View from Israel: “Without Iran, there's no Netanyahu”

Netanyahu lauched the war with Iran as part of a deranged personal mission, writes a ‘Haaretz’ observer.

It's 4 A.M. on Friday. I find myself in a bomb shelter in the building across the street from my apartment, when Benjamin Netanyahu's image appears on my screen. Turns out Israel has launched another war, this time against Iran. The prime minister has woken up Israeli civilians in order to inform them of that. I listen to his briefing, which assumes a personal tone. "If I may, on a personal level, I've been watching this threat for over 40 years," he declares. "In 1982, I wrote in one of my books – that's three years, only three years after establishment of the regime of the ayatollahs – that the biggest threat faced by humanity and by us, our state, will be the terror regime of the ayatollahs."

From the moment he stepped onto the public stage, this is the way in which Netanyahu has experienced his mission on earth. He sees himself as a type of white knight fighting against the Iranian monster in order to save humankind. But at the same time he has fought that Iranian threat, Netanyahu has also helped to create it.

Of course, the Iranian regime is responsible for itself and its deeds, and there is no point in denying its hostility toward Israel. Nevertheless, this hostility has been fueled by the Israeli leader's personal obsession with Iran. A clear mirroring effect is at play here between two ideological regimes. Over the years, Netanyahu has steadily escalated his ominous proclamations about Iran seeking to annihilate the State of Israel, depicting it as a present-day incarnation of the Third Reich. On that basis, he strived to topple the Iranian regime: After all, a Nazi entity has no right to exist. This fueled the motivation of the regime of the ayatollahs to defend itself with a nuclear program, and its own aspiration to bring down the Zionist regime. As far as the Iranians are concerned, the sole raison d'être of Netanyahu's Israel is a fateful confrontation with them. And it's hard to say that this perception is unfounded.

Netanyahu didn't want to give up the fateful campaign that had shaped the story of his life. There may have been moments when he was almost ready to do that. But without Iran, he would have had to hang up his uniform and fade from public consciousness. Even when he seemingly dealt with other issues – privatizing the economy, taking over the media – and even when he appeared to be in high spirits and self-satisfied, the obsession apparently didn't let up.

What's amazing is that Netanyahu has managed to hypnotize the majority of Israelis – to convince us that his logic makes total sense.

Indeed, all of Israel has been swept up in his madness, including even Netanyahu's fiercest opponents.

Ultimately, the prime minister's prophecy of an unavoidable clash fulfilled itself. We are now facing a fateful final act.

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