Why war between Israel and Iran now looks more likely than ever

Most were intercepted and it is believed just one person was killed, when a rocket malfunctioned and fell on a Palestinian man near Jericho in the West Bank. The failure of the attack does not say much about Iran’s military capabilities and will only embolden leaders in Jerusalem who have vowed to retaliate.

Leaked documents believed to be highly classified US intelligence, dated 15 and 16 October, began circulating online last week, describing plans that Israel appears to be making for a strike against Iran. One of the documents says the plans involve moving munitions around, while another outlines air force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles.

A cycle of violence

Israel’s patience with the international community and constant calls for restraint is wearing thin. Many believe a pattern has emerged since the creation of the state in 1948 in the ancient homeland of the Jews following the horrors of the Second World War.

The perception is that Israel is attacked by neighbouring forces, Israel has the support of the international community in its right to defend itself, Israel defends itself and is met with international condemnation, Israel makes concessions, Israel’s enemies regroup, Israel is attacked, and so on.

This mixed messaging was in evidence in the aftermath of the October 1 missile attack. The immediate response was “Israel has the right to defend itself” but this was swiftly followed by calls for restraint. 

What are the Israelis to make of this? That they should retaliate, but only a little bit? Could this help explain why the conflict has lasted, on and off, for nearly 80 years?

‘A good day for the world’

It is not hard to see why Israelis might detect hypocrisy among some leaders in the West in their response to the killing in Rafah, southern Gaza, earlier this month of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the architect of the October 7 atrocity. Welcoming the news and congratulating the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), US President Joe Biden said Sinwar’s death represented a “good day for the world”.

This is true, but if Israel had taken the route suggested by Biden and his vice-president Kamala Harris, the IDF would not have entered Rafah in the first place and Sinwar would still be alive, plotting ways to kill as many Jews as possible regardless of the risk to Palestinian life.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump claims to have made this point to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call between the two on Saturday. On the US election campaign trail, Trump told a crowd of supporters the Israeli leader asked him for advice on how to respond to Iran’s missile attack, to which the former president replied: “Do what you have to do.”

Netanyahu sees Israel as under siege from all sides and has listed seven fronts: Hamas in Gaza; Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Houthis in Yemen; Shia military in Iraq; militant groups in Syria; Palestinian fighters in the disputed West Bank area; and – “the head of the octopus” – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by several countries including the US.

‘We don’t have a choice’

In addition to this, Israelis perceive themselves as under siege on a non-physical front in a battle to maintain its legitimacy in international public opinion. In a defiant speech to a half-empty hall at the UN General Assembly in New York last month, Netanyahu said he had left Jerusalem “reluctantly” in order to “set the record straight”.

“Until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce,” he said. “I have a message for you: Israel will win this battle. We will win this battle because we don’t have a choice.”

His speech was apparently timed to coincide with a major Israeli strike near the Lebanese capital Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nazrallah.

Israeli frustration with the UN has been fuelled by the discovery in southern Lebanon of the extent of a vast network of tunnels and weapons amassed over the past 18 years – seemingly in full view of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, (Unifil), a peacekeeping mission. The discovery suggests preparations were well advanced for a separate October 7-style attack by Hezbollah in northern Israel.

Most wars end because one side wins

Nazrallah described Hezbollah’s motto as “death to Israel.” Hamas’s mission is to drive Israel into the Mediterranean. The Houthis slogan is: “Death to America, death to Israel, curse be upon the Jews.” Negotiations towards a two-state solution can only fail if the leadership of one side is intent on the total annihilation of the other.

We like to believe that most wars end by both sides getting together around a negotiating table and having a good long talk, but this is not true. Most wars end because one side wins and the other side loses. Israelis may sense that, unless they take the initiative, they and their neighbours face another 80 years of the same pattern, and all the misery, violence and death that would go with it.

A large proportion of Iranians themselves may be willing Israel on to rid the country of its tyrannical despotic regime and its brutal enforcement of Sharia law. Shia Iran’s overwhelmingly Sunni neighbours in the region will not come to the aid of the IRGC or its proxies.

And Netanyahu will be hoping President Vladimir Putin is similarly reluctant to throw Russia’s full weight behind Iran in a conflict with Israel. Netanyahu may well be looking to the winner of next month’s US presidential election for help on this front.

For Israel, it increasingly seems like the time to strike at the head of the octopus has come.