Israel's Election May Not Shift Its Iran Strategy, Analysts Argue

Israelis vote this Tuesday in their first general election since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and the war with Iran hangs over the ballot. The question is not only who forms the next government but how it handles a regional security crisis set off by that attack and by Israel's response, which included a war against Iran.

The race has narrowed into a tight contest between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is fighting to keep his job, and Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces who leads the front-running centrist party Yashar. US President Donald Trump has weighed in for the incumbent, calling him a "warrior prime minister" and warning that any other choice would affect the alliance with Washington. In an online post about the Iran conflict he wrote that if Israel had the wrong leader, meaning anyone other than Netanyahu, America would have to do the work itself, and that he was not inclined to.

Reports suggest the relationship is less smooth behind the scenes. The Financial Times reported that the Israeli military meant to launch a new round of strikes around October 10 on Iran's nuclear facilities, government centers and energy infrastructure, and that Trump opposed the escalation before the US midterm elections on November 3. The Jerusalem Post later questioned that account, reporting that the army had no specific directive for such an operation.

Analysts at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies doubt the vote will change much. Raz Zimmt, who heads its Iran program, told DW that Israel's left, right and center differ only slightly in how they see the Iranian threat, especially the nuclear one, so he sees no fundamental change in Israel's approach to Tehran. He added that any military escalation depends far more on the US president's decision than on who is prime minister, and that he does not expect dramatic shifts toward Iran or its proxies whatever the government's makeup. Senior fellow Danny Citrinovitch agreed, saying that even if Netanyahu steps down, his influence and the policies built over recent years will not simply vanish.

The roots of that consensus lie in October 7. Navid Toobian of the US-based Middle East Media Research Institute said that before the attack many in Israel favored dealing with Iran in a limited, managed way and confronting only the arms of the so-called Axis of Resistance. Iranian slogans calling for Israel's destruction were understood as aimed at rallying hardline supporters at home. The attack by Iran-allied Hamas, he said, showed that Tehran spares no effort to strike Israel.

Damon Golriz of the Hague Institute for Geopolitics described October 7 as the largest historical trauma of the Jewish nation, and said continuing Iranian nuclear ambitions and threats have led much of Israeli society to see Iran's rulers as a symbol of historic danger. He argues that current US and Israeli policy follows three vectors: removing the regime's leaders, collapsing its industry and infrastructure, and fomenting civil war and what he called "geographic scissors," dismembering Iran with the help of armed Kurdish and Baluch separatists.

Iran is not a passive party. Reuters, citing senior Iranian security officials, reported that Tehran has prepared detailed plans for retaliation. The options named include destroying undersea fiber-optic cables in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and targeting US-dependent data centers and AI infrastructure in the region.

Golriz also pointed to a diplomatic opening six months ago in Islamabad, where Tehran agreed never to initiate war or military operations against Israel. He said that for the first time the Islamic Republic's presidents and the US president signed a document covering Israel's fundamental security interests, and that its first article could have begun the end of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" slogans. That window closed quickly, he said, though with political will the Islamabad Memorandum could still be a first step toward lasting peace. Citrinovitch was less hopeful: returning to the nuclear deal, he said, currently has no place in Israel's politics.

What to watch after the vote is whether the reported friction between Jerusalem and Washington over new strikes persists, and whether anyone revives the Islamabad framework.