This has already become a prewritten script: every time the United States moves to strike a Middle Eastern dictatorship, it is preceded by a nerve-racking wait, followed by feverish diplomatic contacts—and above all, the local dictator refuses to grasp the severity of his situation until it is too late.
Abbas Araghchi will not be the first foreign minister to fly urgently to meet Americans in an attempt to prevent war. Before him came Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz, in a futile meeting with his counterpart James Baker. Saddam Hussein promised both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush that the United States would discover hell in Iraq, that its forces would die there in droves, and that his country would stand firm. Aziz ended his life in a Baghdad prison; Saddam went to the gallows.
The Iranians are no more flexible, no less fanatical, and burdened with the same problems as their hated Iraqi predecessors. Their almost last hope of preventing action lies with the Sunni states of the Middle East. Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia publicly warn that an American strike could escalate into a regional war. In practice, a Middle East expert told me this week, what truly worries them is the almost inevitable outcome of eliminating the ayatollahs' regime: Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
One does not need to believe Turkish President Recep Erdoğan's fantasies about Israeli attempts to conquer Mount Ararat, nor buy into antisemitic conspiracy theories about a secret Netanyahu government plan to restore the days of the Kingdom of David, to understand the pressure. Nadim Koteich, a leading journalist in the Arab world and a harsh critic of Iran, wrote last week: "Regardless of your political views, the following fact cannot be denied: Israel is emerging from the post–October 7 era with unprecedented military and intelligence dominance. Its operations systematically dismantled the Iranian proxies, reshaped the security architecture of Lebanon and Syria, and demonstrated strike capabilities unmatched by any other actor in the region. Its recognition of Somaliland and expansion into the Red Sea signal ambitions broader than the traditional ones. For Saudi Arabia, which cannot normalize relations with Israel without some Israeli-Palestinian agreement, this creates an uncomfortable reality: the strongest military power in the region is not subject to any influence from Riyadh."
For years, the Iranian threat troubled the Middle East but also bound Israel and most of its resources to the struggle against Tehran and its proxies. Now, the Iranian carcass lies in the middle of the room. For most of the Middle East, it is convenient for it to remain there—without a death certificate and without a new, far more Israeli Middle East.
Between Uman and Bennet
Benjamin Netanyahu's preferred election date until now was September 8. It is the only Tuesday of the month that does not fall on a holiday (and holding elections on September 1, the opening day of the school year, is out of the question). That was until the ultra-Orthodox parties realized it meant voting four days before Rosh Hashanah. At least half a mandate would be in Uman, Ukraine on pilgrimage. Most of them are not expected to vote for Yair Golan.
So why not October? The conventional wisdom holds that Netanyahu has no interest in holding elections shortly after the third anniversary ceremony of the massacre, with reminders of the greatest failure looming just before voters head to the polls. But the original election date is October 27—three long weeks later. The ultra-Orthodox signaled that if the draft law passes, there is no problem holding elections on schedule. If not, they will probably still vote for the budget despite their threats, but will need to "punish" the government by advancing the dissolution of the Knesset, even if only symbolically. They were promised that the draft law would be the first passed in the term; now, at best, it will be the last.
Aside from Uman and Rosh Hashanah, the election will be decided by a group of roughly 300,000–400,000 people—Likud voters from 2022 who, according to some polls, have drifted to Bennett and Lieberman, but most of whom are still far from deciding how they will vote. They all subscribe, without exception, to four positions: first, that Netanyahu bears primary responsibility for October 7, and his evasion of this is ridiculous. Second, that Netanyahu bears primary responsibility for the achievements against Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria that followed, and it is doubtful anyone else could have delivered them. Third, that the ultra-Orthodox should be sent to the opposition and their young people to the army and the labor market. Fourth, that there is one coalition partner worse than all others—the Arab parties.
Not a single politician competing for their votes embraces all of these principles, hence the awkward and complex maneuvering by everyone. Bennett signaled this week the path he will try to thread through this needle's eye: he promised not to sit with Arab party leader Mansour Abbas, tried to diminish Yair Golan as "the next energy minister—speaks from the gut but an October 7 hero, no worse than Deri," and concluded with the promise: "I will steer." Bennett's task is complex, not least because he has already said that after the wholesale breaking of promises in 2021, he no longer promises anything—even to his children. But mainly because, according to the polls, his future coalition is far less popular than he himself is. Netanyahu can impose a vow of silence on his partners and faction members. Who can shut Yair Golan up?
"Food security"
Ankara and Muscat are not the only places in the Middle East hosting secret negotiations. Last week, the heads of the Dairy Council quietly arrived at the offices of the Tax Authority for a meeting with the finance minister. Bezalel Smotrich is not their cup of milk, and a public meeting with him in the midst of the most ambitious reform ever attempted was out of the question. They spoke for an hour, without minutes, with no results. Meetings with the settlement movements were also canceled, allegedly due to threats.
The dairy reform aims to reach a situation of 80 percent domestic production and 20 percent imports. That way, in wartime Israel will not be dependent on the goodwill of the Turks and the Poles, and in the event of cattle disease it will not be left with empty shelves. This week's strike was a huge gift from the Dairy Council to Smotrich: it illustrated for the public the meaning of monopoly better than a thousand presentations.
Milk, of course, is not alone. The reduction of fruit and vegetable prices—a move whose welcome first buds we all felt when pineapple went from a luxury product to a cheap, banal component of every fruit platter—has stalled under the current government. Nothing remains of the reform led by the previous agriculture minister, Oded Forer of Yisrael Beiteinu. The first losers, in health and in pocket, from preserving the status quo are first and foremost voters of the current coalition. But interests prevailed and the price only kept rising. Israeli citizens now receive at the supermarket fruits and vegetables of a quality that, when I once worked picking nectarines, would have been classified somewhere between "reject" and "Grade B," but at prices worthy of boutique shops in Kikar HaMedina. Taxi fares continue to rise as Uber's entry into Israel has been delayed due to pressure groups among party activists.
One could see the reasons for this in the horror show put on by Likud MK David Bitan. No legal or diplomatic injustice provoked the rage attack that the attempt to slightly ease the cost of living inflicted on him. He called his own party colleagues "Netanyahu's stooges" on camera, accompanied by another member of the cost-of-living lobby in Israel, Naama Lazimi.
What an absurdity it is that a government with socialist left-wing parties passed, in the previous Knesset, an Arrangements Law containing a series of measures to encourage competition—while a supposedly economically right-wing government forcibly blocks every move intended to make life here even slightly cheaper. And it does so with strange arguments lifted straight from the cheerful cooperative days of the Soviet Union: shortage, supervision, and heavy government subsidies are actually a good thing—when everything is wrapped in the sacred packaging of "food security."
