More than 3 decades ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu built his political rise on regional security concerns, foremost of which is the fear of possessing any country in the vicinity of Palestine nuclear weapons.
According to this perspective, he refused to abandon security control over the West Bank as part of Israel’s protective shield; Especially if a nuclear deterrence arises that prevents Israel from using its nuclear weapons and obliges it to traditional war methods.
Place
Since the beginning of the nineties, Netanyahu drew in his book “A Place under the Sun” his vision of the determinants of the occupation state in its troubled environment, in which the traditional and unconventional warfare, and the reflection of this on the position towards the political settlement process, the limits of Israeli security hegemony, and the position towards the possession of Iran, Iraq, Syria or Libya, weapons of mass destruction.
Netanyahu believes that the possession of any regional state is a nuclear weapon, which means the emergence of a mutual nuclear deterrence, according to which Israel cannot threaten the use of nuclear force, which will encourage Arab countries to attack it in light of the availability of a nuclear protection umbrella for these countries.
It indicates in particular the danger of the ideological dimension of Iran as an Islamic state that publishes an ideology that glorifies the martyrdom, which enhances the possibilities of the actual use of the nuclear weapon against Israel, and the increase in military actions against it by those affected by its model and thought.
While the Soviet Union was the organization of the level of escalation in which one of its allies was involved, its collapse and disintegration increased the dangers of not controlling the level of escalation between Israel and any regional state that might possess a nuclear weapon, according to Netanyahu.
Accordingly, Netanyahu puts the nuclear threat at the top of the list of threats faced by the occupying power, and calls in his book to exercise various types of pressure to prevent any of the opponents of Israel from having such a weapon, taking from the model of the Iraqi nuclear program to be an example that should be fought in any similar regional situation.
It also stresses the need not to neglect security control over the West Bank highlands, opposing its left -wing opponents that Israel possesses nuclear weapons to ensure its security and deter its opponents from seeking to destroy it, regardless of the small geography that will remain for it in the event of establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
He claims that the political sovereignty of the Palestinians on the West Bank will inevitably be followed by a security sovereignty for them, and thus Israel loses the advantage of early warning in the event of any Arab attack from the east, and weakening the chances of managing a successful traditional defensive war away from the heart of Israel represented in Tel Aviv and its surroundings.
Going to the rug of fear
Netanyahu made the confrontation of security threats as a pillar of his political project, and he warned against the proximity of Iran’s nuclear weapon; In 1992, he warned in a speech in the Knesset that Iran is three to five years away from the development of nuclear weapons, and urged the formation of an international coalition led by the United States to “uproot” this threat.
Upon his candidacy for the presidency of the Likud party in 1993, he avoided providing specific policies on most local political, social and economic issues, focusing on showing itself as a falcon that takes strict positions regarding national security concerns.
“I will not talk about social issues, this is not my goal. I am not interested in talking about the country that we will build. I do not talk about economics, unemployment, or demobilization of workers. I have no time. I am talking about the possibility of building a country originally,” said about him, as saying in an electoral gathering.
Netanyahu then took the issue of refusing to withdraw from the Golan Heights as a hub for his election campaign, accusing former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of planning to withdraw from it as part of a plan for a peace agreement with Syria.
Netanyahu’s speech at the time divided the Zionist movement into two camps: the Likud party that “fought Arab terrorism”, opposite the camp that “broke out this terrorism” and includes the Left Party.
This speech continued in Netanyahu’s march towards the prime minister in 1996, where he put a strict concept of security in order to justify the failure of the Oslo agreement, and this appeared in a speech in his inauguration in the Knesset, in which peace be upon the Palestinians in exchange for “the maximum security of Israel in the face of terrorism and war.”
In the same year, he gave a speech to the US Congress, in which he claimed that Iran had a nuclear weapon very close, and that this may have catastrophic consequences for Israel, the Middle East and the world.
In 2002, upon his meeting with a committee affiliated with the American Congress, Netanyahu claimed that both Iraq and Iran are racing to obtain nuclear weapons, calling for the invasion of Iraq, which happened in 2003, to show that he did not possess nuclear weapons or a program that seeks to do so.
In 2009, a cable by the US State Department, published by WikiLeaks, revealed that he had told members of Congress that Iran was only a year or two from having nuclear capacity.
