Many people in Israel are aware of the folly of these policies and the inevitable costs they entail, yet they continue to pursue them. The question is, why?
As time goes on I recognise more and more the genius of what Europe did after the Second World War: integrate their national economies so as to create dependencies between the formerly warring countries, thus ensuring that future wars would be too costly even to consider. It seems clear that it’s largely because of this strategy that, ever since, there has been little danger – despite serious tensions – of these countries going to war with each other. In spite of all the many problems within today’s EU, this original achievement deserves to be recognised – especially when we look at what’s happening beyond Europe’s borders.
The desperate need for such an arrangement in today’s dangerous conflict zones seems obvious enough, and there are many today who understand this perfectly well. Russian leaders long warned that Western efforts to isolate Russia from its European neighbours – of which NATO expansion was a part – would ultimately result in the large-scale conflict that we’re still witnessing in Ukraine. And in the Middle East today, Arab leaders seem to understand this better than they did just a few months ago – judging by the GCC countries’ current pledge of a $300bn joint investment fund to assist in Iran’s post-war reconstruction. It seems the old paradigm – maintain a hardline stance toward Iran and depend on the American superpower to protect them – is no longer reliable. And in its place, it’s looking very much like the Gulf States are serious about the possibility of moving toward some form of cooperation and economic integration with their adversary. (Not to mention that potential US direct investments in Iran are also now on the table.)
All this, of course, is anathema to the Israelis, whose survival strategy has long involved stoking the flames of hostility between their neighbours. Peace and cooperation between Iran and the Arab Gulf States is the last thing they want. From their point of view, such a peace would only unite their enemies and strengthen Iran – the chief supporter of hostile proxies in Israel’s immediate neighbourhood. It remains to be seen whether an agreement reached in Switzerland could involve both the US restraining Israel and Iran restraining Hezbollah. It seems feasible enough on paper. But the last hundred years of relations in the region contain innumerable examples of well-intentioned agreements being scuttled, often not by the main actors per se but by hotheads on the ground who possess weapons – and thus a de facto veto over any peace initiative – and simply cannot be constrained.
And this of course assumes that we’ll ever get to a well-intentioned final agreement in the first place. It’s clear enough that Israeli leaders, quite apart from hotheads on the ground, will do everything they can to derail any such agreement before it’s agreed. Trita Parsi has argued (here and elsewhere) that Trump, with a deal now within reach, has the strongest possible incentive to use all of America’s coercive power to force Israel to fall in line – despite the inevitable domestic political cost to Trump of doing so. It seems that Trump is fully aware that the inevitable ‘economic catastrophe’ that would result from not closing a deal with Iran would cost him and the US a lot more.
There’s a final consideration in all this that seems so obvious that it’s hard to believe the Israelis themselves cannot see it plainly: that if an Iran deal is not concluded, then the looming economic catastrophe – which will be global – will in one sense have an even more dire impact on Israel than on other countries. Not only will they suffer economically along with everyone else, but they will undoubtedly be blamed for the whole disaster by the rest of the world.
No doubt there are many in Israel who are keenly aware of this, and of the inevitable cost of pursuing their current policy. The question is why do they nevertheless continue to pursue it. It seems at least part of the answer must be the following: that the Israelis are so accustomed to decades of unconditional US support that they still believe, despite Trump’s current rhetoric – and with the power of ‘the Lobby’ still firmly in place – that the Americans will ultimately allow Israel to do whatever it wants with US weaponry, as they’ve always done.
But will they? At the moment it looks very much like no one knows the answer to this question. Unfortunately it also looks very much like the Israelis are determined to find out.
III.
III.