Will Israel’s bolder tactics deter Iran and its proxies from attacking Israeli targets?
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskIn the past Israel aimed its attacks on Iran almost exclusively at its nuclear programme and scientists connected with it. When Israel hit other Iranian targets, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its expeditionary Quds Force, it tended to do so in third countries, such as Syria. Now it is attacking theinside Iran as well. In February it struck a factory making drones for the Guards in western Iran.
Not all members of Israel’s security establishment are happy with this brash new approach. Some intelligence veterans are said to have grumbled that “poking Tehran in the eye” will cause more trouble than it is worth. Mr Bennett himself sticks to the official line that Israel does not directly take responsibility for any specific operation in Iran but says he is convinced that “the Iranians are much more timid than you think” when it comes to reacting to Israeli audacity.
Mr Bennett also hopes that these brazen attacks may prompt Iran to accept a tighter version of the nuclear agreement signed with four Western powers plus China and Russia in 2015, from which America withdrew in 2018 under President Donald Trump. Though President Joe Biden says he wants to revive that deal, talks with Iran have not yet yielded a formula for doing so.
Yet this offensive against Iran does not seem to have given Mr Bennett a political boost at home. His unwieldy eight-party coalition, which for the first time includes an Islamist Arab party, is coming apart at the seams. It has lost its majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Its components agree on very little. The main reason for its creation was to dump Israel’s previous prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. It never had much more of an agenda to bind it together.