Israel thinks it is on a roll. In concert with the United States, it has inflicted heavy damage on the Iranian military and annihilated its nuclear programme. Israel has gotten away with genocide in Gaza. It is stealing ever more land in the West Bank. Since 2020, over 1,100 Palestinian civilians have been murdered by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. How many Israelis have been prosecuted for this? Zero. Two hundred and seventy-five of those victims were children.
Trump is perhaps the most insanely Zionist and viciously anti-Muslim president the USA has ever had. Netanyahu was able to talk him into launching his war of aggression against Iran. Israel decided to take maximum advantage of Trump’s blatant senility before wiser counsels in the White House prevailed.
By slaying the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Israelis have proven that they could kill any Middle Eastern leader. Their flagrant disregard for international law has not had serious repercussions for them. Benjamin Netanyahu has been itching to attack Iran for 40 years.
Since February 2026, Israel has invaded Lebanon yet again. It says it will seize (i.e. illegally occupy) 10% of Lebanon as a ‘security zone’. Israel illegally occupied South Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. Eventually, casualties forced Israel out.
In 2025, Israel invaded Syria and stole even more land. Israel has illegally occupied the Golan Heights in Syria since 1973. The US has recognised the Golan Heights as legally Israeli. The Israelis know how to play on Trump’s raging vanity — they named a town there in his honour. Syria is in no position to resist. The shattered country is rebuilding, and it will be decades before it has a significant military capability.
Egypt and Jordan have been at peace with Israel for decades. Syria is recovering from a horrific 14-year civil war and has neither the ability nor the inclination to fight Israel.
In a sense, Israel’s position is stronger than ever before. It has discovered oil off its Mediterranean coast. Israel has also forged ahead with wind power, wave power and solar power. For decades, it has had nuclear energy. Thus, energy independence is within Israel’s grasp.
There are Israelis who say that the country should build a Greater Israel. The Bible says the Jews started in what is now Iraq between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers. The Jews dwelt in Egypt for a time. Some ultra-Zionists talk about taking back all the land from the Tigris to the Nile.
The US Ambassador to Israel was questioned about this by Tucker Carlson. Carlson was a Fox News shock jock for years. He is notorious for his frank racism and his outright anti-Muslim bigotry. He applauded the torture of Iraqis by the US military and called the Iraqis ‘monkeys’.
But even he was flabbergasted when Ambassador Huckabee said he approved of an Israeli plan to annex more land because it was granted to them by God according to the Bible. Mick Huckabee is a Christian fundamentalist. Mainstream Christians regard Christian fundamentalists as puritanical, crazy, reactionary imbeciles on a par with the Taliban in the Muslim world.
Christian fundamentalists believe in the verbal inerrancy of the Bible, i.e. there is not one wrong word in it. Mainstream Christians realise that it can be understood metaphorically. When the Bible says God made the world in six days, Christian fundamentalists say it was in six periods of 24 hours.
Mainstream Christians note that the Hebrew word for ‘day’ in the Bible can be interpreted as a period of time of indeterminate length, so it could be millions of years. Mainstream Christians regard the Bible as religious and not political. Christian fundamentalists see it as a political manifesto.
Israel has warm relations with Cyprus, with whom it shares a maritime border. Relations between Turkey and Israel have soured severely over the past decade. This has redounded to Cyprus’s advantage. A third of Cyprus is under Turkish occupation. Therefore, the Cypriots are very hostile to the Turks. Cyprus is the only neighbour of Israel with whom the Israelis have genuinely amicable relations. Could Israel persuade the Cypriots to lease them an air base and a naval base? This would cement Israeli mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Some Gulf Arab countries recognise Israel. The United Arab Emirates did so several years ago. The question is whether the others will follow suit. Israel hopes to gain recognition from Saudi Arabia. But the murder of 70,000 Palestinians by Israel makes this impossible for Riyadh. But the notion of the Umma and Arab brotherhood is a weak concept now.
For 20 years, Gulf Arab countries were worried about Iran gaining strength. There was a time when there were pro-Iranian governments in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Syria — Ansar Allah — looked like they were gaining the upper hand. That had the Gulf Arab nations really worried. The Shia majority in Bahrain was restive in 2011. Iran reminded the world that it ruled Bahrain until the 18th century.
Saudi Arabia did, at one point, recognise that it and Israel had a common foe: Iran. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, at that point, they set aside their differences and were reported to have agreed to cooperate on crushing Iran. Israeli jets flew over Saudi Arabia and Iraq to attack Iran in 2026. These countries did nothing to stop them.
Iran has now been knocked back as a military power. Yes, it can threaten the Strait of Hormuz, but it cannot launch an invasion of any other country.
Israel faces no well-armed country in the region except perhaps Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis show no desire to face off against the Zionist entity. Israel could steal more land and probably get away with it. Some Israelis are buoyed up by their victories and are keen to press their advantage. There are other Israelis who are tired of war and are worried about being overconfident. They say quit while we are ahead.