In deeply divided Israel, even the dramatic scenes unfolding over the country on Sunday were open to political interpretation.
For supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s demonstration of its defense technology against an Iranian salvo, including hundreds of drones and missiles, was evidence of Mr Netanyahu’s long-standing opposition to Iran. The threat was right to warn.
His opponents were reluctant to give him any credit and had only praise for the Air Force.
“Like everything that has happened in Israel in recent years, this story is divided into two narratives,” said Mazhar Moallem, an Israeli political commentator for the Middle East news site Al-Monitor and the author of a recent biography of the Israeli leader. Mazal Mualem) said.
“The divisions and polarization in Israeli society prevent people from seeing the full picture,” Ms. Moallem added.
Iran’s onslaught on Sunday, in response to an Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy building in Damascus this month that killed several senior commanders of Iran’s armed forces, comes at a perilous time for Netanyahu.
At home, he is an unpopular leader who many hold responsible for his government’s policy and intelligence failures that led to deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 and prompted Israel to launch war in Gaza .Abroad, he is the center of attention international condemnation Israel waged this war that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans.
How he ultimately moves on from this incident may depend on what happens next.
Mr Netanyahu must now make a choice. Will he strike back forcefully against Iran and potentially plunge Israel and other countries into a wider war? Or will he absorb the attack, which severely injured a 7-year-old girl but otherwise caused limited damage, and defer to a coalition that helps defend Israel in the interest of regional stability?
Israel’s allies have been urging restraint.
“The question is whether Israel will retaliate immediately or surprise the Iranians in some way,” said Efraim Halevi, who served as director of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, late in Netanyahu’s first term. . 1990s.
No Israeli leader has warned Iran as consistently as Mr. Netanyahu, or, for that matter, as long as he has been in office. He is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, having been in power for a total of about 17 years.
Since his first year in office in 1996, Mr Netanyahu warn An Iranian nuclear weapon would be catastrophic and time is running out. He has been sounding the same alarm for nearly three decades since.
Iran maintains a network of proxy militias throughout the region, including Gaza, and the government provides funding and weapons supplies to the region. Some militias in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon have been at war with Israel, creating disruption for the Israeli government and military in its war with Hamas.
But perhaps more troubling, experts say, Iran is closer than ever to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Mr. Netanyahu’s supporters still credit him with putting Iran’s nuclear program on the world’s agenda at the time, and now they praise him for investing in a powerful, multi-layered air defense system that allows Israel and its allies, including the United States, to intercept large-scale missiles. scale of Iran’s nuclear program. Most of the Iranian drones and missiles arrived in Israel this weekend.
Mr Netanyahu, who has sometimes resorted to gimmicks and antics to draw attention to Iran’s nuclear progress, has made opposition to Iran a key part of his global diplomacy in the past.Once, at the United Nations General Assembly, he held up a cartoon drawing of bomb Marked are red lines describing enrichment levels. Another time, at the Munich Security Conference, he brandished a piece of debris that he said was an Iranian drone launched from Syria and shot down by Israel.
“Everywhere he went, he was talking about this issue,” recalled Jeremy Issacharoff, the former Israeli ambassador to Germany who for years served as the foreign ministry’s coordinator for regional security and the Iranian threat Key figure in diplomatic efforts.
At times, Netanyahu’s actions against Iran have severely strained Israel’s relations with the U.S. president, even though U.S. bipartisan support for Israel has long been viewed as a strategic asset.
Around 2012, Mr. Netanyahu angered President Barack Obama by urging him to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress that would prompt a U.S. military strike. The move comes as the Israeli prime minister is formulating plans for a unilateral Israeli attack in the face of strong opposition from Washington and public criticism from several former Israeli security chiefs. It is unclear whether Netanyahu is bluffing, and the possibility of an imminent strike is fading.
In 2015, he further challenged Obama in an impassioned speech to a joint session of Congress, denouncing the “bad deal” the United States and other world powers negotiated with Iran to curb its nuclear program.
After President Donald J. Trump came to power, Netanyahu encouraged him to withdraw from the deal — a move that many Israeli experts called a terrible mistake and a failure of Mr. Netanyahu’s Iran policy.
“Since then, there have been no restrictions on the program,” Mr. Issacharov added. “It has never been more advanced.”
But under Netanyahu’s watch, Israel has established diplomatic ties with more Arab states seen as part of a moderate anti-Iran axis, including the United Arab Emirates.
Whatever happens next, Ms. Muallem, Netanyahu’s biographer, said, “Bibi is still in the game,” referring to his nickname. “He is a core player, both diplomatically and politically, and things are not over yet. And he is playing the long game.”
