In the last two years, as well as its war on Gaza and increasingly violent occupation of the West Bank, Israel has launched attacks on Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.The most recent attacks on Syria were launched this week, going so far as to hit the country’s Ministry of Defence.
Of course, the Israelis point to their justifications for the attacks on Syria – principally, in Israel’s telling, to defend the Syrian Druze minority. A US-brokered ceasefire has taken effect, but whether it holds remains to be seen.
In Lebanon, Israel claimed it wanted to stop the threat posed by Hezbollah.
The attacks on Iran, it said, were to end that country’s attempt to build a nuclear bomb.
And in Yemen, Israel’s bombing was a response to attacks from the country’s Houthi rebels.
Explanations aside, the question becomes whether the Israelis can continue to act in a manner that has many around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, seeing them as the aggressor.
Impunity over relationship-building
The Israeli argument is that all these conflicts – and the more than 58,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza – are necessary because Israel faces an existential battle that it has no choice but to win.
The Israeli government, in its current far-right makeup, at least, does not seem to care if its neighbours do not like it. Rather, it seems to care that they fear it.
And as the most powerful military force in the region, with the backing of the most powerful military force in the world, the Israelis feel that they can largely do what they want. Advertisement
Israel is taking advantage of …