A full-scale war between Israel and Iran is unlikely

In April 2024 Israel broke international law by deliberately killing diplomats with an attack on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus. In fairness, Iran has sometimes killed Israeli diplomats. The State of Israel was de-recognized by Iran in 1979 just after the Islamic Revolution.

The Iranians riposted with a missile and drone strike on Israel a few days later. The day before the attack President Biden stated that American support of Israel is cast iron. The Iranian aerial attacks on Israel were a damp squib. Few of the projectiles would have got through the Iron Dome anyway. However, the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force (RAF) took off to shoot down many of the Iranian projectiles. Of the 300 of them very few are said to have hit Israel. One woman was wounded, and no one was killed. The RAF took off from British bases in Cyprus.

Lord David Cameron, the British Foreign Secretary, publicly advised Israel to take the win. The United States has for months tried to persuade Prime Minister Netanyahu to observe humanitarian law in Israel’s invasion of Gaza. These repeated blandishments have fallen on deaf ears. There have been amply documented persistent and gross-scale human rights violations by the ill-named Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

Much of this has been caught on camera and attested to by several human rights organisations and the United Nations. This has included the mass murder of civilians, the widespread use of torture and the desecration of mosques and graveyards. The Biden White House became exasperated with Israel taking its money, diplomatic support and arms while continuing to disregard American pleas for some mercy towards Palestinian civilians.

The US gives everything to Israel and gets nothing. The United States wielded its UN Security Council veto in favour of Israel again in 2024. The US vetoed Palestinian membership of the UN. Notwithstanding this, Israel slapped the US in the face by hitting back at Iran when the United States beseeched the Israelis to de-escalate the conflict.

Iran and Israel do not share a border. But the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is in Syria. It has been vital in sustaining the Assad regime. Moreover, the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia is in Lebanon.

Tel Aviv has been accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons for 35 years. But where are the nukes? If Israel really believed there was an Iranian nuclear programme this was the perfect excuse to take it out. But Israeli strikes on Iran have not targeted nuclear-related sites.

It beggars belief that the United Kingdom should stick its neck out for Israel. Israel has never done anything for the UK. There is no military alliance between the two. There are only a few thousand dual Israeli-British citizens. The two countries do not trade much. The UK has angered Iran but its intervention in the conflict. The United Kingdom has tarnished its reputation with the Muslim world and much of the Global South by continuing to sell arms to Israel knowing that Israel uses them for horrific human rights violations. To some extent, British obeisance to Israel is to suck up to the USA.

The Conservative Party is ruling the UK. There is a faction inside it called Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). If you join CFI you have a much better chance of getting elected to Parliament. MPs who are members of CFI are flown to Israel business class and put up in a five-star hotel all expenses paid. Most Conservative MPs are affluent and could afford this themselves. But as greedy and selfish people they prefer someone else to pay.

If a Conservative criticizes human rights abuses by Israel, his career is over.

Iran has enough on its plate. It is fighting in Syria. The proxy war in Yemen is going badly. The economy has been ravaged by 20 years of sanctions. There is serious unrest in Iran. Relations with Pakistan and Azerbaijan are poor. The Iranians do not want a war. Iranian military technology is two generations behind that of Israel. Israel and the United States are smart enough not to be drawn into a ground war where the Iranian advantage of numbers would tell.

The Middle East Conflict has been good news for Russia. It has cemented the Moscow-Tehran Axis. It has exposed the hypocrisies of the USA and the United Kingdom once more. It has diverted attention, money and arms from Ukraine. It has raised oil prices.

Israel and Iran have been in a low-level conflict for decades. This will likely rumble on.

The Gaza conflict has so sickened the Muslim world that Saudi Arabia will not now join in an effort with Israel to bomb Iran. The rapprochement between the two countries was happening until 2023. It was possible that Saudi would follow other Gulf Arab countries like the UAE, Oman and Bahrain and recognize Israel. There is now no possibility of that for the foreseeable future.

Netanyahu has a very low approval rating. He has prolonged the Gaza War to stay in office. There are some cabinet ministers in his coalition who are even more barbarous than he is.

Most Israelis reviled Netanyahu even before the Gaza War. Even some of his supporters are alarmed at how cavalier he has been with the US-Israeli relationship. The Israelis urgently need US arms and the American veto in the UN. They jeopardise this relationship at their peril.

It is widely known that Netanyahu wants Trump back as president. He can play Trump like a fiddle. Israel even named a village in honour of Trump. A man who is totally driven by egomania like Trump is easy to manipulate. Trump would endorse any atrocity no matter how vile so long as he was praised by its perpetrators. The trouble for Netanyahu is that Biden has a 55% chance of winning the election.

Israel is war-weary. Operations are winding down. Reservists want to go back to civilian life. Israeli public opinion demands negotiations to free the hostages.

For the Republican Party in the USA the Gaza issue is simple – support Israel to the hilt no matter how egregious its crimes. Any concerns for humanitarianism are seen as weakness or appeasing terrorism. Any criticism of Israel no matter how foul is felonies, and is called anti-Semitism. Anti-Arab racism and anti-Muslim bigotry are the order of the day.

For the Democrats in the USA, the Gaza issue is trickier. There are Zionists in the party who are as anti-Palestinian as the Republicans. But on the left of the party and among youngsters and ethnic minority people, there is a recognition that the Palestinians have suffered the most horrendous injustices for decades. They have pleaded for the US to use its sway to stop the massacre.

The author is a political analyst from the UK. He can be watched on YouTube Goerge from Ireland