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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/dont-blame-it-on-netanyahu-israelis-across-the-political-spectrum-support-the-illegal-attack-on-iran/">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Don\u2019t blame it on Netanyahu, Israelis across the political spectrum support the illegal attack on Iran</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Adam Horowitz</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">June 19, 2025</div>
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<p>Liberals in the West who want to criticize Israel will often point to
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the source of the country\u2019s
issues. They will emphasize his corruption, his attempts to avoid
prison, or his need to court those further to the right to explain away
everything from expanding settlements in the West Bank to carrying our a
genocide in Gaza. </p>
<p>They are now framing Israel\u2019s aggression in Iran in the same way <a href="https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1934659864610918435">as Netanyahu\u2019s war</a>,
but opinions within Israel, including those from \u2018liberal Israelis\u2019
suggest otherwise. In fact, war with Iran has historically, as well as
currently, been pushed and supported by the entire Zionist political
spectrum, from left to right. </p>
<p>It is important to understand this, in order to understand just how
overwhelming the Israeli support for Israel\u2019s illegal attack is. </p>
<p>The polling shows this to be the case.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/16/israelis-rally-around-iran-strikes-according-to-new-poll/">recent poll</a>
conducted by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem\u2019s Agam Labs shows
Israelis overwhelmingly support the aggression against Iran, with only
16% opposing it. The 16% is heavily weighed by the 68% of Palestinians
who oppose it (20% unsure, 12% support). Among Jewish Israelis, less
than 5% oppose it. </p>
<p>This has long been reflected among Israel\u2019s political leaders, including the so-called opposition. </p>
<p>Less than a week before the attack, Israeli opposition leader Yair
Lapid chided Netanyahu for not having attacked Iran earlier. In an <a href="https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1932045765368480154">Haaretz podcast</a> he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>\u201cIt would have been possible to handle it in a way, that you inflict a
severe blow on Iran, a blow that would have the potential to topple the
Iranian regime, because it collapses the economy, which was in trouble
anyway\u2026 it was simply a much better opportunity, one of a great many
opportunities which haven\u2019t been taken advantage of.\u201d</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is not uncommon that a figure associated with the Israeli liberal class would be more hawkish on Iran than Netanyahu himself.</p>
<p>In his memoirs, former Labor leader and Prime Minister Ehud Barak
boasts of being more hawkish than Netanyahu on the issue of attacking
Iran when Barak was Defense Minister under Netanyahu from 2009 to 2013.
Barak, who is often nicknamed \u201cMr. Security\u201d in Israel, <a href="https://www.972mag.com/attack-iran-wasnt-ehud-baraks-autobiography/">didn\u2019t believe</a>
Iran posed an \u201cexistential threat\u201d \u2013 in his eyes, the issue was a
change in regional balance of power, and the loss of Israel\u2019s regional
nuclear monopoly. Barak wanted to preempt Iran\u2019s \u201czone of immunity\u201d \u2013
where it was no longer possible to significantly damage the Iranian
nuclear program. His idea was to message to the Iranians that \u201cwe could
always attack again\u201d and that it would not be worth rebuilding their
nuclear facilities.</p>
<p>So Iran has always been a political question that Barak and many
others have suggested should be handled with aggression and
belligerence. And most of the Israelis are behind it. What is the
objective now, more precisely?</p>
<p>According to the Israeli head of the National Security Council Tzachi
Hanegbi (Likud), Israel does not even hope to destroy the Iranian
nuclear project entirely, because this is deemed impossible. In an <a href="https://e.walla.co.il/item/3757585">interview</a>
on Saturday with the Kan public broadcaster, he said that the goal was
to force the Iranians into a new nuclear deal with the United States.
