Translated from GegenStandpunkt 2026

Israel’s reckoning with Iran

For its peace-making deployment of force in the Persian Gulf, the USA can count on Israel, its powerful “model ally.” It wages its war against Iran for its own reasons.

Israel’s reason for war and its purpose

From Netanyahu’s war speech on February 28, 2026:

“A good week to you, my brothers and sisters, citizens of Israel.
This morning, Israel and the United States launched a combined operation to remove the existential threat posed to Israel by the regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran...
I thank my friend, President Donald Trump, for his historic leadership. He is a leader who stands by his word. I spoke with him again this morning, and I welcome the close cooperation between us, a cooperation that has brought the alliance between Israel and the United States to an all-time high, an alliance for peace and an alliance in war. And this war will lead to peace. A true peace. For 47 years, the Ayatollah regime has chanted ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America.’ It has spilled our blood, murdered many Americans, and slaughtered its own people. Today, everyone understands that this murderous terrorist regime must never be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten our existence and the peace of all humanity. We have gone to battle to change this situation fundamentally, to put an end to the threat.
On the second day of the War of Redemption, I promised you: ‘We will change the face of the Middle East.’ We did so in Operation Rising Lion, and we are doing so now with even greater force in Operation Roaring Lion...
My dear citizens of Israel, throughout the War of Redemption, I have drawn great strength from your steadfastness. You did not fall into the traps of gloom and despair. On the contrary, you stood tall, you backed our heroic fighters, you backed the government, and you backed me to lead the struggle for our existence.
This is exactly how a nation that desires life behaves, a nation of lions!
With G-d’s help, the lion’s roar of our soldiers, our pilots, and our citizens is now being heard throughout the entire world. And today more than ever, the whole world knows: Am Yisrael Chai (the people of Israel live)!”

From the very beginning of the war, Netanyahu has notched up the fact that the war is taking place as a historic triumph for his nation. He celebrates it as a liberation of his nation from 47 long years of being forced to sit still in relation to Iran and as a decisive step toward its “New Middle East,” one free from Iran’s intolerable threat to Israel’s existence and to Jewish life.[1] Putting aside the lyricism typical of state declarations of war, this much can be taken from Netanyahu’s declaration of war: For Israel, anything other than war against the power of Iran is out of the question, and therefore Israel must not and will not end the war now begun until Iran has ceased to be that power. Israel’s right to a Middle East without Iran can also be fittingly expressed by the supreme leader of the brave Jewish state as the will of the brave Iranian people to overthrow their government, something that only the usual anti-Semites will misconstrue as a threat. What is exhibited by Netanyahu in his list of the Islamic regime’s crimes is Israel’s claim, which Iran contradicts in such an intolerable way.

Within its self-defined surrounding environment, Israel can’t coexist with any state or sub-state power that might even consider hostility toward Israel – that is, with any entity capable of exercising autonomous power in any way. Israeli security against potentially hostile powers – that is, perpetual military contestation of anything in its vicinity that claims to be a genuine sovereign – is nothing less than the very condition of Israel’s existence; this constitutes Israel’s raison d’état. This thus coincides with the program of Israel’s never-ending founding process: to cease its founding, which is being carried out by means of war, and to recognize other sovereign states in the region – with their own inviolable claims to sacred borders and their absolute need for security – would mean renouncing the very reason and purpose of Israel’s existence. In the case of Iran, this equation – that Israel’s statehood in the region can only be secured through total supremacy over it – culminates in an absolutely fatal inequality: failing to destroy Iran by war would mean standing by and watching as it sets about the annihilation of Israel and all the Jews.[2]

The definitive proof of this is provided by Iran’s nuclear program. Even this is not so much proof of the Iranians’ totally evil intention to annihilate everyone who loves life instead of death than, rather, the strategic logic of Israel as a nuclear power: through its nuclear weapon, Israel has secured the ultimate safeguard for its state-building imperialism – that is, for putting into practice the equation of its establishment in the region with supremacy over it. The threat posed by its nuclear destructive capabilities forms the deterrent basis for all the conventional forces that Israel deploys throughout the Middle East – not least with regard to the autonomy it claims in doing so, particularly vis-à-vis its own ally, America. This rationale and the significance attached to Israel’s nuclear weapons are incompatible with the mere prospect of other states possessing nuclear weapons, since that would potentially undermine the effectiveness of Israel’s own arsenal.[3] Consequently, ever since its emergence as a nuclear-armed military power, Israel’s claim to regional supremacy has included a claim to a regional nuclear weapons monopoly. Any breach of this monopoly, and the resulting relativization of its own deterrent abilities, would, from Israel’s standpoint, amount to nothing less than the total devaluation of its own nuclear destructive potential; this must be prevented at all costs – through a war (how else?) that is as existential and as necessary as the threat it is intended to eliminate.

So it’s no wonder that for decades the Israeli Prime Minister has been beseeching American presidents on the need for a war against Iran, and for just as long has been warning the UN that Iran is on the verge of making the transition from a “threshold state” to a full-fledged nuclear power in the coming weeks, and that he presents his people with the prospect of a major war against Iran – with all its casualties and destruction – not as a grim perspective, but as an appealing promise on which he seeks to be elected. So it’s understandable that he thanks President Trump for finally allowing this war to take place.

Its relation to the US war against Iran

Of course, the effusive expression of gratitude to Trump reveals something else as well: Israel needs the USA for this war. Not merely for the support that would make victory an absolute certainty – or even a relatively easy feat. Indeed, the very possibility of Israel waging the war with any prospect of success depends entirely on the US making the war its own cause. The flip side of this brutally existential dialectic – whereby it is precisely Iran’s might as an anti-Israeli power that does not deter Israel from war against it but rather incites it – lies in the impossibility of waging such a war without the US. When Netanyahu talks about how Iran has been chanting “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” for 47 years and acting accordingly, then this contains a thinly veiled, retroactive criticism – already openly expressed elsewhere – of the great American ally, specifically that it allowed this to happen for 47 years while preventing Israel from doing what needs to be done for just as long. And this is not a historical look backwards – as such, at any rate, it would be nonsensical[4] – but a statement focused entirely on the present which portrays history in a way that confirms what is now Israel’s right to live that must be executed at all costs: while the current war – Israel’s “Roaring Lion” – depends very heavily on whether and how America wages and advances its “Epic Fury,” its continuation and outcome must not depend on it to the same extent. Israel’s own standpoint on the war thus reflects the certainty that, ultimately, only Israel itself can secure and uphold what it deems essential; this is coupled with the historically proven experience that, when push comes to shove, its American friends are willing to accept compromises that are intolerable to Israel.

The Israelis must see themselves confirmed again in this certainty, now in relation to the war ally Trump: as early as 2025, although he had provided massive material support behind the scenes for the officially Israeli-only military operation “Rising Lion” and had completed it with his own “Midnight Hammer,” he also concluded it: Trump insisted that the 12 day war – as he then baptized it – had served its purpose, and that Israel had no right to wage an endless war aimed at the complete destruction of Iranian power capacities, but instead had to submit to his peace decrees. And even during this new war, Trump’s new imperialist standpoint asserts itself in relation to Israel in contradictory ways: Trump’s determination to get rid of Iran – viewed as an obstacle to peace due to its nuclear capabilities – for once and for all, even at the cost of greater destruction in the region, means, on the one hand, giving free reign to Israel’s desire for war. However, Trump’s same standpoint includes his determination not to turn this into a long run war situation, but to iron out the existing one. He wants Iran to capitulate on the issue of its nuclear program because he views it as the root of all regional evils – the main reason why the Middle East has been in a state of perpetual turmoil for decades. Once Iran has been forced to accept defeat by abandoning its nuclear program, his Iran problem will be solved – Trump has demonstrated and proclaimed this since Day 1 of the war. This is the principle difference from the Israeli standpoint on the war, and constitutes the contradiction for Israel: it is given free reign to wage its war only within the framework of – and for the sake of – what Trump calculates to be enough force to jockey Iran into this surrender. That is clear in the eyes of Israel’s warlords – and they leave no doubt that they really can’t accept it:

“We are awaiting a green light from the United States, first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty... and in addition to return Iran to the age of darkness and stone by blowing up central energy and electricity facilities and crushing national economic infrastructure.” (Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, April 23, 2026)[5]

They logically translate the ambiguity they perceive in Trump’s war into an additional requirement that their own war must follow: It must destroy Iran as much as possible and just as permanently – and at the same time, it must ensure that America’s partners continue their war for as long as possible, knowing full well that the others have their own criteria for when they can consider the anti-Iranian campaign of destruction complete.

Its consequences for Israel’s warfare

Israel is organizing its war effort in accordance with this dual challenge of the war.

In line with the aim of Israel’s existential war to destroy the Iranian state, the foundations of that state are being targeted and demolished. By targeting the country’s energy supply, key industrial facilities, and transportation infrastructure, Israel is dismantling the material foundations of the Iranian state; and in the course of destroying the strategic core of Iran‘s assertion of power – specifically through the renewed bombing of the Bushehr nuclear power plant – it risks, in passing, the nuclear contamination of the region.

The counter-escalations by Iran across the whole region that this provokes not only, in the Israeli view, needs to be factored in; they should at the same time make an impression on its American ally and make it clear that it is not possible to coexist with Iran short of a total victory against it, so that America, too, isn’t allowed to want to coexist with it.

At the beginning of the war, Israel, with the help of the effectiveness of its intelligence services and the firepower of its air force, eliminated the enemy’s leadership with pinpoint accuracy, along with the adjacent apartment blocks, and thus the personnel required for negotiations. Israel is not at all aiming for the capitulation of an enemy represented by such figures; a formal gesture of submission after the destruction has been completed is simply not what its war program is aiming for.

In relation to the US war program, the extensive practice – already honed during the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah – of eliminating existing and up-and-coming leadership figures helps prolong the war as much as possible; it effectively prevents the US from making the mistake of ending the joint war too soon – simply by picking off the very negotiating partners needed to bring it to a close.

Because the existential nature of Israel’s war precludes any consideration for the calculations of other sovereign states, the conflict impacts the entire region and turns significant parts of it into direct theaters of war. A case in point is the mid-March bombing of South Pars, the Iranian portion of the world’s largest gas field, which it shares with Qatar. From Israel’s perspective, when Iran launches counterattacks on Qatar’s portion of the gas field, it really isn’t hitting the wrong side – Qatar being the adopted home, and thus the protecting power, of Hamas officials, and therefore a state supporter of terrorism; or if Israel’s favorite vassal among the Arab states – the UAE – becomes the primary target of Iranian counterattacks, then that is simply the price any state must pay for standing on the right side of history.

At the same time, the damage inflicted on America’s regional allies – partly provoked, partly taken into account – also sends a message to America itself. Through the distress of these US allies, Israel exhibits one thing to its American ally: When it comes down to it – and on the issues that really matter – America has only one true partner that is truly reliable in its willingness to go to war and truly useful in its capabilities: Israel. Trump may tour the Middle East and bask in the acclaim of Arab princes and kings who hail him as a peacemaker, just as he craves to be back in the USA; he may receive lavish gifts and even more lucrative pledges of investment from the Gulf monarchs; yet when it comes to the violent core of MAGA, these fair-weather princes prove to be wimps, so Israel proves to be the only option for the US because Israel itself leaves it with no other choice.

