Israel’s perpetually grim state as of this week – with maybe another war with Iran coming very soon

Amos Harel of Haaretz recently made one of the saddest comments about the state of present-day Israel that I’ve seen: “the public already looks as though it has become accustomed to an eternal war, and has come to terms with it.” (1)

Currently we seem to be on the verge of war with Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is reportedly encouraging an attack on Iran after supposedly having talked Trump out of an earlier one. That switch was a tactical one. Netanyahu’s default position for decades has been to push the US to oust the Islamic regime in Iran. According to Dahlia Scheindlin, the Israeli government is backing Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last, brutally dictatorial Shah ousted by the revolution in 1979, to be a new (and presumably Israel-friendly) ruler of Iran. (2)

She cautions about reckless optimism that overthrowing the current Iranian regime. But Netanyahu’s government sees it as an advantage for Israel to have chaotic conditions in nearby states. Israel is continuing its war against the people of Gaza, albeit at a lower rate of intensity than 2023-2025 at the moment. They have accelerated their violent illegal annexation of the occupied territory of the West Bank.

The pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has been weakened along with the whole nation of Lebanon, which Israel continues to attack sporadically. Thanks to the military intervention in Syria by Israel and the US, Syria is fragmented. One of the positive-by-chance parts of Israeli military salvos into Syria – which have included more illegal occupation of Syrian territory – has been their pragmatic decision along with the US to back the Kurdish militias, which for several years has been the ruling power in the Rojava region. That has been the scene of genuinely positive democratic development in recent years.

But Israel is now pulling back from that support. The new Islamic government of Syria is now pushing to reassert control over Rojava, while Türkiye is ramping up its own military push against Kurds in northern Syria.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is wasting no time rallying the country around a common cause: destroying Rojava. “A strategic alliance with the US can only be possible if we wipe out terrorists from the north of Syria,” Erdoğan declared in December. “We have done so in Afrin and in Shengal. We have buried them in the trenches they had dug and we will continue to do so. If they don’t leave, we will make them disappear because their existence disturbs us.”

Erdoğan is itching to wage war across the border, against the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the enclave commonly known as Rojava. The revolutionary region’s political program shares many similarities with the HDP’s [a left opposition party in Türkiye] electoral platform in Turkey, which promotes egalitarianism, peace, and radical democracy. (3)

Let’s pause to remember how the war in Iraq that the Cheney-Bush Administration began in 2003 was going to bring peace, stability, and democracy to the whole Middle East.

It’s possible that a new war with Iran will be avoided, hopefully so. But it’s notable that the ever-erratic President Trump set a ten-day deadline last for Iran to reach an acceptable deal, a timeline that should be expiring this weekend or the beginning of next week.

It’s also important to remember that the Trump 2.0 regime’s diplomatic professionalism is virtually non-existent on two of the key crisis issues of the moment, the Russia-Ukraine War and attacking Iran. Trump’s special envoys for both of those, Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, have been amateurish and ineffective in their diplomatic initiatives. Trump can’t seem to establish any differentiation between actual diplomacy and private grifting. And the latter always seems to take priority.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Christian Zionist Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has been “putting out fire with gasoline,” to borrow a phrase from a David Bowie song by suggesting publicly that it would be fine with him if Israel were to take over even much more of the Middle East than the territory of the former British colony Mandate Palestine. Including apparently large parts of Iraq and Egypt along with all of Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. (4)

Soumaya Channoushi points out, “Some [Christian Zionist] interpretations envision borders extending from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing territory in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, countries that together are home to hundreds of millions of people.”

This is what the clown-show MAGA diplomacy of our Peace President looks like. The nightmare clown show.

Notes:

(1) Harel, Amos (2026): As War With Iran Looms, Israel Isn't Watching Trump's Plans for Strikes From the Sidelines. Haaretz 02/20/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-02-20/ty-article/.premium/as-war-with-iran-looms-israel-is-not-watching-the-u-s-from-the-bleachers/0000019c-77cf-d618-a19d-77efe7c80000?gift=ec76e7662565436fb21758d76f1cfcfb> (Accessed: 2026-26-02).

(2) Sheindlin, Dahlia (2026): Israel Backs Reza Pahlavi to Rule Iran. That's a Dangerous Gamble. Haaretz 02/24/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-02-24/ty-article/.premium/israel-backs-reza-pahlavi-to-rule-iran-thats-a-dangerous-gamble/0000019c-9043-dab1-adbe-ba6b9f570000?gift=e582fc1aeedb4fdeba119d0c44d9b67a> (Accessed: 2026-26-02).

(3) Burc, Rosa & Oveisy, Fouad (2026): Rojava Is Under Existential Threat. Jacobin 02/22/2026. <https://jacobin.com/2019/02/rojava-united-states-withdrawal-syria-erdogan> (Accessed: 2026-27-02).

(4) Ghannoushi, Soumaya (2026): Mike Huckabee lifts the veil on US backing for Israeli expansionism. Middle East Eye 02/26/2026. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/mike-huckabee-lifts-veil-us-backing-israeli-expansionism> (Accessed: 2026-27-02).