The alliance between the United States and Israel is a classic example of the tail that wags the dog. The asymmetry in size, wealth and power could hardly be greater.
Yet, in matters relating to the Middle East, it is usually the junior partner who calls the shots. At no time was this more true than in the era of president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The two leaders have many qualities in common: narcissism, authoritarianism, mendacity, ruthlessness and contempt for the law − both domestic and international.
Trump is a convicted felon; Netanyahu is subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity and he is on trial for corruption at home. Both men invariably place their personal interest above the national interest.
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Trump is staggeringly ignorant about the world; Netanyahu is a clever manipulator who plays the American president like a fiddle. Both men are blustering bullies who routinely resort to force and the threat of force to attain their ends.
The similarity in character and methods should not obscure, however, the deep divergence between their visions for the region. Trump is essentially an isolationist, averse to American entanglement in foreign conflicts, fixated on trade, prosperity, and profits, anxious not to allow his allies take advantage of Uncle Sam. To realise this vision, he needs a peaceful, secure and stable Middle East.
It was no coincidence that his first trip abroad in both his first and second terms was to Saudi Arabia. In the more recent trip Trump also visited other wealthy Gulf countries. In the Gulf, Trump successfully practised his much-vaunted “art of the deal”, securing both orders for US goods and investments. Saudi Arabia alone purchased $142 billion of US military hardware − the biggest arms deal in history. This was squalid but at least part of a coherent foreign policy.
What is not so clear is whether Israel is an asset or a liability to Trump in realising his vision of the Middle East. Since its birth in 1948, Israel has received $228 billion in aid from the US, making it the greatest recipient in history. Nowadays, Israel gets $3.8 billion in military aid annually.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has received $22.76 billion in military aid and counting. Trump is notoriously stingy with his foreign allies, insisting, for example, that America’s Nato allies pay their bills. But he seems content to continue to bankroll Israel’s monstrous war machine even as it is ethnically cleansing the West Bank and perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
Trump is either unable or unwilling to grasp that Netanyahu’s policies are at odds with his own vision for the region. For Netanyahu and his racist, far-right coalition partners, there is no peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This makes him a proponent of permanent conflict.
Likewise, there can be no doubt about Netanyahu’s determination to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The policy guidelines of his government assert that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel” and the “Land of Israel” includes the West Bank − Judea and Samaria in the terminology of the Israeli right.
Beyond Greater Israel, from the river to the sea, Netanyahu’s long-term aim is to make Israel master of the entire Middle East. The principal challenger to such mastery is Iran and its allies − Hamas, Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen − who collectively constitute the “axis of resistance”. Syria was a key member of the axis, the only Arab state aligned with Iran in the confrontation with Israel until the recent fall of the Assad regime.
For the past 30 years, Netanyahu has been demonising Iran and calling for a military strike against its nuclear facilities. Meir Dagan, a former director of the Mossad, described this as the silliest idea he had ever heard.
Netanyahu’s rhetorical offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran conveniently overlooks a few basic facts. Firstly, Iran has never attacked any of its neighbours; Israel has launched countless attacks on its Arab neighbours and against the Palestinians who live in the occupied territories. Secondly, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, unlike Israel. Thirdly, Iran submitted to inspection of its facilities by the International Atomic Energy Commission, again in contrast to Israel.
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Lastly, Iran has no nuclear weapons and has repeatedly disavowed the intention to produce them, whereas Israel has between 90 and 100 nuclear warheads as well as the means of delivery. It follows that Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel as Netanyahu keeps insisting, whereas Israel does pose an existential threat to Iran by virtue of its nuclear monopoly.
In 2015 the Obama administration − and four other countries − concluded an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear programme, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The deal aimed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons while allowing for peaceful nuclear energy. Israel’s defence and intelligence chiefs at that time considered this to be a satisfactory solution to the problem. But Netanyahu loudly denounced the agreement and kept repeating that Iran still posed an existential threat to Israel. In 2018, Netanyahu persuaded Donald Trump, who was in his first term as president, not only to withdraw the United States, but to dismantle the agreement altogether.
Had the agreement survived, there would have been no need for military action. Netanyahu, however, persisted in his efforts to drag America into war with Iran. He knew all along that Israel on its own is not capable of destroying the Iranian nuclear programme and that US involvement was necessary. No American president in the last 30 years was gullible enough to go along with this wild plan. Trump, however, eventually gave the green light for a military strike.
On June 13th, when Israel launched the surprise attack on Iran, Iran was engaged in diplomatic talks with the US. Trump’s own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified to Congress in March that Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon. In what became known as “the Twelve Day War”, Israel launched hundreds of air strikes against key military and nuclear facilities while its ground forces assassinated more than 20 senior figures from Iran’s military and intelligence elite. Iran retaliated with waves of missile and drone strikes against Israeli cities and military sites, causing considerable damage.
The US, which defended Israel against Iranian missiles and drones, took offensive action on the ninth day of the war by bombing the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, using B2 bombers and Tomahawk missiles.
This was an unprovoked war of aggression by two bullies, which intensified the pressure from the Iranian hardliners to go all-out to produce the bomb. One illegal − but loudly proclaimed − aim of the war was to bring about regime change in Tehran. This goal was not achieved and indeed could not be achieved by foreign military intervention. By bombing civilian targets, the bullies caused the Iranian people to rally behind the flag and ended up by bolstering the position of the deeply unpopular regime.
This illegal and totally unnecessary war had a comic sequel. The president and the prime minister met in the White House to celebrate what they claimed was a historic victory. At the beginning of the meeting, Netanyahu presented Trump with a letter that he said he had sent to Oslo, nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump, for his part, threatened to review US aid to Israel unless Israel’s high court drops the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust against Netanyahu. The alliance of the bullies has evidently yielded some benefits − for the bullies themselves, but for no one else.
Avi Shlaim is an emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and the author of Genocide in Gaza: Israel’s Long War on Palestine, published by Irish Pages Press
