Is Israel winning
Is Israel winning?
MADRID — Israel finds itself in a situation entirely different from the one it occupied before October 7, 2023. Its strategic calculations, regional projection, and capacity to impose its political will are being strongly questioned, and nothing suggests this will be reversed in the future.
First, it must be clear that Israel does not have a foreign policy in any conventional sense; it has only a security-driven policy. That is, its entire policy serves almost exclusively to guarantee its own security. This has been so since the very moment of Israel's founding, precisely because of the manner in which it was carried out.
Israel was born as a settler-colonial state in Palestine and, therefore, cannot erase that inaugural violence. Nor can it forget that colonial violence permanently haunts the colonial occupier until the end of its days. From this arises Israel's security imperative: an attempt to secure regional domination through expansion and territorial control, giving it guarantees no colonial settlement has ever enjoyed.
The regional military domination that takes shape after 1967, always with the explicit support of the United States, is the materialization of that very strategy.
Since 1967, Israel has not suffered any serious threat to its colonial sovereignty. This includes what occurred in 1973, when Egypt attacked Israeli troops to recover the Sinai Peninsula. Despite the war, Egypt's principal objective was not to destroy Israel or liberate the Palestinians; it was simply to recover territory occupied by the colonial state in one of its multiple territorial expansions.
All of this changed on October 7. With the Hamas attack, the first major crisis since 1967, the Israeli colonial state set in motion two distinct strategies. One was directed at the Palestinians, consisting of unleashing a genocide to eliminate the native population; the other had a regional vocation. The latter sought to create a unipolar region where Israel would be the undisputed central pole, with a "domesticated" Iran — through regime change or civil war — and Arab countries completely aligned with its project. Furthermore, Israel continued counting on absolute United States support at all levels — political, economic, diplomatic — because Israel functions as a domestic issue in American politics, not a mere foreign policy matter.
The genocide had a clear worldwide repercussion. More and more countries see Israel as a pariah state, similar to apartheid South Africa, completely delegitimized. It is true that United States protection prevented economic sanctions, but that protection could not shape the perception the colonial state currently holds among Americans themselves. A poll published last week caused commotion in much of the United States foreign policy establishment that follows the Middle East closely. The poll showed that 60% of American adults hold an unfavorable opinion of Israel. In both political parties, more than half of people under 50 evaluate Israel negatively. Although this trend had already become evident in recent years, an additional marked deterioration of support for Israel among Americans across the political spectrum is now observable.
The additional data paint an even more concerning picture. The general downward trend conceals a collapse in Israel's valuation among younger Americans, even among groups many in Israel consider reliable bastions of support.
The war against Iran confirmed Israel's worst strategic nightmares. Despite the assassination of senior military officials and Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran did not collapse — precisely what the Israelis had expected.
They assured Trump that three or four days of bombing would bring down the Islamic Republic. They expected either regime change or civil war — surely Tel Aviv's preferred option. But that did not happen. The institutions survived and went on the offensive. Iranian missiles repeatedly penetrated Israel's celebrated air defense system, reaching the heart of Israel and targets across the country, paralyzing it and causing unprecedented casualties plus massive destruction. This, together with the failure to achieve any objectives, constituted another victory for Iran.
The missiles reached their targets; Iran's image was not tarnished, most of the world saw it as a victim of an Israeli and American attack, and Iran's options for responding were not limited.
Beyond its military defeat, Israel faces a regional political reconfiguration different from the one it designed just a few years ago. The clearest example is the current posture of the Persian Gulf monarchies toward the so-called Abraham Accords. The strategic objective was for the two pillars of American policy in the region — the Arab countries and Israel — to come together in a single bloc against a common enemy: Iran.
Saudi Arabia, the most coveted piece, stepped back from normalization with Israel, and not only that. The war against Iran, and Iran's subsequent response against American bases in the region, exposed the weakness of the protection Washington had deployed to safeguard its allies. This explains the security pact among Saudis, Turks, and Pakistanis.
Israel's attempt to rewrite the regional balance by defeating or weakening Iran has failed. Israel depends even more on the United States; the Abraham Accords are dead, Hezbollah remains, and Iran was not defeated; instead, it has become a force setting the tone in the region. The Persian Gulf countries have recognized that their alliance with the United States and their possible agreements with Israel expose them to greater risks than those they seek protection from.
source: tehrantimes.com