What's Netanyahu's Game Plan as Israel Flexes Its Muscles in the Neighbourhood?

Amid the crisis in Gaza and continuing military action against Lebanon and Syria, Iran is likely the next target, but that requires US backing.

- Jonathan Eyal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington this week for talks with US President Donald Trump. The ostensible reason for Mr. Netanyahu's trip—the first by a foreign leader since the Trump Administration imposed tariffs on almost every trading nation—is to seek an exemption for the Jewish state from such punitive measures. But as is so often the case in Israeli-US relations, things are seldom what they seem to be at first glance.

Although Mr. Trump slapped Israel with a 17 percent trade tariff, the damage to the country's trade will be slight. The overwhelming share of Israel's exports to the US consists of software and other digital services which are beyond the scope of tariffs. And most of Israel's manufactured goods—such as semiconductors or pharmaceutical products—are almost guaranteed to get American exemptions or are already covered by uniform global tariff arrangements.

The real reason the Israeli Premier has rushed to Washington is not to protect his country's trade but to gain US backing for a strategy of maintaining on an almost permanent basis Israeli military offensives in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria while preparing for a significant fresh military attack on Iran.

Mr. Netanyahu believes that Israel is now in a uniquely powerful position not only to crush all its enemies but also to reshape—by the sword—the entire Middle East.

It is a perilous assumption that owes almost everything to Mr. Netanyahu's domestic political interests rather than any grand strategic insight. Still, it may well plunge the Middle East into deeper turmoil. The question is whether Mr. Trump will buy into Mr. Netanyahu's apocalyptic vision.

Nowhere is the recklessness more apparent than in Israel's behavior in Gaza.