The visit of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -to United State The end of last month and his warm reception in Congress– A decisive factor in his approaches towards the ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip. Gaza The besieged, the ceasefire negotiations and the prisoner exchange.
This applies to his overall view of the escalation in the region and against what is known asAxis of ResistanceThe reason is due to the weight and importance of the American position in Netanyahu’s calculations and the impact on his political future.
The withdrawal of the US President Joe Biden From the presidential race, and choosing his vice president Kamala Harris Democratic Party Candidate, Restoring Hope for Democrats to Compete with Republican Candidate Donald Trump.
This prompted Netanyahu to make up his mind about designing the direction of the aggression on Gaza and the escalation in the region, in a way that serves the goal of prolonging the war and complicating the scene for the Democratic administration, in a clear indication of his bias in favor of Trump.
Netanyahu is betting on Trump winning the presidential elections to be held next November, given that this would ease the pressures of the US administration on him regarding the internal Israeli political environment, and would give him the necessary cover to escalate against the axis of resistance in the region.
Trump’s victory in the upcoming elections also gives the Israeli Prime Minister the ability to maneuver in making the decision to stop the war on Gaza, in light of the absence of external pressure on him to influence his political position.
Netanyahu seeks to use whatever support he can get from Trump regarding settlement and annexation projects in the West Bank to maintain his alliance with the extreme religious right, which still refuses to stop the war and seeks more gains in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
To this end, Netanyahu has been working since his return from Washington to escalate the situation by carrying out the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the movement. agitation Ismail Haniyeh In the heart of the capital TehranAnd shortly before that, the occupation army carried out an assassination operation in the middle of the southern suburb of Beirut, targeting… Fouad Shukr Who is the highest military figure in Hizb allah.
In contrast, the Gaza Strip is witnessing an escalation in targeting schools and shelters and deliberately causing casualties among civilians. In order for Netanyahu to increase the language of escalation, the occupation army carried out a deliberate targeting operation against the Al Jazeera correspondent. Ismail Al Ghoul And the photographer Rami Al-Rifai.
bet failed
The escalation brought about by Netanyahu caused a great shock to the axis of resistance in the region, and pushed it towards approaching the moment of breaking the rules of engagement that have governed its behavior since Operation… Al-Aqsa Flood.
Indicators and statements issued from the highest levels show that Iran Hezbollah said it would carry out a strong and unprecedented response to the recent assassinations of Haniyeh and Shukr.
This pledge to respond opened the region once again to the scenario of a regional war, and apparently forced the Biden administration back into the regional crisis that Netanyahu ignited.
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This time, it seems that international and regional parties are convinced that the Iranian response and Hezbollah’s response will not be limited or symbolic. The coincidence of the assassinations has put more pressure on the axis of resistance to direct an exceptional response, which will most likely be outside the calculations of Netanyahu and the security and military establishment.
Netanyahu agrees with the military and security establishment on a major conclusion from the failure that befell them on October 7, which is that the occupation has lost deterrence in an unprecedented way. Therefore, everyone in Israel is focusing on trying to restore deterrence by directing this type of loud assassinations, but this leads Israel into the trap of prioritizing the tactical achievement over the strategic loss.
The intended deterrence of the assassination will be met with a break in the strategic deterrence in the region, and will push countries and groups spread throughout the region to direct strikes deep into the occupying state.
Operation “Noah’s Flood” profoundly changed the Israeli security and military establishment’s convictions regarding a number of assumptions: that their military and technological superiority is capable of deterring their opponents, that they are capable of living safely behind fortified walls and borders, and that they are capable of prospering economically. However, these convictions no longer hold, and many in the security establishment have begun to realize that “Israel is not that strong.”
In contrast to this conviction, circles inside and outside Israel realize that Netanyahu designed the course of the war on Gaza in order to prolong it in order to maintain his position in power and overcome all the consequences of the failure on October 7, and before and after it. This is what drives Netanyahu to this type of adventure in deliberately carrying out provocative assassinations of Iran and the axis of resistance.
misjudging the situation
Similar to the mistake Israel made in targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the attack on the southern suburb and the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran are among the most prominent manifestations of Netanyahu’s misjudgment of the situation.
It is clear that Israel miscalculated at the time and did not expect such an unprecedented, large-scale and direct response that included the launch of hundreds of drones and missiles from Iranian territory at Israel.
What Israel lost by launching such attacks is that it lost what it had relied on for years, which is known as “deterrence by denial,” by preventing or reducing damage in the event of an attack and mitigating its potential effects.
It tried to do this partly in the case of the strike carried out by Iran on April 14, when Israel and the United States focused on the ability of the US-led coalition to confront the attack. However, the most important fact is that despite this, the attack practically succeeded and achieved its goals, and Israel could not deny or ignore that.
Many Israeli security analysts are concerned about the erosion of the regional position, fearing that Iran and its allies will gain more power, or that the latter may find more incentive to arm its nuclear capabilities if it believes it is not sufficiently capable of deterring Israel by conventional means.
The breach of the rules of engagement – caused by Netanyahu, along with the army and the security establishment – has practically brought Israel into conflict with all the pillars of the resistance axis in the region, which many security and military analysts consider an existential threat to Israel that it has always worked to avoid.
Escape forward
According to this equation, Israel – by insisting on restoring deterrence through brute force – is entering an escalating path of attack and counterattack, and may not find a way out.
Thus, by carrying out these assassinations and evading the requirements of stopping the war on Gaza, Netanyahu has done the opposite of what he wanted, and has rapidly transformed the nature of the threat that Israel is experiencing today into an existential threat.
Netanyahu tried to make the war on Gaza a starting point for regional transformations and the imposition of new rules, but what happened was exactly the opposite, as the war on Gaza turned into the main source of threat that Netanyahu brings to Israel through his adoption of the rule of “escape forward.”
Ending or continuing the war on Gaza will not ultimately solve the major strategic dilemma facing Israel.
If Israel still believes that integrating itself more fully into the Middle East through normalization deals with its Arab neighbors would marginalize Iranian-backed militant groups and reduce hostility toward the country, it must come to terms with the fact that its conflict with the Palestinians poses its most fundamental existential threat.
