Iran’s weekend attack is a sign that Israel’s key defensive policy of deterrence has been severely damaged by the actions of the Netanyahu government, according to the leader of Israel’s opposition, analysts and former Israeli officials.
“This government, this prime minister, have become an existential threat to Israel. They have shattered Israeli deterrence,” the opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said on Monday.
Israel’s deterrent policy has long been an obsession of the country’s political and military circles, and is regarded as a vital pillar of its security. The term refers to military policies – including retaliations to previous attacks and maintaining capabilities – and the deployment of soft and hard power to persuade enemies that an attack is not worth it.
“Our enemies are looking at this government and they smell weakness,” Lapid said, referencing a well-known quote of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Iran’s attack on Israel – blocked by Israel’s air defences, aided by the US, UK and other allies – was the first on Israel by a foreign state in over three decades. Other signs that deterrence has weakened include the Hamas attack on 7 October, the conflict with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border and attempted drone strikes by Yemen’s Houthis.
Writing in Ma’ariv newspaper in the aftermath of the Iranian strikes, the commentator Ben Caspit summed up the mood of many of Netanyahu’s domestic critics – who have cited the undermining of Israeli deterrence as proof of the prime minister’s unsuitability for office.
“Israel’s deterrence, which had prevented Iran from attacking it directly, collapsed,” Caspit wrote. “How did Netanyahu once put it?” he added, referring to the same quote as Lapid: “When terror smells weakness, it strikes.
“The Iranians have lost their sense of fear. No more proxies, undercover agents and covert terror attacks. From now on, it is Iran against Israel, out in the open. Israeli deterrence, which got Iran to swallow its pride every time anew and not to attack Israel directly, has now been shattered.”
Posting on the blog of the Institute for National Security Studies, Tamir Heyman, a former head of intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces, described a new and difficult strategic reality for Israel.
“Israel and the United States failed to deter Iran from attacking,” he wrote. “Iran managed to harm Israel without obliging the United States to attack in response with Israel’s cooperation.
“Israel acted for the first time as part of a coalition. This is effective and important, but it limits the freedom of action in response.”
Michael Milshtein from the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, an Israeli thinktank, said that while Israel’s deterrence had been reduced, the picture was complex.
“The big dramatic question mark was 7 October, which was not only the moment when Israel’s basic deterrence was undermined, but it was clear that Hamas – contrary to Israeli intelligence assessments – was not deterred at all.”
Beyond that, Milshtein said, the picture of Israeli deterrence was more relative. “With Iran and Hezbollah the question becomes more tricky. Deterred from what? Iran could have attacked various embassies. Hezbollah is not deterred from an ongoing conflict of attrition in the north but is deterred from an escalation, but largely because of the context within Lebanon itself.”
In making clear it would not support an offensive strike by Israel on Iran, the Biden administration has sharply defined the limits of what Israel can rely on for external support, echoed by the UK and others.
Others have pointed to the fact that Arab countries that cooperated with Israel in various ways to defend against the Iranian attack at the weekend are highly unlikely to help with an Israeli attack against Iran, suggesting the fragility even of that coalition.
HA Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, also said he saw a complicated picture.
“When Iran did attack, it was massively choreographed,” he said, referring to the fact the strike had not only been flagged up in advance but that the US and neighbours had been warned.
“If it had not been so well choreographed, if it had been a complete surprise, I think fewer missiles would have been taken out and others would have got through. And I think while it is definitely a cliche to say Israel is completely indebted and dependent on the US, it is also true that if the US and other allies had not stood alongside Israel we would have seen a different outcome.
“The fact that Israel had to rely on a coalition contains a message: that you can’t imagine it’s always going to be like that.
“I don’t think people have grasped that properly before. That without American support there is really no way for Israel to maintain its security paradigm in way that it has.”