Channel 12 news then <a href="https://www.mako.co.il/news-military/Israel_iran_war/Article-81c849a6d0b6791027.htm">reported</a>
that the government\u2019s calculation before its attack on Iran was that it
would cost between 800 and 4,000 Israeli lives. A price evidently worth
paying to retain military superiority in the region.</p>
<p>Ehud Barak confirmed Hanegbi\u2019s assessment of possible military achievement. Saturday, he <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/13/world/video/israel-ehud-barak-iran-amanpour-digvid">told</a> Christiane Amanpour on CNN: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>\u201cIn my judgement, it\u2019s not a secret that Israel alone cannot delay
the nuclear program of Iran by a significant time period, probably
several weeks, possibly a month\u2014but even the US cannot delay them by
more than a few months.\u201d </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Amanpour wonders: \u201cWhat is the point then?\u201d </p>
<p>Barak begins to mumble: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>\u201cIt\u2019s uh, it\u2019s problematic, it still has a justification from the
point of view of Israel. Uh, eh, instead of sitting idle, our government
feels that they have to do something\u2026 probably together with the
Americans we can do more.\u201d</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Barak repeats the \u201cimmunity zone\u201d and the \u201cthreshold\u201d idea that he has forever been pushing: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>\u201cMy judgment is, that because Iran is already what is called a
\u2018threshold nuclear power\u2019, then the only way to block it is either to
impose upon it a convincing new agreement, or alternatively open upon it
a full-scale war to topple down the regime. That\u2019s something that
together with the US we can do, but having said that, I don\u2019t believe
that any American President \u2013 neither Trump nor any one of his
predecessors would have decided.\u201d </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, that sounds amazingly coherent. They are just going for
destruction, and let\u2019s see what comes out of it. That\u2019s Barak from the
\u201cleft\u201d of Israeli politics. He\u2019s actually supporting Netanyahu, no doubt
because he has long been a proponent of this madness and overhauled him
on the right. </p>
<h2><strong>\u2018The pilots of Kaplan\u2019</strong></h2>
<p>Saturday night, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/14/world/video/missile-strike-kirya-israel-military-digvid">an Iranian missile hit</a>
Tel Aviv in close proximity to Israel\u2019s main military headquarters on
Kaplan Street. This military headquarters, known as HaKirya, is situated
in one of the most bustling civilian areas in the country. It is
adjacent to the Sarona shopping mall, next to the Tel Aviv Museum, and
close to many apartment residences. To be sure, if Hamas had such
headquarters in such an area, it would be yet another pretext for Israel
for its eternal propaganda claim that \u201cHamas uses civilians as human
shields\u201d. </p>
<p>Kaplan Street is also known in Israel for something completely
different than the military headquarters \u2013 the wide street has been the
stage for the massive demonstrations (before October 7, 2023) against
the government\u2019s judicial reform. These protests were often called the
\u201cKaplan demonstrations\u201d. Thus, it also holds an iconic place in Israeli
liberal thinking as a signifier for \u201cdemocracy.\u201d On Friday, Orna Berry,
who is a science entrepreneur and former chief scientist for the Israeli
government, <a href="https://x.com/OrnaBerry/status/1933557116196819201/photo/1">tweeted the meme</a>:
\u201cAt this time, all of Kaplan is above Tehran. Return in peace.\u201d By this
she was offering her support to the pilots who have also been prominent
in the protest movement for Israeli \u201cdemocracy\u201d and are now the ones
attacking Iran. Indeed, many of the <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/09/an-israeli-pilot-refusenik-reflects-on-the-state-of-israeli-fascism-and-apartheid/">same pilots</a> who bomb children across Palestine also consider themselves liberals, and the Israeli public generally calls them \u201cthe best.\u201d </p>
<p>This is how the Israeli public sees the aggression on Iran. Although
they don\u2019t exactly see how they will get out of this war and what they
will get out of it, they have been told for ages, and by many, that
attacking Iran is a good idea. </p>
<p>Netanyahu surely understands that this issue is one that can really
unite the nation \u2013 and that\u2019s something that he loves and needs,
especially for himself right now. It also adds a smokescreen in relation
to the Gaza genocide and the accelerated ethnic cleansing of the West
Bank. </p>
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