Forever wars: Israel’s cycle of conflict shows no finish line 

Less than a week after the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington brought the stuttering, three-month-long US-Israel war on Iran to a close – for now – the verdict of Washington’s principal ally, Israel, was in.

According to a recent poll, an overwhelming 92 percent of Israelis felt the US has signed away their victory over a decades-old enemy, with almost half of those polled saying Israel should continue its attacks on Lebanon and the pro-Iran group Hezbollah, irrespective of the urgings of Washington, its principal ally and sponsor.

Israel has spent the years since the surprise Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, in Israel, which killed 1,139 people, fighting continuous wars across the region.

It has committed a genocide in Gaza, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians and razing large swaths of the territory to the ground. It has attacked Iran twice, killed thousands in Lebanon while fighting Iran ally Hezbollah, launched multiple ground incursions into Syria, and launched sporadic strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, also allies of Tehran.

Within Israel’s fractious parliament, support for the country’s wars offers one of the few points of consensus, even if individual politicians disagree on how they are prosecuted.

Going into the war on Iran, Israel’s former chief of staff and one of the contenders to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gadi Eisenkot, did not hold back. Speaking during an interview in early March, shortly after the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran began, he described the unprovoked attacks on Tehran as “the most just war in recent decades against the most bitter enemy”.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid was equally supportive of the attacks, with his enthusiasm for renewed conflict against Iran and Hezbollah only eclipsed by his anger following Washington’s decision to make a deal with Tehran. He described the US decision as “one of the most shocking failures of Israel’s foreign and security policy, and it is entirely on Netanyahu’s account”.

Israeli sociologist Daniel Bar-Tal from Tel Aviv University said little of this reaction in Israel is surprising. It was, he said, the outcome of a process across Israeli politics, media, and society that linked the Hamas 2023 attack with the “central anchor” of Israeli identity: the Holocaust. In this light, the attack was framed not “merely as a horrific event in its own right, but as the latest chapter in a much older story of Jewish historical trauma”.

Bar-Tal added that the “justness of the national goals, glorification of the Jewish nation, [and] sense of collective victimhood”, as well as “the delegitimisation of Palestinians”, were ingrained into the consciousness of most Israelis, and therefore played a role in the support behind Israel’s wars.

Despite almost three years of almost constant and unquestioned war, few people in Israel believe that the country is significantly more secure than it was before October 7.

In Gaza, Hamas remains in control of large parts of the territory, while in Iran, the regime that Netanyahu is reported to have told his US allies would fall within days of the start of the war, remains steadfast.

“There is no particular achievement that will stop this eternal war,” Israeli analyst and academic Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said.

“There are two main engines behind it,” he said, describing the catalysts for the seemingly endless push for war. One of those engines, he said, was a reflection of Israel’s immediate circumstances, while the other was a reflection of the fundamental shift in the consciousness of Israelis following the October 7 attack.

With elections looming later this year, Netanyahu enters the campaign still carrying the baggage of the October 7 attack, his ongoing trial on multiple corruption charges, and his apparent failure to finish the job in Iran and with Hezbollah.

“Netanyahu believes that as long as he has a war going on, he can avoid accountability for his corruption charges and responsibility for October 7 and his inability to prevent it,” Ben-Ephraim said, of the immediate political fall out of the 2023 attack, with none of Netanyahu’s rivals for government offering any meaningful alternative to the multiple conflicts embarked upon by the Israeli government since.

“The Israeli military and all the main candidates for prime minister – Netanyahu, [former Prime Minister, Naftali] Bennett, Eisenkot – have a doctrine of defence that believes in crushing any threat before it develops, and that there can be no deterrence or diplomatic agreement.

“This is the result of October 7, when, in the Israeli view, all these measures failed. The result is not only a desire to destroy Gaza and southern Lebanon completely, but also to take out Iran, [Turkiye], and any other potential threat completely and irrevocably,’ he said.

Whatever gains Israel may claim in Lebanon, the prospect of a future threat, from wherever it may come, makes the likelihood of a future war close to certain, Ben-Ephraim said.

“No potential or possible achievement will stop this,” he concluded. “It is a pathology that comes from trauma and political need. Only a complete reversal of strategic fortune for Israel could change it in the future.”