Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-ninth session. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
By Osama Al-Sharif
Wars have geopolitical consequences regardless of who wins. In the annals of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict, the 1948 war set the trajectory of the Palestine question for the next two decades: denial of Israel’s existence and the ongoing Palestinian diaspora. The 1967 war led to the collapse of Nasserite Arab nationalism and resulted in the Israeli occupation of all of Palestine, in addition to the Sinai and the Golan Heights. In contrast, the 1973 war heralded the end of Arab-Israeli wars and paved the way for the first peace treaty between the largest Arab country, Egypt, and Israel.
What followed was a series of limited wars between Israel and non-state actors: the Palestine Liberation Organization, then Hezbollah and Hamas. Each round delivered a new geopolitical reality: the Oslo agreement, peace with Jordan, the intifadas and the collapse of Oslo, military operations against Hamas in Gaza leading to Israeli withdrawal followed by total blockade, and the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Israel’s perpetual wars underlined the self-defeating nature of that strategy: The PLO was created out of the 1948 defeat and Hezbollah emerged as a result of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Hamas was the outcome of a brutal and endless occupation. Geopolitical shifts bring out the unexpected.
For Israel, waging war was always a strategic choice to pursue political aims: crushing Palestinian statehood and the goal of ending the occupation, neutralizing countries surrounding Israel and buying time until the next war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims to comprehend the lessons of history. His agenda has always been focused on burying the Palestinian issue, dividing the Palestinian people, weakening Israel’s sworn enemies and building new alliances in the region under the “new Middle East” banner. Under that scheme, Israel hoped to become the superior regional power relying, as a proxy, on the blind support of the US, its most loyal sponsor.
What started as a modest Western colonial Jewish outpost in Palestine had become an expansionist entity that sought to dominate the entire region.
To shift the current geopolitical paradigm, Netanyahu needed to trigger a conflict. The opportunity presented itself on Oct. 7, 2023. The Palestinian attacks on that day handed him the opportunity to decapitate Hamas, destroy Gaza and transfer its population and spread terror in the West Bank, along with enforcing economic strangulation ahead of de facto annexation and eventually the displacement of most Palestinians there.
What Netanyahu failed to recognize is that this was not a 1948 moment. Instead of a short and decisive war in Gaza, he was stuck there. Meanwhile, Hezbollah decided to step in, firing missiles into northern Israel and displacing tens of thousands of Israelis. Israel was indeed fighting on many fronts. Pro-Iran militias began attacking Israel from Yemen, Iraq and Syria. Netanyahu had dragged Israel into its longest war ever; it became an existential one, and it could not be won without America’s help.
Amid the horrific genocidal war in Gaza, Netanyahu realized that he needed to expand the war and bring in a deeply polarized America. His military crusade had become a suicide mission: destroy Hezbollah, paralyze the Houthis and pro-Iran militias in Iraq and now deal a lethal blow to the Iranian regime. For that, he needed a regional war where Israel would emerge as the ultimate winner — no matter the cost to Israel, the US and the countries and peoples of the region.
This vision is nothing more than self-destructive. Yes, Iran has become a regional menace, but a full-fledged war against it is not the answer. By the same token, under Netanyahu, Israel has also become a regional threat — a grand disruptor.
Netanyahu is finally getting what he wanted: a regional war that forces the US to step in to protect its Zionist proxy. But things may not work out the way he planned. His one-year-old war on Gaza is going nowhere, as he makes a desperate push to forcibly displace more than 400,000 stranded Palestinians in northern Gaza, with deadly results. And his attempt to force Hezbollah to its knees, following three weeks of painful and strategic blows to the pro-Iran party, has not worked. Hezbollah appears to have recovered. It is rebuilding its cadres and is hitting Israeli cities and military bases with increasing strength and precision, as Sunday night’s drone attack on an army base near Haifa proved.
Meanwhile, a direct face-off with Tehran, one that Netanyahu deliberately started by bombing the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April and then assassinating Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran at the end of July, has triggered two massive responses from Iran. The last, two weeks ago, saw a barrage of ballistic missiles rain down on Israeli targets.
Netanyahu has vowed to hit Iran most severely. According to media reports, his initial targets ranged from energy and oil installations to nuclear facilities. However, the Biden administration has reportedly persuaded the Israeli PM to focus solely on military sites.
Iran has threatened an even more potent retaliation with no red lines. For Tehran, this has also become an existential war. This scenario puts the region and the rest of the world on edge. But this is not 1980s Iraq. Iran can prolong the war against Israel, which is costing the country tens of billions of dollars and has already turned it into a pariah state.
Furthermore, the geopolitical realities of today’s world will cast a shadow over this evolving crisis. Russia, China, and North Korea see Iran as an ally in a world where the US-led world order is on the brink of collapse. Iran is unlikely to be abandoned by such allies. A strike on Iran would threaten the global energy markets and hasten the rise of what Vladimir Putin is calling for: a multipolar world.
One trait of Netanyahu’s that will hamstring him, among others, is his arrogance. He is already acting as if he has the keys to the region. His overconfidence is nurtured by a radical cult of US Republican lawmakers and a weak White House, both of which have become complicit in his criminal war and are victims of their false sense of superiority and delusions of grandeur.
An Israeli strike against Iran would deal a final blow to a US-led world order that has already been severely compromised by none other than Netanyahu. No one in their right mind could accept a scenario where the world goes back to business as usual and normality once Israel finishes the people of Gaza, annexes the West Bank and triggers a regional war that could easily spill over.
If anything, Netanyahu’s endless wars will shift the current geopolitical paradigm, but the outcome will weaken rather than strengthen Israel. Furthermore, the drive for a multipolar world will become more apparent. One fact that Netanyahu is missing is that Israel is not the center of the Middle East. Other countries have a say on what shape the “new Middle East” will, and should, take in their view and that of their citizens. Israel, just like Iran, has no legal custody over the people of this region.
- Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010
