With an Election for Netanyahu and His Polls Down Only The War Can Save Him, He Makes War
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| Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Jerusalem, in March.Pool photo by Ronen Zvulun |
Reporting from Jerusalem
New York Times
For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a resumption of fighting with Iran offered clear advantages — at least in the short term.
It showed his restive political base that he was willing to stand up to President Trump, who had scolded Israel on Sunday for bombing the outskirts of Beirut and, when Iran fired missiles at Israel in response, argued that Israel should exercise restraint.
Resisting Mr. Trump — or at least making a show of doing so, since it was unclear just what the two leaders said when they spoke Sunday night — was vital to Mr. Netanyahu, who is trailing in the polls heading into a difficult re-election fight. Just a week ago, Mr. Trump had humiliated him in an angry, profanity-laced phone call in which, the president later confirmed, he had called Mr. Netanyahu “crazy.”
Mr. Netanyahu also fears that the peace deal the Trump administration is pursuing with Iran would prove disastrous for Israel by, among other things, tying its hands in dealing with Hezbollah, the militant group that dominates Lebanon. If an exchange of airstrikes with Iran carries the risk of spiraling into a return to full-blown warfare, it could also make any broader peace agreement more difficult to achieve.
Some Israeli analysts suggested that a few days of Israeli attacks could help achieve better terms with Iran in those talks, by inflicting fresh wounds and pain.
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| The site where an Israeli airstrike hit a building in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburb, on Sunday.Credit...Hassan Ammar/Associated Press |
“Now it depends on what the Iranians do,” said Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a group that pushes for a close U.S. partnership with Israel and confrontation with Iran. He said Iran’s boastful posture — that it won the war with the United States and Israel by surviving their onslaught, and by taking control of the Strait of Hormuz — belied the serious damage that it had sustained.
“I assume that they wanted to vent, not that they wanted a couple of weeks of Israeli jets all over their skies,” Mr. Hulata said of Iran’s modest missile barrages at Israel. “They appear strong, but that doesn’t mean they are strong.”
But others argued that Sunday’s Iranian missile strikes on Israel boded poorly for Israel in the longer term. Israel sees no alternative to hitting back though that appears likely to put it in conflict with Mr. Trump, sooner or later.
“There are no good choices here,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli military intelligence officer who specializes in Iran.
If Mr. Trump allows Israel to escalate the fighting, Mr. Citrinowicz predicted that Iran would expand its retaliation, and not just through Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, who fired two missiles at Israel Monday and threatened to attack Israeli and Israeli-affiliated shipping from transiting the Red Sea. He suggested that Shiite militias in Iraq could also be drawn in.
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| People sheltered as air raid sirens warning of incoming Iranian missiles in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Monday.Credit...Oded Balilty/Associated Press |
But if Mr. Trump demands that Israel stand down, Mr. Citrinowicz said, that could cement an equation that Iran has been trying to achieve. It could reinforce a direct linkage between the Iranian and Lebanese theaters, in which Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in and around Beirut can be met with Iranian attacks on Israel.
“And the strategic reality will be worse for Israel,” he said.
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