Islamic Jihad conflagration is tip of iceberg for Israel’s growing Iran concern
Tom Rogan
While an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire seems likely to take effect soon, the most recent conflagration between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is only the tip of the iceberg for a broader Israeli concern.
Namely, Israel’s perception of the growing threat posed by Iran.
Violence between Israel and the PIJ has been escalating in recent months in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Directed by Iran and fueled by Iranian funds, arms, and antipathy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the PIJ has conducted numerous attacks on Israeli interests. Other attacks have been prevented only by the diligence of the Israeli security services. Iran is using the PIJ as its key proxy against the Israeli government. This strategy fits within a hardening of Iranian security policy toward Israel and the West, evinced in part by rampant Iranian assassination plots.
But Iran’s antics are also driven by short-term emotion. The aging Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is desperate to impose greater pain on Israel in retaliation for its successful penetration of Iran’s security and nuclear apparatus. That penetration has embarrassed Tehran and provoked infighting. Yet by using the PIJ to disrupt Israeli civil society, Iran can avoid injecting its Lebanese Hezbollah ally into a conflict that might endanger Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon. Hezbollah is under pressure in Beirut amid continuing economic and political crisis.
For Israel, however, the interest in avoiding a larger conflict must be balanced against the need to deter Iran from seizing the escalation curve. Hard-liners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government are also demanding that he take a tougher stance against Iran and its Palestinian proxies.
When it comes to the escalation curve, the Palestinian front is ultimately of peripheral concern to Israel. Iran’s nuclear program looms largest.
Israel is deeply concerned over Iran’s enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade purity levels and its continuing refusal to come clean with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its past and present nuclear activities. For Israel, which has a population of just 10 million people, the advent of an Iranian nuclear weapon would be seen as the precursor to a second Holocaust.
In turn, whatever happens with this current conflagration, it is likely that Israel will continue to maintain heightened military pressure on the PIJ for the foreseeable future.