From Tehran to Nowhere: Israel’s Strategic Drift

Ten days into the war with Iran and more than 620 days into the war in Gaza many of us are beginning to suspect that the Government of Israel, without asking its citizens, is signing us up for a considerably longer tour of duty than anyone originally contemplated. We may even be led to thinking that little thought has been given to how or when this war may end.

It is clear that there is no cogent reason to continue the fighting against Hamas in Gaza which essentially (and sadly enough) has slowly deteriorated into a campaign marked by potential war crimes, other than the government’s stubborn refusal to seek a reasonable way out which would also lead to a release of the hostages. Meanwhile Israel’s war on Iran has been overtaken by mission creep: what began as an operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program has expanded to include its missile systems and now even efforts to destabilize the regime itself. And this without taking into consideration the impact on regional instability, global diplomatic backlash or distraction from important domestic issues. What else is in the pipeline? In a country as large as Iran, there are certainly enough targets to keep this operation going for quite a bit with no end in sight. Israel’s Chief of Staff indeed suggested glibly to be prepared for a “prolonged campaign” which certainly could turn into a war of attrition if it hasn’t already.

Netanyahu, the consummate politician who has a history of being reluctant to enter violent confrontations is now fighting a multi-front war without making any serious attempts at an end-game, taking huge risks for Israel and the whole region while banking on substantial support by the US,  support that in any case will be limited and by no means can be counted on. Meanwhile Netanyahu’s manipulations have turned Israel from an ally of the US into a US proxy at a time when it is extremely difficult to rely on the United States.

All this is happening without addressing the real problem the State of Israel is facing.  Contrary to what Netanyahu has tried to make us all believe for decades, the Iranian nuclear program was and is not the most existential threat on Israel’s agenda. It could have been contained safely enough by Obama’s 2015 JCPOA treaty but Netanyahu kept the threat alive to control his base pressuring Trump in 2018 to scuttle the JCPOA which promptly let Iran’s nuclear genie out of the bottle. Since then the program progressed unhindered by the bothersome treaty even though no serious analyst (or intelligence service) would claim that the status of the Iranian nuclear program just happened to become critical in June 2025 and no evidence to that effect has been presented. Yet Netanyahu called for an attack and now we are in a war.

Gaza as an extension of the Israel- Palestine conflict was and is a much more pressing issue and on Oct. 7 2023 proved exactly why and to what extent. One would think that the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the following hostage crisis was an event traumatic enough to shake Israel’s political system out of its complacency but far from it. Well, there was a shake up of sorts but it focused on the disastrous handling of the Hamas attack by the IDF more than on anything else. So far, Netanyahu’s coalition government has been able to squash any serious discussion of the build up leading to Oct.7 and the persistent avoidance of any serious attempt to come to some kind of arrangement or even an agreement with the Palestinians. Successive governments have shared in the failure to address the Palestinian issue but Netanyahu has perfected its avoidance into doctrine.

And this is where we are at – in an avoidable war of attrition with Iran that serves as a powerful distraction from Israel’s real existential problem, the conflict with the Palestinians.

Israel continues to annex the West Bank in bits and pieces while systematically displacing Palestinians to make room for settlements. In doing so it is adding to the tremendous damage that is caused by the ongoing and disproportionate violence against civilians in Gaza which undermines the legitimacy Israel has gained as a state created by a UN resolution committed by its own Declaration of Independence to adhere to the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

With over 4 million Palestinians living under prolonged military occupation – half of them in Gaza facing acute humanitarian crisis – Israel’s global standing has plummeted. No amount of precision bombing in Iran will restore its legitimacy or security. Only when Israeli society develops the self-awareness to confront the moral and political cost of this reality will it begin to grasp the scale of repentance, reconciliation and political change required to chart a better future. The road to real security runs through Ramallah, not Tehran. Let’s hope we’ll find the leadership – and the courage – to take it.