The war Netanyahu needs and Biden doesn’t
Benjamin Netanyahu will not be remembered kindly by history. Let’s face it, he isn’t even kindly regarded today by Israelis.
Prior to the current war, many citizens were already rallying against their Prime Minister’s proposed authoritarian controls over the judiciary. After the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, many more see him as being complacent and negligent. They also point to his inability or unwillingness to focus on a deal that would bring home the remaining hostages.
If an election were held in Israel right now, it seems very unlikely that Netanyahu would emerge as the leader of any new government.
Meanwhile, the carnage in Gaza has drawn condemnation from around the world and Israel’s standing has been severely undermined. Privately, Joe Biden rails against Bibi and his intransigence, apparently describing the former special forces soldier and veteran politician as an ‘asshole’.
All the same, we should never lose sight of the fact that Netanyahu is surely one of the wiliest of political operators on the global stage.
He is a master of the horse-trading that characterises the Israeli political scene (a product of the country’s very pure system of proportional representation). And he is one of those leaders — think of Boris Johnson or Donald Trump — whose whole approach to political life seems to be about self-preservation and advancement.
As long as he’s in office, he’s able to hold off the legal process related to alleged corruption. So it’s imperative he keeps on going and holds together his fragile coalition, which includes individuals whose views are even more objectionable and extreme than his own.
To understand what’s unfolding right now — and what’s likely to happen in the coming period — we need to look at the political dynamic. Much of the international debate over the conflict is understandably concerned with the humanitarian plight of those in Gaza and the ultimate right of the Palestinians to their own state. But those are sadly not the factors determining events on the ground.
Netanyahu must satisfy the right-wingers in his government to stay in power. It is therefore strongly in his interests for the conflict to continue, as he rightly believes his position to be very vulnerable once hostilities are brought to a close.
His strategy was probably always to expand the war northwards to take on the heavily-armed Hezbollah militia. He may have calculated the most likely response to the recent strike on the Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus would be Tehran instructing its proxies in Lebanon to intervene more actively against Israel. As we know, the Iranian government decided instead to launch a direct attack using large quantities of drones and missiles.
This major escalation could be seen as a miscalculation on Netanyahu’s part and rightly alarms the rest of the world, but won’t actually faze the man himself. He will be in the camp that believes a war with Iran is inevitable at some point and that Israel might be well advised to fight it sooner rather than later. He has long warned of Tehran’s progress towards a nuclear capability — a prospect that not only horrifies Israel, but also Arab states, the EU and the USA.
The relationship between Israel and America is obviously the most critical to ongoing events. The patience of Biden and Blinken had worn very thin over Gaza. The Israeli game plan (as in previous conflicts in the enclave) has been to nod along to calls for restraint, while changing nothing on the ground.
It’s pretty clear that Rafah was declared as a red line. The southern city bordering Egypt has become home to huge numbers of refugees fleeing the bombardment further north in the Strip. Initially, the word was that the Israelis would need some kind of evacuation plan for the civilians before the Americans were happy with the IDF going in, but nothing concrete ever emerged and the mood music seemed to change.
On the international stage, there is now pretty much universal objection to a ground operation in Rafah. The reason we’ve probably seen no incursion is because Netanyahu calculates the rift with the Biden administration would become too deep.
But the shift of attention to Iran suits Netanyahu just fine. Suddenly the British, French and US were back on board, helping to defend Israel against the bombardment and condemning Tehran. America’s interests in the Middle East — in energy, trade, counter-terrorism and other areas — means that they have to back Israel in any conflict with Iran and its proxies even against their better judgment.
They tell Israel to exercise restraint in responding to the attack from Iran last weekend.
They say that they won’t get involved in any response themselves.
They privately brief that Israel will respond, but they hope that it will be targeted and cautious, to avoid inflaming the situation further.
Israel will no doubt judge its planned response to be proportionate and limited, but it may not be seen that way by the Iranians. At which point, I think we can safely say, the balloon goes up.
All bets are off then. And Netanyahu knows it.
He may find himself fighting on multiple fronts. Against Iran itself, but also Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, proxy groups in Syria and Iraq, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Even for the heavily-armed and proficient IDF, this is a monumental challenge.
The US administration will privately curse the Israeli government for going down this road. Biden needs a full-blown war in the Middle East during his re-election year like a hole in the head. But the USA cannot allow Iran and its regional militias to triumph and will be dragged in whether they like it or not.
