Tehran’s latest move will only help ‘Bibi’ continue his murder spree

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is seemingly a bloodthirsty warmonger, hell-bent on continuing the Gaza offensive, ignoring the whole world. Why?

Israel's military and political establishment, particularly under the leadership of Netanyahu, has metamorphosed into a monstrous entity the world can't control. Netanyahu has embraced the most extreme forces, the Israeli orthodox hardliners, to stay in power. He is now using Hamas' terrorist acts to justify his actions of genocidal proportions.

The roots of this monstrosity go back to Britain's infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917 wherein it pledged support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This fateful declaration, driven by imperial ambitions and strategic calculations, laid the groundwork for the creation of Israel—a nation born out of Europe's guilt-consciousness for persecuting the Jews.

The birth of Israel through the United Nations vote in 1947 to partition the British mandate of Palestine into two states—one Jewish, one Arab—inflicted an indelible wound on the Arabs. About 700,000 Palestinians had to leave their homeland. Israel occupied almost 85 percent of the land. It was a Nakba, or "catastrophe," for Palestine, the most traumatic event in its modern history. Those who remained in Israel became minorities in ghettos like those of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Israel fought a series of wars against the neighbouring Arab countries. It received unconditional Western support each time, making it stronger and more aggressive. The degree of violence inflicted on the Palestinians also intensified. More and more Arab land was taken over for Jewish settlements, restricting the Palestinians in two enclaves: the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), born in 1964 to fight Israel for Palestinian rights, became prominent but later accepted the Oslo Peace Accord in 1993. However, it lost much of its earlier prominence as the Israeli establishment didn't follow the agreed-upon path to peace and the "two-state solution."

Hamas, originally an Islamic charity, was nurtured by Israel to counter the PLO. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2006, while PLO became confined within the West Bank. Hamas turned down the peace move and adopted suicide bombings and other violent means, making it convenient for Israeli hardliners to reject the Accord. Netanyahu led demonstrators carrying Rabin's mock coffin, calling him a "traitor, murderer, and Nazi." Thus, hardline Israelis became stronger at the cost of the moderates who backed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's signing of the peace agreement with PLO's Yasser Arafat. Rabin was assassinated after delivering a speech at a peace rally in November 1995.

Over the decades since its birth, Israel morphed into a behemoth of military might and a political untouchable—a concept that no one can question. This has given rise to a power block in Israel, which is accountable to none for its actions towards the Arabs.

Some Arab groups such as the PLO, on the other hand, resorted to clandestine warfare and terrorism, which some call "weapons of the weak." Israel, as was expected, retaliated with full force on the whole Arab population, including women, children, and refugees in other countries. The result was incidents such as the massacres in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, and many others.

But it is all good for Israel's hardliners because these are strengthening their position in the country's power game and practically killing the so-called "two-state solution" option.

Netanyahu must continue the war for his survival because he draws power from his coalition of religious zealots and hawkish ideologues. His governing coalition holds a fragile majority, with 64 seats in the 120-seat parliament. Days after Hamas' surprise attack on October 7, some of Netanyahu's centrist rivals joined him to form a broader emergency government and bolster his small war cabinet. However, they did not sign any coalition agreements saying they would leave the government at their will. That means Netanyahu must keep them happy by continuing the war to stay in power. Meanwhile, he faced trials for fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019. If he is convicted, these cases could result in up to 10 years in jail and/or a fine. It will be much more difficult for him to deal with these without being in power.

When Netanyahu was mulling over his next move in Gaza in the face of global pressure to stop the indiscriminate attacks on civilians, Tehran made an unprecedented move. Until now using only proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack Israeli interests, it launched more than 300 missiles and drones targeting Israel on April 13. It was a "retaliation" against an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria that had killed two Iranian generals. Israel intercepted most of the missiles midair with US assistance, so no actual harm was done except wounding a Bedouin girl in Southern Israel.

But Tehran's move helped Netanyahu in several ways. First, it made it easier for him to seek more US military assistance. Second, it bolstered confidence in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), which suffered serious damage to its reputation after the October 7 security breach. Third, its missile defence system proved effective in stalling such attacks. On the other hand, Iran's real capability to harm Israel in conventional warfare is put into question. All these have strengthened Netanyahu's political position.

Iran has done Bibi a big favour and the Gazans—who will remain collateral damage—a disfavour. The possibility of a wider war is now more real.

Dr Sayeed Ahmed is a consulting engineer and the CEO of Bayside Analytix, a technology-focused strategy and management consulting organisation.