Of all the issues facing Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, as he prepares to meet US president Barack Obama on Monday, the linking of the Iranian nuclear threat and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most grave.
Generations of Israel’s leaders have sought to avoid links between the conflict and other regional confrontations, assuming they would be pressured to make concessions to further US and European interests in the Middle East.
But the Obama administration is openly telling Israel that its policies on the Palestinian dispute must be crafted in such a way as to enable Washington to build a credible and powerful anti-Iranian coalition including the moderate Arab regimes. Indeed, the US is turning Israel’s policy on its head, telling her that by placing the Iranian nuclear threat at the top of Jerusalem’s priorities and demanding it be given precedence on the agenda, Israel is demanding “linkage in reverse”.
While Iran’s nuclear threat, coupled with its policy denying Israel’s right to exist, is a predominant factor demanding an extraordinary international response, other aspects of Iran’s involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict are assuming ever-growing importance. In addition to Iran’s traditional sponsorship of the Lebanese Hizbollah movement in Lebanon, Tehran has sought direct influence over the Palestinian liberation effort. For close to 10 years, Iran has invested heavily in Hamas, upgrading training and equipment. If the convoy of Iranian equipment sent via Sudan in January had not been destroyed, its arrival in Gaza would have put most of Israel within accurate missile range. All-out regional war might have been unavoidable. Iran, through Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, is constantly upping the ante.
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