In the year 2012 and in front of the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu presented a cartoon for a nuclear bomb, claiming that “by next spring or next summer at most … they will have finished the medium enrichment and moved to the final stage.”
Early attack plans
Over the years of his government work, Netanyahu has devoted great efforts to transfer the situation from the Iranian nuclear program from the political and media speaking square to the field of military action to neutralize this threat he sees.
A report by the New York Times followed on September 4, 2019, “Secret History” for his efforts to incite Iran, based on many media and intelligence reports.
According to the report, Netanyahu’s hopes were disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm for former US President Barack Obama for his traces in this endeavor at the beginning of his presidency in 2009, and at that time the discovery of the “Fordo” nuclear and fears of its association with a military nuclear project dominated the talks between the American and Israeli governments.
In the face of this American position, we pushed Netanyahu towards taking a single military action against the Iranian nuclear program, but the Israeli army and security leaders opposed this at a meeting held by Netanyahu in the year 2010, as Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi – according to the newspaper – said that the Israeli army has not yet reached the “operational capacity” to implement the strike.
The head of the Mossad agency, Meir Dagan, said that the military strike would be a serious mistake that might destroy the progress made by the secret sabotage project that he leads.
Obama’s palm turns back
Netanyahu incitement – according to the New York Times – contributed to Obama’s opposite direction, which is to engage in secret negotiations with Iran by Omani since 2010, with the aim of reaching an agreement that preserves the peaceful nature of its nuclear project.
This was a shock to Israel when it was discovered in 2012, and the newspaper quotes a senior Israeli intelligence official as saying that “Netanyahu achieved the opposite of what he wanted. By escalating it, he contributed to the birth of the agreement that he later fought against.”
In the summer of 2012, American satellites monitored strange moves of Israeli aircraft, which raised its concerns that Israel is preparing for a sudden strike, which called on the Obama administration to intensify diplomatic pressures on them to refrain from this, especially due to the approaching US presidential elections, and its concerns about the impact of the war on the chances of Obama’s re -election.
Parallel to the Americans to persuade the Netanyahu government that they are working seriously to develop appropriate plans and weapons to undermine the Iranian nuclear program when necessary, including the supernatural bombs of the fortifications that weigh about 13 tons, and to conduct experiments on a real embodiment of the Iranian Fordo facility that was built in the Southwest American desert.
Despite the stiffness of Netanyahu’s position, the Obama administration’s efforts succeeded in bending his ally in the government and defense minister, Ehud Barak, from carrying out a military operation before the US presidential elections, which led to the abolition of the plan in October 2012.
As the date for the conclusion of the nuclear agreement between Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China approached, Netanyahu took an unprecedented escalating position in the American -Israeli relationship.
He agreed with the President of the US Congress to invite the council to deliver a speech against the agreement that the American administration intends to conclude. This was already happened without Obama from proceeding with the signing of the agreement in July 2015.
Trump incitement
With President Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House in 2017, Netanyahu intensified his efforts to thwart the nuclear agreement and push the United States to withdraw from it, using the documents of the nuclear project that the Israeli Mossad was able to steal in early 2018.
Indeed, Trump announced his withdrawal from the agreement in May 2018, and adopted the policy of “maximum pressures” to compel Iran to re -negotiate an agreement that sets more strict conditions on its nuclear program, in addition to its missile program and regional policy. This was rejected by Iran, despite its severe sanctions.
Great adventure
The priority of confronting the Iranian nuclear program in Netanyahu continued upon his return to power in 2023, and after October 20, 2023, he was keen to link the Al -Aqsa and Iran flood operation, and he intensified his threats to military action against its nuclear program, and he had the opportunity to do the severe damage he had caused to Hamas and Hezbollah, in addition to the fall of the Syrian regime.
In these circumstances, the US President took a strict stance in nuclear negotiations with Iran, calling on it to completely stop the enrichment of uranium on its soil, and give it a period of only 60 days to comply with the American conditions.
On the sixty -one day, Israel launched its attacks on Iran, despite the misleading statements of the US President, suggesting his refusal to make this strike.
Thus, Netanyahu has taken the option he adopted for decades, with the great risk, which will be clear when the dust of the war between the two parties is clear.