By Ron Raskin
A couple months ago, Israel, according to foreign sources, decided on very limited response to more than 300 Iranian missiles and drones. Some will say “lame”, some will say – smart response. Will see..
Interesting though, all Western countries were very supportive to Israel with a striking difference from Western World reaction to continues war in Gaza where political, legal and the public opinion of the west requires from Israel to agree on size fire and Palestinian state. Little in Israel, agree or understand why the Western World so impatient to something that it is so important to Israel.
To explain these differences between Israel and other Western countries, we need first to understand what is going on in the world around us.
State of Israel is playing simultaneously on three chess boards: First: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
Second: Iran’s Attempt to Build an Empire. For this matter, Iran employs anti-Israel sentiment and the socio-economic frustration of the Arab world (whose daily lives for the most part are not simple at all) as a basis for shared interests and the development of dependency from Iran. All this is packaged and sold as an ideological package.
Third: Conflict between China and the Western World. Western interest in the Middle East is an alliance with Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and its allies control a significant portion of the oil production. Control of oil flow grants immense economic power.
An excellent example of this is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The friend of Arabs made a mistake and entered an Afghan conflict in 1979. Saudis, using diplomatic language, didn’t like this intervention (and all this against the background of the tough competition between them for the oil market), and raised oil production, dropped oil prices, and severely affected Soviet exports and the economic stability of the prime minister in the mid-1980s.
All this, of course, after the same Saudi Arabia precisely reduced oil production and raised oil prices after the Yom Kippur War and thus brought the Western economies to a severe crisis. In this chessboard, Iran serves the Western World similarly to the way Iran itself uses Israel: the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
The Western World ‘s interest in the first and second boards is relatively minor compared to its focus on the third board. In contrast, Israel is primarily concerned with the second board, which poses an existential and immediate or near-future threat, and the first board, which demands substantial resources and incurs heavy costs, such as those experienced on October 7. While the third board is also important for Israel in the long run—since a loss by the Western World would leave Israel isolated against the Arab world—it is considered less urgent.
To further complicate matters, it should also be remembered that all these boards are also connected to each other: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fuels the second board, and Iran’s threat to Israel and the Sunnis – brings them closer and projects onto the third board. Looking at the world in terms of these three boards, it is clear that on the one hand, Israel has an interest in severely affecting Iran and, on the other hand, it has an interest in aligning itself with the Western World and keeping Iran sufficiently threatening to bring the Sunnis closer to them. Hence, the Israeli response. A strong enough response to signal to Iran and primarily to Saudi Arabia, what are the capabilities of the Western World and whom they should join.