When looking at the Middle East today, it is important to recognize that Israel is completely out of control and no one has the will to stop it.
This should have been realized as early as July 2024, in the waning days of the century The Biden administrationwhen the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington to speak to a joint session of Congress.
His government had already committed atrocities war crimes IN Gaza AND Lebanon. They had killed Iran’s Ayatollah and many of its political and scientific leaders. They had also conquered parts of SYRIAdestroyed much of that country’s military capabilities and were working to deepen Syria’s sectarian strife.
At the same time, violent Israeli settlers, backed by the military, were stepping up West Coast terror Palestinians and systematically demolishing the homes of thousands.
In his speech to Congress, Netanyahu boasted that this murderous behavior showed that Israel had become the dominant force in the Middle East by fighting and winning on seven fronts. You’re not protecting us, he claimed, we’re protecting you – framing his bloody rampage across the region as Israel leading the effort to defend Western civilization against the barbarism of the East.
As inflammatory and embarrassing as his words were (and the actions they described), he was applauded by The Republicans and some Democrats, with only a handful of Democratic members of Congress strongly protesting. For its part, the Biden administration left it to Vice President Harris to deliver a mild rebuke to Netanyahu.
Over the past five US administrations, it has been precisely this pattern of behavior—whether direct support for Israeli crimes or silence and timidity in the face of them—that has fueled Israel’s impunity, along with a megalomaniacal sense of mission. President Bill Clinton called Netanyahu impossible or ridiculous; Barack Obama deemed it “irreparable”; even Trump has described his frustration with the Israeli leader in harsh and embarrassing language.
But no one has taken decisive steps to curb it. In the wake of President Trump’s half-hearted “deal” that seeks to end his ill-advised and costly war with Iran, Netanyahu has been quiet. He has criticized his cabinet ministers and opposition party leaders. Vice President JD Vance’s rebuke of Israeli critics was significant, but threats of serious policy change were missing. Vance’s words will be considered nothing more than words.
At this point it should be noted that Israel’s dangerous impunity and stretched sense of mission is not just Netanyahu’s problem. It is a deeper Israeli problem that has historically manifested itself in two ways.
During the Clinton and Obama years, when the US wanted Israelis to halt settlement expansion or abide by the terms of agreements that were being violated, their administrations were reluctant to take tough measures against Israel, or even use harsher language, for fear that it would embolden Israel’s hard-right and end up being counterproductive. As a result, there was no blow to the Israeli governments led by Yitzak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Naftali Bennett.
This deference to Israeli leaders, out of concern for the problems they would face from hardliners if we force them to make difficult decisions, is never shown to Palestinian leaders or other Arab leaders. The result of this coddling has been the encouragement and empowerment of Israeli hardliners to the point where they and their espoused views are the dominant political current in Israeli politics today.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t “liberals” who oppose Netanyahu’s coalition government. But their liberalism is defined by their opposition to Netanyahu cORRUPTIONhis authoritarian instinct and his attitude towards the ultra-Orthodox and the religious policies they impose on the rest of Israeli society.
The opposition parties that will run against Netanyahu in the next election are not only not challenging his war policies, but are now presenting themselves as more hostile than he is about Israel’s wars and its treatment of the Palestinians. In fact, all of the main contenders to lead a post-Netanyahu Israeli government have strongly condemned his ceasefire deal in Gaza and Lebanon.
They have uniformly denounced what they called his show of subservience to US President Trump, making Israel look like a humiliated “vassal state”. All have criticized the recently announced US-Iran peace deal, with the self-described “liberal” Democratic party criticizing the deal, suggesting it threatens to “wipe out all the gains Israel has made” in their war against Iran.
All of this should make it clear to liberals in the US that the problem in the Middle East today is not just Netanyahu. Losing it doesn’t mean “Happy Days are here again.” It is an entire political culture that has gone off the rails. The only way it will change is if we make Israel pay a price by ending political and military aid and cooperation, thereby creating a shockwave that will force a political reckoning in the country.
On the other hand, if we do not act, Israel’s out-of-control rogue behavior will continue to set the Middle East on fire, and we will be complicit in everything they do.
Dr. James J. Zogby is the author of Arab Voices (2010) and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, DC-based organization that serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community.
