Chris Banbury looks at the current state of Israel and concludes that the real winner in the US-Israel war against Iran is Iran and international capitalism

Israel is in shock. On Wednesday, the Israeli newspaper and news outlet, Haaretz, carried the headline, “Israel’s capitulation to Trump in Lebanon exposes its complete reliance on the U.S.”

Now Haaretz is a liberal critic of Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, so you might say they would say that. But it is registering a growing sense of shock and despair in Israel. It’s not just that President Trump called Bibi “fucking crazy” and told him he’d be in jail if it were not for him. It’s when, in that phone call, with Trump demanding an end to Israel’s war in Lebanon to facilitate peace talks with Iran, he screamed, “Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

This registers in Israel because they have taken the support they receive from the US and the West for granted. Now they cannot do that, especially in the US, where there is growing opposition to unconditionally supporting Israel, on a scale not dissimilar to that in Europe: nearly two-thirds of the country object to the misadventure in Iran and Americans now express greater sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis.

The Abraham Accords a dead letter. 

It comes with the realisation that hopes that the Abraham Accords would extend to Saudi Arabia and the remaining Gulf States are proving a dead letter because of Gaza and the wars with Iran and Hezbollah.

But first Israel has to pull back in Lebanon, or to call it what it is, retreat. And with Hezbollah already inflicting significant damage on the Israeli Defence Force and on Northern Israel, that is going to be tricky.

The List of failures to achieve intended goals 

There is already a growing chorus, not least within the IDF, asking what this war was about. If it was to destroy Hezbollah, it’s failed. If it was to establish a security zone south of the Litani River, it’s failed too because Hezbollah are still fighting there. If it was to stop drones and missiles hitting Northern Israel, it’s failed too because that’s continued throughout.

Flying the Israeli flag over the Crusader Beaufort Castle is a poor PR sop.

It joins a list of other failures. The failure to destroy Hamas in Gaza and, above all, the failure to destroy Iran as a sovereign state and to reduce it to a Libya, a Somalia or a Syria. Netanyahu even failed to destroy the Houthis.

Israel realises it is not invincible

It’s not just those failures but the realisation that not only could Israel not fight a war with Iran without the US, but when Iranian missiles hit Israel, the Iron Dome missile defence could not cope, leaving Israel dependent on the US firing Thaad missiles (dangerously depleting its stocks in the process).

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has relied on its ability not just to defeat any military threat but to intimidate anyone thinking along those lines. Suddenly Israelis are having to confront the fact they are not invincible.

Israel is going to have to live in a region with a confident and economically strengthened Iran, enjoying its ties to China and Russia, but also with Turkey, which resents Israeli expansion in Lebanon and Syria (although that has not stopped it selling oil to Tel Aviv) and with Pakistan, which is now enjoying a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, including giving it nuclear protection.

If you’re an Israeli sheltering from Hezbollah drones in Northern Israel or in southern Lebanon, suddenly that region seems a very dangerous place.

Netanyahu held responsible for forever wars by Israelis

And who is getting the blame for launching endless forever wars, why Netanyahu. He is being blamed not just for not winning those wars but for not realising, as one IDF commander pointed out, they’d need another five IDF units to win them. And he is being blamed for having no proper endgame, no clear strategic objective.

This takes place with a general election pending – the Knesset could vote to dissolve itself at any moment, prompting an election. Polls suggest Netanyahu would lose. The alternatives are no better, but if Bibi falls, it will increase a sense of Israeli vulnerability.

In immediate terms, it will not benefit Palestinians under siege in Gaza and the West Bank, but in the mid to long term the sense of unease in Israel will.

Meanwhile, in the USA, Trump and supporters were crowing over the defeat of Congressman Thomas Massie in a Republican primary in North Kentucky. But that defeat was secured by a huge injection of funds from pro-Israel groups like AIPAC, who then lauded their success.

Trump vulnerable amongst young MAGA supporters

But among many Republican and MAGA supporters, Massie was popular for standing up to Trump over Epstein. Sixty five percent of Republicans still support Israel, but that figure changes among younger members: a majority of Republicans aged 18 to 44 disapproved of Trump’s handling of the Iran War, and 70 per cent wanted the party’s next presidential nominee to take a different line on Israel.

Trump is not going to restart the war with Iran. He needs an off-ramp, and Netanyahu’s war in Lebanon was a roadblock to that. Thus, his phone call to the Israeli premier. His effective defeat in Iran is a blow to both him and the USA.

The thinking back in February was that a rapid US-Israel victory over Iran would allow Washington to focus on China, leaving Israel and the Gulf States to police the Persian Gulf. That’s gone up in smoke. Qatar and Oman have made their peace with Tehran, and even Saudi Arabia is following them. The United Arab Emirates has moved into a formal alliance with Israel, but that leaves it very exposed. This is all because the US could not deliver on its pledge to provide a security umbrella for those states.

The real winners are Iran and international capitalism 

The real winner is Iran, not least because it controls the Straits of Hormuz, which lie in the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman. They can charge a toll just like the one Turkey operates for access to the Dardanelles.

Final point. People often point to the supposed power of the Israel lobby in Washington, but the closure of the Straits of Hormuz prompted an intervention by a far more powerful lobby, international capitalism! This band of warring brothers and sisters saw the closure of the Straits presaged an economic disaster and intervened using the sort of arguments Trump understands.