In Israel's Snap Election Cycle, Iran Has Become a Non Issue - Independent Persian

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attend a joint news conference following their talks in Kyiv on August 19

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Five days before the April 9th Israeli elections, PM Netanyahu made a surprise visit to Russia to “straighten things out with Putin” concerning Iranian presence in Syria. In his statement to the Israeli press, Netanyahu stated that Iran's increasing power in the region was his top priority. 

Last week, three weeks before Israel's snap election, Netanyahu made a last-minute visit to Ukraine to discuss pension funds of former Ukrainian nationals living in Israel. In the joint news conference with Ukrainian President Zelensky, Netanyahu dodged questions about Israel's involvement in drone strikes against an Iranian weapon depot in Iraq. Only on Thursday, after the NY Times outed Israel as being behind these attacks, the first time Israel has attacked Iraq in four decades, Netanyahu laconically stated that “Iran has no immunity, anywhere.” He also repeated this mantra today, after an Israeli airstrike near Damascus and Lebanon last night.

In recent election cycles, Netanyahu, along with other high-ranking IDF officials, has broken with Israel's policy of ambiguity in regards to airstrikes and targeted killings, publicly boasting about Israel bombing of the Al Kibar suspected nuclear site in Syria in 2007 and other targeted strikes on Iranian and Syrian convoys in Syria and Lebanon. Netanyahu has used Iran over and over as a wedge issue, including speaking in front of the US congress, a month before the 2015 Israeli Elections to speak against the nuclear deal.

It is strange, therefore, that in this election cycle, Netanyahu, a five-time Prime Minister and acting Defense Minister, who's faced with corruption and bribery charges and is fighting for his political life, who's life mission according to himself is to be the “protector of Israel” and has positioned himself as a modern-day Churchill in a battle against “dark Islamist forces”, has been reluctant to use his most trustworthy weapon to galvanize his base: the “Iranian Threat”.

How, in a span of four months and one election cycle, has pensions for ex Soviets come to replace Iranian influence in the region as Netanyahu’s top issue?

Netanyahu, save for a large coalition that will keep him in the prime minister’s chair, is expected to go to trial, meaning that for him it’s either a fifth’s term or jail term. Netanyahu has been using every ploy to try and get himself out of his legal binds, including having all the members of his party sign a loyalty clause stating they won’t replace him as chairman. But to assure a large coalition, Netanyahu has been working tirelessly to bring in the fringes of the right-wing into the next Knesset.

However, the Messianic right-wing interests in the settlements lie near Hebron, not at The International Atomic Energy Agency offices in Vienna.  They see Iran as horse-blinds distracting Netanyahu from more pressing issues. Netanyahu, who’s seen as strong on foreign affairs, has been attacked over and over by members of his government on being weak on Gaza. On Friday, after a bombing in the West Bank that killed a teenage girl and left her brother and father wounded, Betzalel Smotrich, the far-right, Jewish Nationalist minister of transportation tweeted that “we need a full-time defense minister, not one who’s only obsessed with Iran.”

For the Israeli right, Israel has been winning on the international stage and now it’s time to “sort out West Bank,” as an MP from the Jewish House Party said. The Israeli right has been feeling emboldened since Trump took office. Finally, after the Obama years, there’s an American President who will not only stand with Israel, but do its bidding, including pulling out of the nuclear agreement. This, ironically, has put Netanyahu in a precarious situation. The right expects him to bend Trump’s arm into letting Israel build more settlements and pummel Gaza. But Netanyahu has been reluctant to use the full force of the IDF or send fleets of tractors to the Judean Mountains, and this has opened him to attacks from the right.

It is not that Netanyahu has given up his  “obsession with Iran”. Since Trump took office, Israel has been more bold about its airstrikes outside its airspace.  Although Trump and his allies may agree, the American military complex has pushed back, culminating this week when American officials told the New York Times that Israel is “stretching the line” attacking in Iraq, a move that could put US troops at risk. The influence in the White House does not reach the pentagon.

Also, by being so aligned with a president who is increasingly seen as unhinged and recently, anti-semitic, Netanyahu knows that at any given moment, Trump may say or do something that will or further make Netanyahu’s political life harder. Furthermore, with Israel’s best ally in decades in the White House, Netanyahu has lost a valuable political tool.

In the past three election cycles, Netanyahu used Obama as a foil to position himself as his antithesis. He railed against the Iran Deal, rousing his base against the “anti-zionist” president. It is hard to  call yourself the “protector of Israel” when you have the “Chosen One” sitting in the oval office. So while Iran and its proxies still pose the most eminent threat to Israel, the Iranian issue has become a tired talking point. People in Ashdod and Nahariya are more concerned with apartment prices than uranium enrichment levels. The Israeli public know that a full-scale war means hundreds of thousands of missiles on Tel Aviv, Haifa, even Jerusalem. They also know Netanyahu, who is many things but has always shied away from confrontation.

The main person who took advantage of this shift is Avigdor Liberman, the former defense minister, chairman of secular, nationalist, party Yisrael Beitenu. Liberman, a Soviet-born Israeli politician, who also served as foreign minister under Netanyahu, resigned in 2018 as defense minister after Israel signed a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. In the May elections, Liberman ran on bolstering the army and defeating Hamas, but received only five mandates.

However, Liberman, a cynical, veteran politician, adopted a new tactic. Riding on anti-religious sentiment in his overwhelmingly ex-Soviet-born voter base, he refused to compromise with the ultra-Orthodox over the Conscription Law, which would force ultra-Orthodox to join the IDF., making it unable for Netanyahu to form a coalition, and triggering Israel’s first snap election.

Liberman has managed to make this election about civic life. Instead of lambasting Netanyahu over foreign policy, Liberman has been attacking him on caving to the religious sector. At first, Netanyahu tried his strategy of showing himself as an international leader, giving a nod to the ex-Soviet population by putting up giant posters in Tel Aviv of him shaking hands with Putin. But he did not take into account that most ex-Soviet-born Israelis aren't from Russia and harbor resentment to the former KGB operative. Netanyahu's plan backfired, triggering his rush visit to Ukraine.

Recent polls show Liberman doubling his power, and with his party signing a surplus vote agreement with the Blue and White general party who are attacking him nonstop for being divisive and corrupt, it seems that Netanyahu’s chances for a strong coalition are narrowing. In his final bid to retain power, Netanyahu has turned the main issue from Israel's survival to his personal survival. Netanyahu might try and escalate the conflict up at the north border of Israel, but for the first time in a decade,  save for extreme reaction from Hezbollah over the airstrikes last night, Netanyahu will running without his trusty running-mate. In this elections, Iran won’t be the ballot.