Less than a week after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington, the three-month long US-Israel war against Iran has come to a standstill, with the verdict for Israel, Washington’s main ally for now.
A recent poll found that an overwhelming 92% of Israelis feel that the United States has achieved victory over its decades-old enemy, and nearly half of those surveyed say Israel should continue its attacks on Lebanon and the pro-Iranian group Hezbollah, regardless of the requests of the US government, its main ally and patron.
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Israel has been in an ongoing war across the region for several years, including a Hamas-led surprise attack on October 7, 2023 that killed 1,139 people.
It committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians and destroying large swaths of the territory. It has attacked Iran twice, killed thousands of people in Lebanon in battles with Iran’s ally Hezbollah, launched multiple ground invasions into Syria, and launched sporadic attacks against Yemen’s Houthis, also an ally of Tehran.
Within Israel’s tight-knit parliament, the country’s support for the war provides one of the few points of agreement, even if individual politicians disagree on how to prosecute.
Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s former chief of staff and one of the candidates to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, did not hesitate to go to war with Iran. In an interview in early March, shortly after the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran began, he called the unprovoked attack on Tehran “the most just war in decades against our most hated enemy.”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid similarly supported the attack, and his enthusiasm for a new conflict between Iran and Hezbollah was only overshadowed by anger after Washington’s decision to strike a deal with Tehran. He called the US decision “one of the most shocking failures of Israel’s foreign and security policy, and it is entirely the responsibility of Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
Daniel Baatar, an Israeli sociologist at Tel Aviv University, said this reaction in Israel is hardly surprising. This is the result of a process across Israeli politics, media and society that links the 2023 Hamas attack to the Holocaust, a “central anchor” of Israel’s identity, he said. In this light, the attack was positioned “not simply as a horrific event in its own right, but as the latest chapter in a much older story of Jewish historical trauma.”
Bartal added that “the legitimacy of national goals, the glorification of the Jewish people, (and) a sense of collective victimhood” and the “delegitimization of the Palestinian people” are deeply ingrained in the consciousness of most Israelis, which contributes to the support behind Israel’s wars.
profit and loss
Despite almost three years of almost constant and unquestioned war, few in Israel believe that the country is significantly safer than it was before October 7th.
In Gaza, Hamas continues to control much of the territory, while in Iran, the regime that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told US allies would collapse within days of the war remains firmly in place.
“There is no special outcome that will stop this eternal war,” said Israeli analyst and academic Shayel Ben Ephraim.
“There are two major engines behind it,” he said, describing the catalysts for the seemingly endless push for war. One of those engines reflects Israel’s immediate situation, and the other reflects a fundamental change in Israeli consciousness after the October 7 attacks, he said.
With elections looming later this year, Prime Minister Netanyahu enters the campaign with the baggage of the October 7 attack, his ongoing trial on multiple corruption charges, and his apparent inability to complete his duties with Iran and Hezbollah.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that as long as the war continues, he can avoid corruption charges and accountability for October 7 and his failure to stop it,” Ben-Ephraim said of the immediate political collapse from the 2023 attack, and how none of Netanyahu’s political rivals have offered any meaningful alternatives to the conflicts the Israeli government has since started.
“The Israeli military and all of the major candidates for prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Eisenkot, have a defense doctrine that says it is important to crush any threat before it develops, and that there can be no deterrence or diplomatic agreements.
“This is, in Israel’s view, the result of October 7, when all these measures failed. The result is not only the complete destruction of Gaza and South Lebanon, but also the desire to completely and irrevocably eliminate Iran, (Turkiye) and other potential threats,” he said.
No matter what interests Israel claims in Lebanon, the prospect of where future threats will come from makes future war almost a certainty, Ben Ephraim said.
“No potential or possible outcome can stop this,” he concluded. “This is a pathology caused by trauma and political necessity. Only a complete reversal of Israel’s strategic destiny will be able to change it in the future.”
