Iranophobia: Netanyahu’s bid to transform fear into political survival

Résumé détaillé

Despite knowing a war with Iran would be manufactured for Netanyahu's survival, many would still rally behind it.

As the right-wing coalition government that oversaw the genocide in Gaza, launched attacks across the region, and eroded civil liberties at home appears to lose its grip on power by the day, caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly frantic efforts to derail the political transition suggest a growing desperation to stay in office.

Among those efforts appears to be an attempt to reignite the war with Iran. Netanyahu has reportedly ordered the Israeli military to prepare for war ahead of a potential attack on Iran, in defiance of the opposition’s calls for restraint.

The reports follow revelations that Netanyahu had been phoning US President Donald Trump almost daily to press for renewed strikes on Iran. Israeli media have also reported repeated confrontations between Netanyahu and military chief Eyal Zamir, who has resisted proposals for military action against Iran, warning that they could trigger a wider conflict.

Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has been tasked with forming a viable government, but that is not a foregone conclusion. Netanyahu has been pushing for a national unity government that would include himself and his Likud party, or waiting for Eisenkot to fail, leading to another election.

“Netanyahu is desperate,” Ahron Bregman, an Israeli political analyst at King’s College London, said. “He knows – and you can see it from his behaviour – that it is likely that he is politically done, and only a national unity government could save him.”

“A little war could compel Eisenkot & Co,” he said, referring to the opposition bloc and its leader, Gadi Eisenkot, “to form such a government in a time of crisis.”

Many in the opposition, including Eisenkot himself, have accused Netanyahu of attempting to drag the country into a potentially devastating war for his own political survival, or of deliberately stalling the coalition-building process in the hope of running down the clock and forcing another election.

Yet while critics see Netanyahu’s attempts to…

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