Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who attended the centenary celebrations of the end of World War I in Paris, held a number of meetings with other participants – leaders of major West European and American powers. He mostly probed his counterparts for potential consent to establish a union whose policy and practical work would be aimed against Iran and its Middle Eastern allies.
Israel believes that Tehran’s main allies are Hezbollah – a political party and military group in the Lebanon, the Houthi militant movement and its armed gangs in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq, and also Syria, if the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps keeps its units on Syrian territory and weapons transit to the neighboring Lebanon continues.
Tel Aviv has been nurturing plans of air strikes against some industrial facilities in Iran for about 20 years. At first, it was scientific labs and uranium enrichment plants. After the signing of the six-sided agreement in 2015, Tehran closed its independent enrichment program and let IAEA representatives to visit every nuclear site in the country. It would seem that Israel, which had been accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons and felt threatened, should have calmed down. But it didn’t happen that way.
By that time, the Israeli were openly cooperating with Saudi Arabia, the main antagonist of the Shia Iran in the Muslim world. A few years earlier, as a result of elaborate planning of a strike against Iran, Israel had reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia on using its air space and even some military facilities for the operation. Even the US refused to get directly involved in this reckless scheme at the time. Saudi Arabia agreed.
Israel, of course, expected that Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah would sooner or later engage in the bloodshed in Syria that started in 2011 and launch a war against Sunni terrorists raised on petrodollars of the monarchies of the Arab Peninsula. In 2012-2013, by the way, some Arab media repeatedly published reports about the ties of Israeli special services to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the future leader of the Islamic State (ISIS, an international terrorist organization prohibited in Russia), and their direct involvement in the establishment of this organization. The Jewish state does have a relevant experience, after all: it was Mossad that in 1973 established the Palestinian Movement of Islamic Resistance and found its leader, sheikh Yassin, at the Arab University of Gaza…
However, even in their wildest nightmares the Israeli leaders could not imagine that in September 2015, Russia would promptly deploy its aerospace troops in Hmeimim and already by the end of the year would drastically reverse the military situation in Syria in favor of its government. But Israel had to have an enemy at all times!
In 2017, Netanyahu spoke at the US Congress and groundlessly accused Iran of continuing nuclear research for military purposes, after which Washington withdrew from the six-sided agreement. None of the Congressmen asked the Israeli Prime Minister a single question, let alone argued with him!
Ahead of Netanyahu’s trip to Paris, some politicians and former military men appeared in Israeli media, commenting on three S-300 PMU Favorite air defense missile systems that were supplied to Syria and put on combat alert on November 7, 2018. Notably, Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, National Heritage and Environment Ze’ev Elkin announced that “now that the Syrians have got S-300, they can use these weapons not only against combat aircraft, but also against Israel’s civil planes.” As if air defense systems Syria had in the past were unable to hit targets in the Israeli air space…
“If circumstances so require, Israel will respond to threats with its military aircraft,” the minister added. Even before that, the Israeli prime minister comforted his people by saying that the country’s “Air Force will continue strikes against military and other facilities in Syria.” But that was before Syria acquired the S-300 system…
As to an anti-Iranian union, it is quite possible that it will be established. Washington has already introduced sanctions against Tehran and threatens to punish those who dare to violate them. Some European countries, fearing ostracism from the US, have wounded up cooperation with Iran and, therefore, become potential recruitment targets for Israel. The question is how big this union is going to be and whether it will be of a military nature.
This matter cannot be raised with Russia, though: Moscow will vehemently object to any such pacts. But its ban can be bypassed, creating at least an appearance of an “international collective” alliance, which will independently, without a sanction from the United Nations, use force against Iran. It has already become trendy to ignore legal norms in inter-state relations. “That which is allowed to Jupiter…” Israel has always seen itself as Jupiter and has no intention of taking into account anyone else.
However, it will have to take into account Russia’s military presence and its national interests in Syria. Moscow cannot be blamed for the aggravation in bilateral relations, and it is unlikely to forgive the Israeli for an incident in the Syrian sky. As to Iran, it is likely to survive even this tribulation, caused by Netanyahu’s desire to bomb the Iranian territory one way or another.
