Netanyahu faces tough questions on Iran – because
we Israelis don’t need any more forever wars
Dahlia
Scheindlin
An all-out conflict, dragging in other regional
powers, may be someone’s idea of ‘national security’. As an Israeli citizen, it
isn’t mine
Mon 15 Apr
2024 14.21 BST
Israelis
woke up on Sunday morning with a tentative collective sense of relief. For the
first time ever, Iran had attacked Israel directly, sending a barrage of more
than 300 drones and various missiles intended to rain down on Israel. Instead,
Israel and a coalition of its allies intercepted 99% of the threats, according
to Israeli authorities – mostly before they reached Israeli territory. Those
that arrived caused only limited damage.
Many
Israelis felt the country had dodged a bullet. But members of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government want to fire back, which would add one more
front to a war that is already dangerously overstretched. The
ultra-nationalists in Netanyahu’s cabinet insist that the only way to achieve
fear and admiration in the Middle East is to “go berserk”, in the words of
Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist minister who holds the portfolio, ironically, of
national security. He is joined by a posse of fanatical men running the
government who are beating war drums.
But how
would that work out for the state of Israel, founded as a safe haven for Jews
(and all of its citizens, in a democratic view), to live safely and flourish?
Escalation with Iran stands to suck all sides into a vortex of full-scale war.
It would also be unprecedented, since the two countries have never been at war
directly and openly. Such a war would drag in numerous other countries of the
Middle East, and superpowers too. All-out war between the two best-armed actors
in the Middle East might be someone’s definition of national security, but as
an Israeli citizen, it’s not mine.
The
dramatic Saturday night attack also distracted attention from the terrible
escalation in the West Bank on Friday. A 14-year-old Israeli Jewish boy who set
out from an outpost called Angels of Peace – though no such outpost is
established to bring peace (it is in fact a political project to expand Israeli
control of the West Bank) – was murdered by Palestinians. Even before his fate
was known, settlers rampaged through a nearby Palestinian town, with
pogrom-like collective-punishment violence, killing one man and burning
property. Yet, inconceivably, the incident feels like a new normal after
similar events just over a year ago. The West Bank is in a disastrous
situation, with Palestinians living under virtual lockdown for the past six
months, the widespread loss of jobs since Israel cancelled their work permits
and restricted crossings, and with rising settler violence backed by the army
stoking fury.
In Gaza,
the attention last week turned to Israel’s withdrawal of a commando division
from the south, but don’t be fooled. The war is not over, and will not be over
for as long as Israel has neither plans nor intentions to end it. The
humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza won’t truly end until then, and tens of
thousands of Israelis displaced from the south still cannot go home. Netanyahu
and his coalition partners from the Religious Zionist party and Jewish Power
resist any plans that dare to consider a ceasefire, risking the lives of
Israeli hostages daily.
The
northern border is not at all quiet; the 80,000 Israeli evacuees cannot return
home there either. Escalation with Iran bodes badly for the ongoing
brinkmanship between Israel and Hezbollah. Members of Israel’s government have
advocated escalation in the north since the early days of the war with Hamas;
the majority of the Israeli public support this, and some say Iran’s attack
makes this more urgent. Anything less projects weakness, they say.
What’s
horribly ironic about this everywhere-is-war reality is how badly Netanyahu’s
policies have violated his own prized goals. His spectacular failure regarding
Iran – after pushing the US to bolt from the 2015 deal with Iran to limit
nuclear enrichment – should now be clear: Iran is closer to nuclear weapons
than ever. Netanyahu boasted that he was Mr Security, and would remove the
Palestinian issue from national or international agendas, until 1,200 Israelis
were slaughtered on one day in October. He basked in Israel’s Middle East
integration, which is now strained, or slowed at best.
Looking
beyond Netanyahu, this is a failure of the dreams of Israel’s founders and
generations of Israelis. Whether one supports or abhors Zionism, consider its
aims: a safe haven for the Jewish people (updated for a democratic country,
this means a safe society for everyone). A place for the Jewish people – and
everyone – to fulfil their potential, living in security. Forget the “light
unto the nations” fairytale; in many ways, Zionism hoped that Jewish people
would become equal to others, not better or worse. Thus, it was both a movement
of exceptionalism and chosen-ness, in part aimed at becoming average.
Instead,
Israel is careering towards pariah status. Israelis are cowering in shelters,
forced to flee from their sovereign lands, squeezed into shrunken borders
within their own country. Stalwart allies stuck by Israel during Saturday
night’s direct state-to-state attack from Iran, but Israel’s war in Gaza,
following nearly six decades of occupation, has lost vast swaths of the public
in the Middle East and in the west. In democratic countries where people vote
freely, they will choose leaders in the future who are far less kind to Israel.
To be sure,
Israel has real, sometimes implacable enemies, and not everything can be blamed
on the occupation or even the Nakba (the destruction of Palestinian society
from 1947 to 1949); Hamas and other militant Islamist factions are quite clear
that they will not be satisfied until Israel is gone in any form. Iran hasn’t
extended its hand in peace lately either.
But it is
impossible to see how escalating forever wars on multiple fronts will diminish
any of those threats. Too often, Israel resorts first and last to force; a
popular quip holds that “whatever doesn’t work through force will work through
more force”. This ignores the extraordinary and enduring success of peace –
full, end-of-conflict peace, like with Jordan and Egypt.
On Saturday
evening, Jordan stepped up to help intercept Iranian missiles, at considerable
risk; now Israelis joke that they’ll name their new babies “Jordan”. They would
do better to remember the hard power of peace, before endless wars destroy
whatever is left.
Dahlia
Scheindlin is a Tel Aviv-based political analyst and the author of The Crooked
Timber of Democracy in Israel
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário