Netanyahu's victory is Israel's loss

By Mairav Zonszein

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been busy proclaiming victory in his country's war against Iran. It's a win that he seems to believe will secure his political future. For the moment, Israel has been swept up in a victory narrative that puts Mr. Netanyahu's colossal failures surrounding Oct. 7, 2023 -- and his longstanding legal woes -- into the distant past.

Riding on that high, Mr. Netanyahu arrived in Washington on July 7, hoping to further capitalize on his rekindled affair with President Trump. The prime minister came into the White House fawning over Mr. Trump, handing him a nomination letter for the Nobel Peace Prize and talking up peace in the region, even as the future of Gazans, Israeli hostages and Iran's nuclear program all hang in the balance.

Since the cease-fire between Israel and Iran went into effect on June 24, American and Israeli leaders have used their purported win as a basis for dangling the prospect of an end to the Gaza war, the expansion of the Abraham Accords to countries like Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, and, astoundingly, as a way to cancel Mr. Netanyahu's drawn-out corruption trial. Outside of ending the trial, which would constitute yet another blow to the shaky rule of law in Israel, these would be largely positive developments albeit it once again overlooking the Palestinians all together.

And yet the tangible impact of the 12-day military campaign remains uncertain. The Israeli military claims that Iran's nuclear program has been set back several years, but admits it is too early to know for sure. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, who is in a better position than most to know, said Iran could resume uranium enrichment in "a matter of months." But now he, too, is in the dark, after Iran suspended cooperation with his watchdog group last week. Even the most generous assessment -- that Iran's nuclear facilities have been "obliterated" as Mr. Trump claimed -- does not factor in what the war might have done to the Iranian regime's internal calculations about moving toward the creation of a bomb, perhaps covertly.

Mr. Netanyahu's success since the Oct. 7 attacks in neutralizing the power of Iran's proxies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon, alongside the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, has created an opportunity for real strategic change for Israel. But without further dialogue between the United States and Iran, and a viable agreement governing and allowing for inspections of Iran's nuclear program, the 12-day war could just be another salvo in a never-ending series of Israeli attacks to curb Iranian reconstruction of its nuclear and conventional powers. This approach of conducting low-grade, sporadic military campaigns -- which the Israeli military calls "mowing the lawn" -- would only duplicate the manner in which Israel attempted to periodically degrade Hamas capabilities in Gaza in the years before the Oct. 7 attacks, a strategy that clearly proved ineffective.

This recent war, while short, left its mark. Over 1,000 Iranians were killed, and some 28 Israelis. Iranians showed that they could halt Israel's daily life: closing down its air space; shuttering businesses; hitting strategic assets like military bases, energy infrastructure and scientific centers; and causing large-scale damage to residential areas. Thousands in Israel have been left homeless. And while some of this damage has been made public, much has been kept tightly under Israeli censorship, with foreign sources relying on radar data reporting several direct hits on military bases.

During the days of war, instead of finishing up their school year, Israeli children faced hourly salvos of missiles and sleepless nights that included jarring warnings on phones; then came sirens, followed by booms that shook buildings in densely populated areas. The morning of the cease-fire, Israelis sat in shelters for two hours as missiles rained down in barrage after barrage. Less than 24 hours later, all security restrictions for civilians were lifted at once; schools were back in session and parents returned to work. One moment it was terrifying to be outside, the next moment it was, in theory, safe.

Whether Israelis think Mr. Netanyahu's trade off -- another round of psychological and physical damage to set back Iran's nuclear program potentially just a few months -- was worth it is unclear. On the one hand, the Israeli public is still traumatized. Many are resentful and distrustful of Mr. Netanyahu and his government, and a majority want him to resign. On the other, popular support has been high across the political and security spectrum for that same leadership's decision to launch the operation in Iran, which the Israeli public sees as vital and successful.

Mr. Netanyahu has built his career on battling the Iran nuclear threat, and the operational window for a strike was wide open because of Israel's military campaign in the region after Oct. 7. But the timing of the war was nevertheless suspect: It began not long after pressure from Europe on Gaza began building and just before a French-Saudi initiative to potentially recognize Palestinian statehood was to take place. (The United Nations conference was postponed when Israel attacked Iran.)

Mr. Netanyahu has managed to tie the fate of Israel's hostages and the country's war efforts to his own trial. He not only got Mr. Trump onboard to strike Iran, but then benefited from the president's call for an end to his trial on social media. Now he is capitalizing on the moment to redirect public attention from the failure to achieve Israel's war goals in Gaza -- defeating Hamas and returning the hostages -- to the promise of a fantastical regional peace that would secure his legacy and quash his legal problems while kicking the Palestinian issue once again down the road.

Israel, led by Mr. Netanyahu, may indeed have changed the strategic balance in the Middle East. The decimation of Hezbollah's leadership and the assertion of air and escalation dominance over Tehran are clear wins. But how the latest wave of conflict and violence affects Israel's security over the longer term very much remains an open question. The Arab-Israeli war of 1967, which lasted six days, was seen as a decisive, sweeping victory for Israel, expanding the nation's borders and paving the way for it to become the strongest military in the region.

But the war with the Palestinians never ended. It has now gone on for 58 years and is at the root of Israel's continued insecurity and much spilled blood. Israel's military prowess against Iran may look like victory and leverage today, but absent an endgame, it could turn into a liability, especially if Iran concludes that only a nuclear bomb can protect it.

A genuine victory narrative would see Israel enter long-term security agreements that do not rely on the exertion of further military force but rather seek ways to stop needing it. That means seeking closure, through supporting a return to US diplomacy with Iran and ending the war in Gaza, for a start.