World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has established Israel as a rogue state with no red lines. It has attacked the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran with few repercussions to its own security. And it has launched these attacks with no hints whatsoever as to what would be acceptable terms of peace. Consider: the Gaza Strip has been almost completely destroyed and its inhabitants do not know how the devastation might stop. The US and its allies have all stated that the only possible resolution to the conflict would be the implementation of a two-state solution. Netanyahu has explicitly rejected this approach, according to the New York Times:

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel doubled down on his opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state this weekend, again rebuffing pressure from President Biden to agree to that path after the war in Gaza is over.

“My insistence is what has prevented — over the years — the establishment of a Palestinian state that would have constituted an existential danger to Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement in Hebrew on Sunday. “As long as I am prime minister, I will continue to strongly insist on this.”

“The statement reiterated comments he made on social media the previous day, when he said in Hebrew that he “will not compromise on full Israeli security control of the entire area west of the Jordan River — and that is irreconcilable with a Palestinian state.”

Because it has offered no alternative, Israel only offers continued occupation, and it demands that the “elimination” of its enemies is the price that the Palestinian people have to pay for those terms if they want peace. And now the same terms are being offered to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Moreover, there are apparently no limits on how Netanyahu defines “elimination”. The current war in Gaza was precipated by a heinous Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis but the counterattack on the Gaza has killed almost 42,000 Palestinians, the majority of which are women and children. The disproportionate ratios are also reflected in the losses suffer by the Lebanese in the current escalation, as demonstrated graphically by Bloomberg:

The one-sidedness of this conflict means many things, but the one point most relevant to any possible settlement is that the terms of a settlement acceptable to Israel is the complete and utter capitulation of the Palestinian people and that Israel is willing to kill as many people and to attack any state required to achieve that capitulation.

As I have argued before, Israel is only able to follow this strategy because the US continues to arm and financially support Israel with no conditions and that the US is willing to provide the necessary shield to prevent any Israeli civilian losses from attacks from any state in the region. The attack on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut was likely done by a 2,000 pound bomb supplied by the US, even though President Biden had earlier banned the export of such bombs to Israel because of their indiscriminate destruction. The Israeli air strike against Yemen yesterday was especially significant because it was a difficult mission that demonstrated the geographic reach of Israeli power as described by The Jerusalem Post:

“Until July, the IDF had outsourced responses to the Houthis to the US, which was fighting the group over various maritime aggression issues. However, after the Houthis killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, the Jewish state struck back directly for the first time.

“During Israel’s July counterstrike, it took two hours and 50 minutes for the IDF’s F-15s, F-35s, and other fighter jets, which carried out around 10 airstrikes against the Houthis, to reach their targets in the Hodeidah Port area. Those aircraft took off around 3 p.m. on July 20 and struck their targets around 6 p.m.

“Although the IDF kept classified the exact number of aircraft it used to refuel its fighter jets to make the 1,800-kilometer flight and return safely during that July attack, it provided a dramatic video showing some of the mid-air refueling in real-time.

“Sunday’s flights and refueling were equally complex, intended to completely destroy the Houthis’ capability (as opposed to a partial cut in July) to receive refined products, including weapons, from Iran.”

The significance of the attack was not in the destruction it caused in Yemen, but rather the message sent by Israel to Iran that it had the capability to attack Iran (also because the Saudis allowed Israel to use its airspace to make the flight). Reuters highlights Netanyahu’s objective:

“Israel warned Iran on Monday that nowhere in the Middle East was beyond its reach and hinted at a land invasion of Lebanon after assassinating the leader of the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group, one of its biggest adversaries, in a Beirut suburb last week.

“‘There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a three-minute video clip in English that he addressed to the Iranian people.”

The Iranians have taken actions, such as hiding high-ranking officials, in anticipation of such an attack. I doubt, however, that the Iranians want such a war–the country is weak economically and suffering from drought, a weak economy, and questions about the legitimacy of the regime. More importantly, however, Iran does not have a viable military option. As long as the US is committed to the aerial defense of Israel, there is probably nothing that the Iranians could do do change Netanyahu’s determination to eliminate Israel’s enemies. This is particularly true given that Israel has demonstrated that its has pierced Iranian intelligence by its assassination of Ismail Haniyeh right in the heart of Tehran. Israel also compromised the communications network of Hezbollah by its bold tactic of planting explosives in the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah activists.

There is, however, one course of action open to the Iranians. It could take to heart the lesson of the fate of the “axis of evil” identified by US President George W. Bush after the 11 September attack on the US. The axis consisted of Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Iraq had no nuclear weapons and was invaded by the US in 2003 and its government was overthrown and the country occupied by the US for a number of years. North Korea, on the other hand, did have nuclear weapons and does not have to worry about an attack by the US or its allies. The lesson seems clear: if one is worried about an attack by a state that is militarily superior and has indicated that it has no constraints on the use of force, then possession of a nuclear weapon is the best defense.

I sincerely doubt that Iran wants a nuclear weapon. The late Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, called nuclear weapons inconsistent with Islam in 2010. But Iran exists in a dangerous neighborhood. Some of its closest neighbors–Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel–already have nuclear weapons and the US is constantly patrolling the Persian Gulf with ships that are nuclear-capable. Iran unquestionably has the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. but would have to develop a nuclear weapon secretly so that Israel would not launch a pre-emptive strike against its nuclear facilities. A nuclear test conducted by Iran would quickly raise the costs of any Israeli action against it. The outcome of a nuclear Iran is decidedly against Israel’s and the world’s interest. But territorial integrity and sovereignty are attributes without which a state cannot exist, and Israel is currently threatening both of those attributes.

The US must immediately announce that it is suspending all military and financial assistance to Israel until Israel puts forth a proposal for the two-state solution that effectively creates the opporunity for the Palestinians to exercise their inherent right of self-determination. That aspiration will never die no matter how many leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran that the Israelis succeed in assassinating. This has been the official position of the US ever since the war in 1967, and it is second only to the Cuban Embargo as a bootless policy–it is an objective that has been purely rhetorical and meaningless to the countless number of people who have died in the region. Fifty-seven years is a very long time for a power to remain impotent, and Netanyahu has apparently no compunction to disregard American counsel or interests.

The situation is reminiscent of the difficulties the US had in floating peace proposals during the Vietnam war. In 1972, the US had reached agreement with North Vietnam on a cease-fire, but South Vietnamese President Thieu rejected the proposal as a “surrender to the Communists”. Rather than using its formidable levers to change Thieu’s mind, the US instead chose to amplify its military commitment to South Vietnam and the war expanded and dragged on for two more years. President Nixon chose the military path because he did not wish the US to appear as a “pitiful, helpless giant”. The US became a hostage to its weaker ally and many died because of US inaction on the diplomatic front. In the immediate case, choosing a diplomatic path is the only effective course of action. The US must clearly tell Netanyahu that that path is the only one it will support even as it promises to defend Israel against any attack on its territory, but it will not support any further expansion of the war.

Like Thieu, Netanyahu can ignore the US, but the US needs to make clear to its ally that it means what it says. If Israel wants to continue the carnage, then the US should no longer be an accomplice to the war crimes being committed. Israel is a sovereign state and the US should not dictate to Israel what it should do. But Israel also should not tell the US that it has to support actions that do not serve US interests.