In a deeply divided Israel, even the dramatic scene above the nation’s skies on Sunday is open to political interpretation.
For supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s show of defensive expertise in opposition to an Iranian salvo that included a whole bunch of drones and missiles proves Mr. Netanyahu has lengthy been proper to warn in regards to the risk posed by Iran.
His opponents are loath to offer him any credit score, reserving their reward for the air pressure.
“Like everything in Israel in recent years, the story is split into two narratives,” stated Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator for Al-Monitor, a Middle East news web site, and the creator of a latest biography of the Israeli chief.
“The division and polarization in Israeli society prevents people from seeing the full picture,” Ms. Mualem added.
Iran’s barrage on Sunday, launched in response to an Israeli assault on an Iranian Embassy constructing this month in Damascus that killed a number of high-ranking commanders in Iran’s armed forces, got here at a deadly time for Mr. Netanyahu.
At dwelling, he’s an unpopular chief whom many maintain chargeable for his authorities’s coverage and intelligence failures that led to the lethal Hamas-led assault in southern Israel on Oct. 7, which prompted Israel to go to warfare in Gaza. Abroad, he’s the main target of worldwide censure over Israel’s prosecution of that warfare, which has resulted within the deaths of tens of 1000’s of Gazans.
How he in the end emerges from this episode could rely on what occurs subsequent.
Mr. Netanyahu now should make a selection. Will he reply to Iran with a forceful counterattack and probably entangle Israel and different international locations in a broader warfare? Or will he take up the assault, which gravely injured one 7-year-old lady however in any other case did restricted injury, and defer to the coalition that helped defend Israel within the pursuits of regional stability?
Israel’s allies have been urging restraint.
“The question is whether Israel is going to retaliate immediately, or surprise the Iranians in one way or another,” stated Efraim Halevy, who served as director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence company, through the latter a part of Mr. Netanyahu’s first time period within the Nineteen Nineties.
No Israeli chief has warned about Iran so persistently as Mr. Netanyahu or, for that matter, has spent so lengthy in workplace. Israel’s longest serving prime minister, he has been in energy for about 17 years total.
Since his first yr in workplace in 1996, Mr. Netanyahu warned {that a} nuclear Iran can be catastrophic and that point was operating out. For the practically three many years since, he has been sounding the identical alarm.
Iran maintains a community of proxy militias throughout the area, together with in Gaza, which the federal government funds and provides with weapons. Some of these militias in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon have battled with Israel, creating distractions for the Israeli authorities and army amid the warfare with Hamas.
But maybe extra troubling, specialists say, is that Iran is nearer than ever to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Mr. Netanyahu’s backers nonetheless credit score him with having put Iran’s nuclear program on the world agenda then, they usually reward him now for investing within the mighty, multilayered air protection system that allowed Israel and its allies, together with the United States, to intercept the overwhelming majority of Iranian drones and missiles this weekend earlier than they reached Israel.
Sometimes resorting to gimmicks and antics to attract consideration to Iran’s nuclear progress, Mr. Netanyahu has up to now made opposing Iran a key a part of his international diplomacy. Once, on the United Nations General Assembly he held up a cartoonish drawing of a bomb marked with crimson strains depicting enrichment ranges. Another time, on the Munich Security Conference, he waved round a chunk of wreckage from what he stated was an Iranian drone despatched from Syria and shot down by Israel.
“Everywhere he went he was talking about it,” recalled Jeremy Issacharoff, a former Israeli ambassador to Germany and for years the Ministry of Foreign Affairs level man coordinating diplomatic efforts on regional safety and the Iranian risk.
At instances, Mr. Netanyahu’s marketing campaign in opposition to Iran has severely strained Israel’s relations with American presidents, although bipartisan U.S. assist for Israel has lengthy been thought of a strategic asset.
Around 2012, Mr. Netanyahu infuriated the Obama administration by pushing onerous for President Barack Obama to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress that might immediate the United States to undertake a army strike. Before that, the Israeli prime minister was planning for a unilateral Israeli strike within the face of powerful opposition from Washington and public criticism from a string of former Israeli safety chiefs. It was by no means clear if Mr. Netanyahu was bluffing, and the prospect of an imminent strike receded.
He additional challenged Mr. Obama in 2015 with an impassioned speech to a joint assembly of Congress denouncing what he known as a “bad deal” being negotiated by the United States and different world powers with Iran to curb its nuclear program.
When President Donald J. Trump got here to energy, Mr. Netanyahu inspired him to withdraw from the settlement — a transfer that many Israeli specialists have known as a dire mistake and a failure of Mr. Netanyahu’s Iran coverage.
“Since then, there have been no constraints on the program,” Mr. Issacharoff stated, including, “It has never been more advanced.”
But it was additionally beneath Mr. Netanyahu’s watch that Israel solid diplomatic relations with extra Arab states which are thought of a part of the average, anti-Iranian axis, together with the United Arab Emirates.
Regardless of what comes subsequent, Ms. Mualem, the Netanyahu biographer, stated, “Bibi is still in the game,” referring to him by his nickname. “He’s a central player, and it isn’t over, diplomatically or politically. And he plays a long game.”
Source: www.nytimes.com