On 1 April 2024, an Israeli airstrike destroyed the Iranian
consulate annex building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus,
Syria, killing 16 people, including a senior Quds Force commander of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and seven other IRGC officers.
Hard on the heels of the foreign secretary’s victory declaration came
his call for restraint. Lord Cameron while confirming that Israel does
have a right to respond to the unprecedented missile barrage, pointedly
added “we do not support a retaliatory strike. There are times where we
have to be smart as well as tough, where we have to use head as well as
heart.”
In that he was echoing an earlier and even more pointed declaration from President Biden. In a phone call
with Netanyahu the president reportedly told the Israeli PM to “take
the win” and warned that if Israel attacked Iran directly, the US would
not join in.
For their part the Iranians announced
at the UN that “the matter can be deemed concluded” unless of course
the Israelis carried out an attack on Iran itself. In which case
“should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran's response will be
considerably more severe." That, as far as Iran is concerned, has left
the ball squarely in Israel’s court.
Anshel Pfeffer writing in Haaretz
noted that securing the backing of Arab states against Iran’s missile
offensive was indeed a significant achievement, one he called an
“inflection point.” He argued that “it is now up to Israel to calibrate
its inevitable response and coordinate it with the Biden administration,
to avoid a regional conflagration and minimise fallout for those
neighbours that are now de facto allies.”
Pfeffer added:
Ultimately, in order to allow (the Arab states) to gradually
cooperate more openly with Israel in the future and to withstand the
criticism within their own countries for the lack of "solidarity" with
the Palestinians, Israel's strategy has to be a swift end to the war in
Gaza, as part of a wider agreement to release the hostages and implement
UN Resolution 1701 in the north, pushing Hezbollah away from the
border.
An opportunity then and one that Netanyahu should grasp says Pfeffer.
However even in the unlikely event 1701 - the 2007 call for a cessation
of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah - was implemented the bigger reality, of course, is that Netanyahu does not want an end to the war. Nor can he easily ignore the demands
from his extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to hit
Iran fast and hard. Putting it in gangland-speak the minister said “the
boss must go nuts.” Ben-Gvir and his fellow extremist Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich - Israel, he said, must respond “not with slogans but
with action”- are all that is holding Netanyahu’s coalition together.
Benjamin Netanyahu is as adroit as Ayatollah Khamenei in playing high
stakes games. For Khamenei the risk was that a ballistic missile got
through and did significant damage with multiple and perhaps massive
casualties. It didn’t happen so the gamble would appear to have paid
off. At least thus far. Netanyahu will have to decide to make a call. Is
Biden bluffing when he says he will not have Israel’s back if it
conducts a major military action against Iran? Or is Ben-Gvir the
bluffer implying he will bring the Netanyahu government down if a hard
hit is not swiftly carried out? No doubt, as he has so often done in the
past, Netanyahu will try and hold off Smotrich and Ben-Gvir with a
promise of action to come mixed with harsh actions against Palestinian
civilians and Hamas such as last week’s killing of the three sons and
four grandchildren of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh (see our newsletter of 12 April.)
But as this game is played out in Washington, London, Tel Aviv and
Tehran the bombs continue to fall in Gaza and settler attacks continue
in the West Bank; humanitarian aid is withheld at the border as Gazans
face starvation and disease. The US, Britain, Israel and Tehran can all
claim a measure of victory. As ever it is the Palestinians who pay the
price.