On Wednesday morning, as news broke that Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran, the Israeli actress who plays a Mossad agent on the show Tehran, posted a video on Instagram in which she looks into the camera while drinking coffee and just smirks and winks. Israel has not assumed responsibility for the killing, as opposed to the death of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut hours earlier, or the airstrike last month that killed Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif (and which Tel Aviv confirmed on Thursday). But her video in some ways illustrates the satisfaction, the nonchalance, and the pride that many Israelis—and certainly the Israeli military and political establishment—feel after the deaths of leading figures of the two non-state actors Israel has been fighting since Oct. 7.
For Israel, after nearly 10 months of bombing and destroying Gaza without achieving its war goals of eliminating Hamas and getting the remaining 111 hostages back, after being humiliated by Hezbollah’s daily fire that led Israel to evacuate tens of thousands of residents and created a de facto buffer zone inside Israeli territory, and after being found in violation of human rights treaties in an advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice and seeing its leaders facing possible arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court, Israel can now boast what it sees as a major strategic achievement. And one not just against Hamas, but against Iran, and, when you add to it the strikes on Yemen’s Red Sea city of Hodeidah last month, Iran’s whole “Axis of Resistance.” In just a few days, Israel has switched the focus from Gaza to Tehran, and from causing mass civilian casualties to precise, surgical operations targeting its enemy’s command structures.
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As Netanyahu said in a press statement on Wednesday night, “since the beginning of the war, I have made it clear that we are in a fight against Iran’s axis of evil. This is an existential war against a stranglehold of terrorist armies and missiles that Iran would like to tighten around our neck.” Nevermind that Netanyahu did not talk about Iran in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, but now he has put Iran front and center.
In the view of Israeli leaders, this will restore Israel’s power projection, bolster its deterrence and its reputation for superpower-level military intelligence, and demonstrate that its adversaries are safe nowhere—that it has been able to penetrate and compromise Hezbollah and Iran’s security on their own soil. Less clear is how Israel will leverage what it sees as an upper hand. Although logic dictates that killing the very people you are negotiating with is not going to hasten a ceasefire deal with them, Netanyahu could use this moment to build a victory narrative that pacifies the far right on which he relies to stay in power. All while taking advantage of the three-month Knesset recess that began on July 24, in which lawmakers cannot move to topple the government, so his seat is all but assured.
Assuming what has been stopping Netanyahu from agreeing to a ceasefire is his political survival, as many Israeli officials have openly said, this would be an opportune time to do it. Israel’s security establishment has been pushing for a ceasefire deal in Gaza for weeks now, so that the military can rest and recalibrate and turn attention to Israel’s northern border, either to de-escalate through diplomacy, or in order to deal a major strike on Hezbollah in Lebanon—risking a truly dangerous escalation with a militant group with upwards of 150,000 missiles, including precision ones, that can strike deep into Israeli territory. But it is also because the security establishment understands the importance of getting the hostages home in order to close that chapter and try to start rebuilding the Israeli public’s trust in both the military and political leadership, which is probably at an all-time low.
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On this last issue, however, it does not seem that Netanyahu is too concerned with the hostages’ fate or the public’s trust. He shows no sign of bending to the majority of Israelis who want him to resign and have less and less confidence in Israel’s ability to win the war in Gaza. An alternative reading, however, is that the decision to implement these strikes is precisely the result of Netanyahu’s concern about his weakness at home and abroad, seeing it as a way to rally the Israeli public and corral the U.S. behind Israel as it anticipates a major Iranian response that could escalate to a regional conflagration. This would, and to an extent already is, overriding and eclipsing all the domestic and international woes he is facing, helping to guarantee he can continue prosecuting an endless war with no offramp and no exit strategy for as long as he needs to stay in power.
Ever since Oct. 7, the Middle East has faced the prospect of a regional war that could spiral out of control. One of the biggest dangers has been that even if none of the players are interested in further escalation, the risk of mistakes and miscalculation abounds. A rocket attack that killed 12 children and injured dozens more in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights this past weekend—presumably by a Hezbollah projectile that was aimed at an Israeli military base—is a case in point. The incident has undercut the already precarious but contained war of attrition paradigm, and catapults the situation into even more uncharted territory. No one is interested in an all-out war, but the question of whether the region will find peace depends less on that than whether the key players—Israel, Hamas, Iran, and especially the U.S.—are willing to use every tool available to them to put a stop to all the hostilities and pursue a diplomatic way out.
Israel could use this moment to make a move in this direction. Unfortunately, and especially under Netanyahu, there is not much evidence to suggest it will.
