Iran and Israeli Politics

Will Israel strike Iran? If so, when and how? While the question has been on the radar for around a decade, it has become more urgent over the last few years, and more commented upon since Benjamin Netanyahu took office in Israel three years ago. Netanyahu promised to make the Iranian threat his top concern, and pledged that Israel would use force to stop Iran from achieving nuclear capacity.

Most analysts, for some reason, have been analyzing the military perspective. Does the Israeli army have the capability to pursue such a complicated operation against Iran while managing potential responses from Iran and her proxies and allies (Hezbollah, Hamas, and, to some extent, parts of Syria)? While the purely military question is important, I would like to suggest that questions of timing and capacity depend not so much on the capacity of the army as on delicate political calculations – both internal and international – currently being assessed by Israel.

Let us assume Israel can damage or destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, postponing Iranian ambitions for at least a year while absorbing any rockets or other attacks by Iranian proxies. The question of attack still remains delicate and problematic within the political sphere.

Western media has been quick to pounce on generals who have aired public skepticism about an Israeli attack. But political opposition is perhaps more important. When Menachem Begin ordered the successful attack on the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in August 1981, the Israeli opposition, along with the 'world community', was unimpressed. A certain Shimon Peres, then head of the HaMa'arakh (The 'Allignment Party', main opposition to Begin's Likud at the time), claimed that the attack, coming as it did three weeks before an election, was purely political, designed to win elections and would draw more world criticism against Israel. Peres said it was a 'sensitive moment', with Ronald Reagan (prompted especially by his Secretary of Defense, Casper Weinberger), supporting the UN denunciation. That same Shimon Peres remains vocally against an attack today. Ha'aretz reported in late February that Peres told Obama that Israel "should not attack Iran," and that Israelis are overly paranoid הפחדה עצמית בלתי פוסקת" (Incessant-Self-Scaring) (http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/world/middle-east/1.1648254).

This wasn't the first or the last time that the irrepressible Shimon aired his opinion against a strike. Just last Friday, Ari Shavit, the Ha'aretz political columnist, reported on Israeli television that Pers remained the real head of the opposition to an Israeli strike:

"The real fight is not between the Political leadership and the army leadership, but between

The political leadership and the president's house… The president uses all means to try to stop Barak and Netanyahu from striking Iran"

Peres, of course, has no 'formal' political power, but he enjoys the reputation of an elder statesman, has connections to world leaders, and has nothing to lose and no one to unseat him. There is further a large constituency for what Peres has to say.

Reuters/Ipsos reported in March that 56% of Americans supported a strike against Irael, 39% opposing it. When questioned about whether they would let Israel do it, support went up to 62%.

(http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/13/us-usa-iran-poll-idUSBRE82C19Y20120313) In Israel on the other hand the picture is very different. Tel Aviv University's INSS (The Institute for national security studies) polled Israeli support for attack at 48%. 52% of Israelis prefer "political actions" to stop Iran from acquiring the bomb. (http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/238981) These polls are consistent with other polls that show that while there is a wide support for a strike in the US, The Israeli population is more cautious.

While the Israelis are cautious, the media is resolutely decided – against. Ha'aretz, Israel's leading intellectual broadsheet, four of the five recent op-eds on Iran oppose an Israeli strike. In an op-ed titled "An Iranian bomb will contribute to a peaceful Iran" Prof. Emeritus Ben-Ami Shiloni, following some prominent US 'realists', said that a bomb would make the Mullahs more rational. The piece was "liked" on facebook 364 times, and at least half of the 221 "talkbacks" supported the thesis. Nachum Barnea, the so-called "dean" of Israeli political commentary, even claims that the Iraq operation in 1981 is a "subject of controversy", i.e. not a clear cut success. Apparently, the only newspaper which favors a strike is Israel Ha'yom, Israel's most read tabloid. This is not enough.

The Israeli political sphere assumes that any strike on Iran – successful or not—will lead to elections. Netanyahu, who would like another four years in office, does, for better or worse, take the opposition to the strike in media and public opinion into consideration.

Another important political calculation for Netanyahu is the US presidential election. Netanyahu, his closes advisors and Israeli "conservatives" all see President Obama as a serious threat to both Israeli interests and stability in the region. A successful strike on Iran before November might force Obama to back Israel in the short term. "War President" Obama could help his re-election, something Netanyahu, if he can help it, would try to avoid. Even if Israelis are over-estimating the extent to which they can influence this election, this calculation is still being made by Israeli officials.

The decision to attack Iranian facilities, then, is not just a military problem, but a political one. Israelis are thinking not only about 'potential' Iranian responses – the closing of the Gulf, oil prices, -- and so on, but the domestic arena, President Obama, and also any political cards which Iran might play after a strike (calling for a binding non proliferation treaty and so on). A not marginal part of the Israeli leadership has persuaded itself that the diplomatic and political consequences of a strike might be a bigger threat to Israel than the capabilities of Hezbollah, Iranian missiles, and Hamas. The various voices, of generals, of politicians, aired in public about to strike or not to strike, represent, with rare exceptions, just confusion rather than "sophisticated psychological warfare" for Iranian or American consumption.

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