way the typically cautious, risk-averse Israeli prime minister decides on his next move.

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