Alwaght- Already being the longest-serving Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power as PM for the sixth time on Thursday after a Knesset vote of confidence to his cabinet. Infamous as a warmonger politician, Netanyahu at his first address to the lawmakers proved that time has not changed his policies.
The hawkish PM outlined his plans in the new cabinet, marking advancing the settlement projects in the occupied West Bank and countering Iran as his top priorities. This comes, as after the parliamentary elections, the general atmosphere in the occupied territories has been extremely tense for the fear of return of political and social disintegration and complication of the security riddle. This fact caused his opponents to unite their ranks to topple his government since the beginning, including by staging protests in the day of his taking the oath.
But a look at his record can give us the notion that he has astute capability to shift the internal atmosphere through anti-Palestinian policies in the West Bank or devising crises in the foreign policy to distract the public opinion and mobilize the hard-line religious forces in favor of his policies, augmenting the expectations for deterioration of security conditions in next years.
Triple wars against Gaza
Netanyahu was named prime minister for the first time in 1996 and headed the cabinet for three years, until 1999, when there were no serious tensions in the occupied territories. But his second term, which lasted about 12 years, was accompanied by successive wars he waged against the Palestinian resistance groups. The wars changed the military equations in the occupied territories.
The fact that the Israelis are worried about Netanyahu's return to power is due to the experience of his previous term, which was always tension-stricken. On November 14, 2012, Netanyahu started a largely unequal war against the Gaza Strip, but the occupying regime faced unwavering resistance from Hamas Movement, which had already equipped itself with light and semi-heavy weapons. Although Netanyahu waged that war to win the upcoming parliamentary elections to strengthen his position against his opponents, the course of developments did not go as he had planned and he could not continue it for a long time, and after 8 days, agreed to a truce. The figures published in recent years about the Zionists' casualties in the 8-day war show that Gaza resistance forces managed to deal fatal blows to the occupation forces with smallest resources and simplest arms.
Aiming to destroy Hamas and reverse the 2012 loss, Netanyahu launched another brutal war against Gaza on July 8, 2014. In this war, dubbed by Hamas as Operation Strong Structure and by Israeli regime as Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli air force heavily bombarded Gaza, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad resolutely resisted and inflicted casualties on the Israelis, again. This war lasted for 51 days and nearly 2,000 Palestinians, hundreds of whom were women and children, were killed and more than 10,000 others were injured. Though bringing all it had to the battleground to secure a win, Tel Aviv once again met its defeat and acceded to a ceasefire.
Still not learning from the previous defeats, Netanyahu in his last days as PM in May 2021, waged the third war on Gaza in a bid to divert the attention from political and economic challenges the Israeli regime was grappling with. The war, codenamed Operation Sword of Al-Quds by Hamas, lasted for 11 days. During it, for the first time some cities, including the capital Tel Aviv, were targeted by the Palestinian missiles. Resistance groups in Palestine said they fired over 4,000 missiles on the occupied territories during 11 days. The war came costly to Netanyahu who left his post two weeks after the ceasefire, ending his 12 successive premiership years.
Escalating tensions with Palestinians
Given years of war-like policy of Netanyahu, it is highly likely that tensions with the Palestinians would spark afresh under him. Insisting on expanding the controversial settlement projects in the West Bank, could trigger the first sparks of conflict. Most of the world powers consider the construction of new settlements in the West Bank illegal, and from the international perspective, the situation is not in favor of Tel Aviv. The Palestinian groups are not weak as Netanyahu and his allies imagine, and now they are equipped with powerful weapons that could target the Israelis from two fronts for the first time in case of a Tel Aviv miscalculation.
The predictions of escalation of tensions with the Palestinians are driven by presence in new Israeli cabinet of such hardliners as Itmar Ben-Gvir as National Security Minister and Bezalel Smotrich as finance minister, both already legitimized shedding Palestinian blood. These people have threatened that they will use all their powers in the new cabinet to deal with the resistance groups in the West Bank and Gaza. This is while in recent months the West Bank resistance, led by Lions’ Den group, or in Arabic Arin Al-Osud, has been involved in anti-Israeli army operations, making West Bank a flashpoint. The Israeli officials have even warned about the situation sliding out of control and forming third intifada. Undoubtedly, with the policies that the radical leaders of the Israeli cabinet have taken, a full-scale conflict in the future is possible and this means the occupied territories can sink in deeper insecurity. Also, these provocative actions will spark tensions with the Arab countries in favor of the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The new programs of the far-right are so tension-generating that former Israeli officials have pledged in recent days to act together against Netanyahu’s cabinet. Therefore, in the case of Netanyahu’s new adventurism, the Israelis themselves will line up in front of him before the Palestinians. They are this time faster to act because the former officials believe that the Israeli regime is on the verge of collapse, and the biggest reason for that is the policies of Netanyahu and his friends, who will erode this regime from within. Protests of hundreds outside the parliament during Netanyahu swearing in and chanting slogans against the “cabinet of criminals and the corrupt people” show that the new PM will have a difficult job at home.
Tensions with Iran and Hezbollah
Suffering from Iranophobia and deeming Iran the biggest threat for the Israeli regime, Netanyahu this time, too, has vowed to confront Iran in the region and claimed that Tel Aviv would push against what he called Iranian efforts to build nuclear weapons. In recent decade, Netanyahu repeatedly propagated against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and even claimed that Iran was close to building a nuclear bomb in a bid to mobilize international community against Tehran. He even called for military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Amid insecure conditions in the occupied territories, Netanyahu’s focus on confrontation with Iran, and Axis of Resistance as a whole, can strain the regional conditions. Netanyahu, who is under severe pressures at home and sees his political seat in danger, is likely to divert attention from internal tensions by stepping up tensions with Tehran. However, confrontation with Iran in the current situation brings nothing but loss for Tel Aviv, because the Israeli army, which Netanyahu relied on to wage psychological war against Tehran, is in its worst conditions. In recent months, senior Israeli officials have brazenly announced that due to the crisis rocking the security forces, they do not have the capability to defend the settlers and in the event of a war, they will face many challenges, especially that the West as the main backer of the regime is involved in Ukraine and is incapable of providing the past support to Tel Aviv.
Moreover, Netanyahu threatened that he will scrap the maritime border agreement signed with Lebanon in October that can heighten tensions with Hezbollah. Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly warned that if Tel Aviv does not commit to Lebanese interests and produces gas from the shared gad field unilaterally, the resistance movement will use military force to secure Lebanon’s rights. So, Hezbollah has made its points clear and if Netanyahu realizes his promises, a new war is likely with Hezbollah. The new Israeli PM intends to pick a confrontation with Iran and Hezbollah while he already has failed in previous conflicts with the Palestinians groups.
Netanyahu is retaking the power as global criticism against apartheid regime's policies in the West Bank is running high and at home and all opposition parties are uniting their ranks to sink his government. In the middle of such critical situation, Netanyahu’s push for controlled tensions with the resistance groups would fuel security tensions in the occupied territories that only speeds up his regime’s collapse.
