At the center of this tension is Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel is the Middle East’s only nuclear power, though it never admits it
officially. For decades it has enjoyed this monopoly as the ultimate insurance
policy.
Iran, even without a bomb, is branded an existential menace.
What alarms Tel Aviv is not that Tehran would attack with nuclear weapons, but
that a nuclear-capable Iran would undermine Israel’s unrivaled leverage. In
other words, it is not fear of destruction, but fear of parity.
The second driver is Iran’s support for resistance groups.
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza—these are not armies that
can topple Israel, but they have repeatedly punctured its aura of
invincibility. Each rocket barrage, each fortified position along the border,
is viewed in Tel Aviv as an extension of Iranian influence, shrinking Israel’s
space for unchecked action.
Ideology
intensifies the clash. Iran refuses to recognize Israel, while Israeli
leaders—from Netanyahu onward—frame Tehran as the new Nazi Germany. This
absolutist narrative forecloses compromise and justifies covert assassinations,
cyber sabotage, airstrikes in Syria, and endless lobbying for harsher
sanctions.
The deeper layer is geopolitical. Among Middle Eastern
states, only Iran possesses the population, resources, and regional reach to
contest Israel’s dominance. Neutralizing Tehran means securing Israel’s role as
the region’s undisputed military power—backed by Washington, tolerated by Arab
monarchies, and free to redraw the political map to its liking.
Israel’s Iran obsession is not about survival. It is about
ensuring that no other state can balance its power. By disguising this pursuit
of supremacy as self-defense, Israel sustains a cycle of hostility that makes
genuine peace impossible.
The world buys the existential threat narrative, but the
truth is starker - Israel seeks not containment of Iran, but its permanent
crippling.
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