The fundamental character of Israel’s hostility toward Iran – that is, the war against it – is also owed to the nature and extent of the damage that Israel’s leadership is imposing on its own nation. It has now taken on the lineaments of a total war which the people must bravely endure: The northern region remains depopulated in the wake of the adjacent war against Hezbollah; citizens in other parts of the country must regularly take shelter in bunkers; capitalist economic activity is suffering significantly. And because Iran and its allies possess such vast numbers of missiles and drones, Israeli-American air defenses are at times being pushed to their limits: an unprecedented number of strikes – including on critical or “sensitive” targets – are being recorded, and there are fatalities and injuries on a scale never seen before. For the Israeli state, which remains true to its casus belli, war aims, and military ethos, this always means only one thing: it confirms how existentially necessary the war is – the war that is the very reason missiles are being fired from Iran in the first place – and thus how imperative it is for Israeli society to bear the brunt of it.[6]

At the same time, this self-imposed overextension constitutes the practical signal for the USA to keep standing unwaveringly by Israel’s side in a battle that has now become existential in this respect as well. What Israel is pushing to the extreme here is the strategy it has pursued since the inception of the alliance: to compel its ally – on which it is totally dependent – to show solidarity by overstraining itself with the high-handed use of its force to such an extent that the USA should have no choice but to provide the necessary support without question. This high stakes policy of extortion by the smaller partner against the bigger partner within the fateful war alliance is proving effective once again.

In this warfare, which always has a dual aim – against its war enemy and its war ally – Israel sometimes goes to extreme lengths. On the one hand, this has been successful, for the USA in practice uses and organizes Israel’s war as part of its own: The decapitation strikes against the Iranian leadership at the start of the war are welcomed as a contribution to teaching the Iranians that they do not stand a chance against the USA’s call to surrender; Israel’s destruction of military and civilian infrastructure is – divided up regionally – integrated into the American war strategy of eliminating Iran’s means of self-assertion. And the fact that Israel is once again overstretching itself with its war means that the USA must once again jump to its side. For it is precisely in this determination, put into action with total effectiveness, that the big partner recognizes that the little partner has what matters: “Israel fights hard and knows how to WIN.”[7]

The fact that the American standpoint of ending the region’s state of perpetual war by dismantling Iran’s nuclear program makes use of Israel’s boundless will to wage war inevitably leads to friction between the allies. For it is inevitable that the US occasionally feels compelled to make it clear to Israel where its unilateral actions are undermining America’s war for peace. The US calibrates its use of force to suit its strategic objectives, thereby allowing Israel to come up against the inherent limits of its own war – and Israel, in turn, insists and occasionally provocatively demonstrates that it can’t actually tolerate any limits on its existential war against Iran; then the corresponding discord arises and Israel faces reprimands.[8] However, none of this is likely to cause America to fundamentally question the special character of its alliance with its “unique ally.” Apparently, Israel has a line of credit with America that is not easily overdrawn.[9]

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[1] “As a people that cherishes life, we have no choice but to go to battle.” (Netanyahu, Feb. 28, 2026) “Through an unprecedented partnership between Israel and the U.S., we have achieved enormous accomplishments that are changing the balance of power in the Middle East and beyond. These achievements are establishing Israel's status as a power that is stronger than ever. This dramatic shift in our power relative to the power of our enemies is the key to ensuring our existence. Threats come and go – but when we become a regional power, and in certain fields a global power; we have the strength to push dangers away from us and secure our future.” (Netanyahu, March 12, 2026)

[2] Israel’s claim to total supremacy in the Middle East is evidently currently accompanied by close cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, which took place during the first weeks of the war; reports indicate, among other things, that Israel has deployed its Iron Dome missile defense system, the new Iron Beam missile and laser defense systems, and the Spectro drone detection system to strengthen the UAE’s air defenses, and that the UAE, for its part, carried out attacks on Iran in early April. It is not surprising that the UAE is considered by Iran to be “an enemy base”...

