The Catastrophic Cost of an Israeli Victory Over Iran
Imagine not the cease-fire into which the Iranians succeeded in maneuvering Trump, but Netanyahu’s scenario of “total victory.”
By Hagai El-Ad
Hagai El-Ad is an Israeli human rights activist and the former executive director of the human rights organization B’Tselem. He lives in Jerusalem.
Two and a half years ago, a certain tail named Yahya Sinwar tried to wag its owner, the Iranian dog. But the Iranians didn’t accede to their tail, and Sinwar was left alone facing Israel. After the October 7 massacre, Israel turned Gaza, Sinwar’s stronghold and the home of two million Palestinians, into a pile of rubble.
Just over a month ago, a certain tail named Benjamin Netanyahu tried to wag its owner, the American dog. Unlike the Iranians, the Americans acceded to their tail, and together dog and tail—roaring with epic fury—set out to crush Iran. Yet Iran persisted and stood its ground.
It turns out that Netanyahu the tail was more successful than Sinwar the tail at wagging his dog. We shouldn’t make light of that, since wagging the Iranian state isn’t the same as wagging the American superpower. Despite the magnitude of the challenge, Netanyahu, thanks to his extraordinary experience and capabilities, succeeded. But at the end of the day, neither tail achieved its desire: Tail Sinwar didn’t topple Israel, and tail Netanyahu didn’t topple Iran.
Israeli Jews like me, who see this place as their homeland and want to live a peaceful life here, should breathe a sigh of relief at the failure of both tails. If, God forbid, Sinwar’s violent and fanatical project had succeeded, we wouldn’t have been able to live here. And what if Netanyahu’s violent and fanatical project had succeeded?
Imagine Israel after a total victory over Iran: a dangerous recipe for further military adventures, territorial expansion and you name it.
Nobody knows how close Iran was to collapsing. But try to imagine not the cease-fire into which the Iranians succeeded in maneuvering Trump, but rather Netanyahu’s scenario of “total victory.” In such a scenario, we would be in a perilous situation in which the collapse of Iran would have led Israel to a dizzying power intoxication combined with a self-image as a regional hegemon.
Imagine Israel after a total victory over Iran: a dangerous recipe for further military adventures, territorial expansion and you name it. Where would Israel go from the present violent and fanatical posture, if bolstered by total victory over archenemy Iran, Messianic currents surging in Jerusalem, fantasies about our might and the strength of our hands, and even more tailwind from Washington?
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said six months ago that “Israel occupied the Golan in order to defend itself, and then southern Syria in order to defend the Golan. So after a few years, maybe they will occupy the center of Syria in order to protect the south of Syria. In a few more years Israel will reach Munich this way.” I don’t know if we would reach Munich, but does anyone really think that in the scenario of a dizzying victory over Tehran, Israel would have been content with just chewing up the southern parts of Lebanon (aka “the northern Galilee”) and Syria (the Hauran)?
In Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem, regimes that hate their own people are in power. Unfortunately, of the three, the most effective is the one in Tehran. That’s how, thanks to Iran’s determination, Trump’s superficiality and Netanyahu’s arrogance, the dangerous scenario of a dizzying Israeli victory was averted.
What is left for those of us who are asking for a peaceful life here? To be thankful that we haven’t turned into a regional hegemon and to work every day for a different vision.
We can even be more ambitious and hope that not only was a disaster averted, but also a lesson was learned. That instead of more power going up Israelis’ heads, there will be some sobriety, maybe even a modicum of restraint and realism. A lesson in the limitations of power that every tail should internalize, of a country that isn’t—and shouldn’t be—a regional hegemon.
The price of the lesson is costly and painful: Israelis, my people, who were killed and wounded. People who are scarred, physically and emotionally, destroyed homes and economic damage. Terrible suffering for the Iranian people, which not only paid the price of the month of bombings, but also remains under the bayonets of a cruel regime. A competent leadership that doesn’t hate its people wouldn’t have taken this path in the first place. Alas, we don’t have such leadership.
What is left for those of us who are asking for a peaceful life here? To be thankful that we haven’t turned into a regional hegemon and to work every day for a different vision in which Jews can live here, in our homeland, together with the other peoples of the region, as part of the Middle East—not as its ruler. Not by dint of our power, the strength of our hands, the range of our fighter jets and the weight of their bombs, but because we are but one of the peoples of this place.
*
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Haaretz.