It's the Occupation, stupid, not Iran

Citing Iran as an existential threat to Israel is to don a mask which conceals what many Israelis perceive to be the real danger arising from internal policies that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to acknowledge. Now that all the hype is over following his controversial grandstanding at a joint sitting of the US Congress, the content of his speech can be analysed without much effort.

True to form and in keeping with his reputation as a leading Islamophobe, Netanyahu revelled in his hatred of Iran and Islam, even though he tried to frame it as “militant Islam”. The euphemism applied is a devious tool to divide Islam and its adherents in a variety of camps under the label “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim”. Iran is thus projected by Netanyahu as a danger to Israel’s existence primarily because the Islamic Republic is, well, Islamic.

It’s a position adopted by successive Israeli leaders since the ouster of the Shah of Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which dramatically altered the hitherto skewed balance of power in the region. A number of radical changes signalled that relations between the West and Iran under the leadership of Imam Khomeini were going to face turbulence.

These changes impacted directly on South Africa and Israel as a consequence of Iran’s severance of diplomatic ties with both. Instead, Iran directed its foreign policy in support of freedom struggles against apartheid South Africa and the colonial-settler regime in Israel. Battle lines were drawn the moment it became clear that revolutionary changes would result in huge losses for Israel.

While Netanyahu has been crying wolf by warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten not only Israel but also the rest of the world, his real agenda is regime change. This position is no real secret and is, in fact, shared by many of America’s political elite.

The problem for Netanyahu, however, is that by banging on about “nuclear weapons” in the hands of “medieval clerics who sponsor terrorism”, he has created a fixation on Iran’s nuclear programme. It is thus around this core issue that US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterparts are engaged in Switzerland to complete a framework accord.

So if a weapons programme is merely a red herring, why would Netanyahu risk his political future and jeopardise relations between Israel and America by claiming the opposite? A simple answer may be that he is just plain dumb. While many will agree with this and back it up by citing examples of his stupidity, it would be unfair to overlook another trait: selfishness. He is mortgaging Israel’s future and risking its ties to a powerful ally in order to boost his chances of re-election later this month for a fourth term.

Despite his own intelligence agencies countering his false allegations, Netanyahu pushes on adamantly to contest and discredit the US presidency on Obama’s own turf. This may wash with a neoconservative political elite who have a history of meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign states. In fact, they couldn’t care less even when such meddling is accompanied by full-fledged wars of occupation. However what their loud cheers and enthusiastic applause didn’t drown out is the reality of the deception undertaken by Netanyahu.

This is articulated aptly in a timely editorial in Israel’s Haaretz which positions categorically and emphatically the unending occupation of the territories as the real existential threat facing Israel. “Israel’s insistence on ruling over millions of Palestinians in the West Bank who lack civil rights, expanding the settlements and keeping residents of the Gaza Strip under siege is the danger that threatens its future.”

Will Netanyahu and his American cronies take heed? We must wait and see, but he has to be re-elected first.

The writer is an executive with the Media Review Network in Johannesburg

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.