For Israel, which can tolerate no real sovereignty in the Middle East that could be directed against it, the UAE presents an opportunity to deal with this situation in a calculated manner: From Israel’s perspective, the Emirates are currently suitable, on the one hand, as its subsidiary in the fight against Iran. On the other hand, with regard to all the other Middle Eastern states that Israel defines – even if only potentially – as powers intolerable to its security fanaticism, the UAE serves as a suitable partner: small, but for the time being ambitious in a way that fits its regional rivalries within a restless alliance of obstruction. This alliance works from Libya through the Horn of Africa to the southern tip of Arabia to keep these states’ quest for power so limited that they cannot and will not pose any threat to Israel; the targets of this effort – which are under close observation or already subject to active subversion – range from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia through Egypt to Sudan and Turkey.

Meanwhile, a tiny minority of concerned, thoughtful Emiratis is wondering how Israel will deal with the UAE once the latter has, “in the end” – whenever that may be – fulfilled its obligations to Israel…

[3] For further details, see the article “Chronicle of an announced peace: Trump’s 12-Day War in the Middle East” from GegenStandpunkt 3-2025.

[4] Despite all its state-building fundamentalism, Israel, as an imperialist power, has always calculatedly chosen its enemies, set its own terms, and gradually expanded its own capabilities. And so, among other things, the 47-year history of the brave struggle of the little Jewish people against the big, evil Iran includes an episode in which the shrewd leaders of the Jewish people saw the Iranian war against Iraq as a nice opportunity to decimate the power of the Arab Baathist state – which they regarded at the time as a far greater threat – and so, as one can now read, provided Khomeini’s troops with quite effective support against Iraq.

[5] Opposition leader Yair Lapid, in a televised address the day after the ceasefire was announced: “Netanyahu turned us into a client state that receives instructions over the phone on matters touching the very core of our national security. At a critical moment for our security, he was pushed away from the table.” The indignant accusation that Israel has let itself be brushed off is based on the assumed consensus with which Israel can never be satisfied: a return to an externally imposed restriction of its anti-Iranian hostility to a mode less than that of war.

Even the pragmatic leader of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partner is clearly dissatisfied with the ceasefire, as he believes the mess has placed Israel directly in the face of an operational challenge: “Any agreement with Iran, without it renouncing the destruction of Israel, the enrichment of uranium, the production of ballistic missiles and the support for terrorist organizations in the region, means that we will have to return to another campaign under harsher conditions and pay a higher price” (Avigdor Lieberman on X)

And in early May, a high-ranking IDF official claimed that, in hindsight, the full extent of the destruction inflicted on Iran would be rendered meaningless (“one big failure”) unless this war finally forced Iran to give up its entire stockpile of enriched uranium.

[6] “I wish to express my deepest appreciation to you, the citizens of Israel, for your steadfastness … In the secure rooms and protected spaces, you are demonstrating a powerful spirit. You tell me, the Government, and our heroic soldiers and commanders: ‘Continue until the end, until victory!’ I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your backing, and I inform you: We are continuing with full force! Wars are won with initiative and stratagems but the first foundation of success is determination ... I am talking about the determination that you, the citizens of Israel, have shown until today and the determination that will yet be required of us together.” (Netanyahu government statement, March 7, 2026)

[7] So when the US spends a billion dollars to equip Israel with a new component of its missile defense system, it is not a selfless donation to a weak vassal “with no cards,” but rather support for a powerful proxy; and in April, with an eye toward Israel’s two-front war against Iran and Lebanon, the US military establishes an airlift to replenish Israel’s severely depleted ammunition stocks and thus maintain Israel’s “operational endurance.”

[8] “I told him, ‘Don’t do that,’ and he won’t do that. ... on occasion he’ll do something, and if I don’t like it ... and so we’re not doing that any more.” (Trump after the bombing of South Pars, March 19, 2026)

[9] The article “Israel 2019: An exemplary imperialist democracy with a Zionist mission,” published in issue 4-2019 of GegenStandpunkt, details – among other things – how the USA has enabled the Israeli state to pull off the capitalist feat of turning its need for means of violence of all types and scales into a component of the national economy of capital accumulation in and from which its people make their living.