Iran and Israel are caught in a cycle of retaliation, and the situation in the Middle East is confusing

Source: People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Trumpet

On April 14, Iran retaliated for an attack on its diplomatic facilities in Syria by attacking Israel with a large number of drones and missiles. Five days later, an airstrike hit Isfahan province in central Iran, which was reported by multiple media outlets to be Israel's doing.

Iran and Israel are caught in a cycle of retaliation, and the situation in the Middle East is confusing

■Ye Xin, Wang Yi, Li Ruijing

On April 14, Iran launched a large number of drones and missiles at Israel. This is a picture of the missile launch from the Iranian side broadcast by the Iranian state news agency on the same day.

On April 14, Iran used a large number of drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles to attack Israeli military targets in retaliation for an Israeli attack on the consular office of the Iranian embassy in Syria earlier this month. Five days later, airstrikes were carried out on the northeastern region of Isfahan province in central Iran. Although Israeli officials have taken a "no comment" stance on this, as they have done on many occasions in the past, ABC and other media outlets reported that Israel was responsible for the attack.

Since April, Israel and Iran have been attacking each other one after another, and the two sides are now caught in a vicious circle of alternating retaliation. How will the "-for-tat" between the two countries affect the trend of the situation in the Middle East? Will the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict thus evolve into another local war after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict? The international community is deeply worried about this.

Grievances have been accumulated for many years, and contradictions are difficult to solve

Iran and Israel have long been at odds, with each treating the other as old enemies. In fact, historically, confrontation has not been the whole story of the relationship between the two.

As the main nationals of these two countries, the Persians and Jews are the ancient peoples of the Middle East. At different times in history, the Persians established several dynasties, and the Jews were more often in the "diaspora", some of which were part of the Persian Empire as subjects. Historically, the Persians were more tolerant of Jews than other peoples active in the Middle East, laying the foundation for friendly relations between the two peoples.

After the end of World War II, Israel declared its state, and Iran at this time was ruled by the secular Pahlavi dynasty. At that time, the environment in which the two countries found themselves was rapidly warming their relations: on the one hand, both countries were facing hostility and isolation from neighboring Arab countries and needed to change their diplomatic dilemmas, and on the other hand, the two countries were both important partners of the United States, and the United States had made the relationship closer together.

The year 1979 was a turning point in Iranian-Israeli relations. In that year, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran, and the Shiites led by Khomeini overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty and established the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran then changed course, making anti-American and anti-Israel its main foreign policy, and refusing to recognize Israel's legitimate statehood. After Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War in 1991, Israel regarded Iran as the biggest threat and gradually intensified its confrontation with Iran. After Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005, he adopted a more radical anti-Israel policy, and the Iran-Israel conflict escalated rapidly. In particular, the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the attacks on sensitive targets such as nuclear facilities have deepened Iran's hatred of Israel. After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Iran seized the opportunity to strengthen its military presence in Syria, while Israel frequently launched air strikes against suspected Iranian military targets in Syria to curb the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East. In response, Iran has stepped up its support for anti-Israel armed factions such as the Lebanese Allah Party and Hamas......

Looking back over the past 40 years or so, the confrontation between Iran and Israel has been spiraling upward, and the contradictions between the two sides have become increasingly acute. Israel's April 1 airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Syria, and the subsequent cycle of retaliation between the two sides, pushed the two countries further to the "brink of war."

Both sides have their own considerations

At present, the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict has lasted for more than half a year. However, Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip are far from completing the three pre-intended objectives of "eliminating Hamas, rescuing all detainees, and ensuring that the Gaza Strip no longer poses a threat to Israel". Relevant statistics show that the Israeli army's military operations in the Gaza Strip have killed more than 34,000 people and injured more than 77,000. In the face of the deepening humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, the international community has continued to issue strong condemnations of Israel. At the same time, there have been a series of large-scale demonstrations in Israel against the government.

Many analysts believe that the Israeli government is currently facing tremendous pressure from both internal and external sources, and is seeking to divert contradictions to get out of its predicament and avoid stepping down. As for the goal of diverting contradictions, Iran, the old enemy behind Hamas, is undoubtedly the best choice for the Netanyahu government: on the one hand, attacking Iran can punish Iran for its long-standing anti-Israeli activities and at the same time deter the armed factions supported by Iran; on the other hand, if Iran does move from the background of confrontation to the forefront, Israel can take the opportunity to "pull the United States into the water" and use the power of the United States to attack regional rivals and consolidate its own position.

Compared to Israel, Iran appears more serene. After the attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria, Iran launched a large number of drones and missiles at Israel on the 14th. Despite the scale of the retaliation, there are signs of both strong and restrained Iran.

From the perspective of showing strength, the attack on the Iranian embassy is a violation of sovereignty, and Iran's retaliatory attack will to a large extent appease the domestic people and defend national dignity. According to Israeli media reports, Iran launched 185 suicide drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles during the attack on the 14th. If the news is true, this can be described as a missile attack war of rare scale in recent years, which fully demonstrates the long-range strike capability of the Iranian armed forces. From the point of view of restraint, the media had already disclosed Iran's plans before the attack, Israel had also taken targeted measures such as school closures and restrictions on gatherings, and Iran did not hit civilian targets, the attacks were aimed at military targets in remote areas, and Iran quickly said through social media that "legitimate counterattacks have ended". Iran's approach shows that it is not willing to escalate tensions and justify U.S. military involvement.

The course of the situation remains uncertain

In the past, Israel and Iran mostly played games in the Middle East in the form of indirect confrontation, but Iran's attack on Israel on the 14th was the first time that the two countries staged a direct military confrontation. The fact that the mainland was the first to be attacked by Iran is certainly difficult for Israel, which has a sense of military superiority in the Middle East, to accept.

According to ABC, Israel launched an attack on Iranian territory on the 19th. Iranian media reported that Iranian air defense systems spotted 3 micro-aircraft over Isfahan province on the same day and shot them down, close to Isfahan International Airport and the base of the Iranian Air Force, causing no economic damage and casualties. After the incident, Israeli officials refused to confirm reports of an Israeli attack on Iran, but many media outlets believed that the attack was a "deliberate" Israeli action, more like a "psychological warfare" intended to warn and deter Iran.

Some commentators have pointed out that Israel has always "avenged its revenge" and that maintaining the current state of conflict is conducive to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's continued rule, so it is expected that Israel will retaliate against Iran. However, in this attack, Israel did not strike Iran's nuclear facilities in Isfahan province, which showed a great degree of restraint, which has a lot to do with the attitude of the United States. According to reports, in a recent telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden made it clear that the United States would not participate in any Israeli offensive against Iran. This shows that Biden does not want an unmanageable situation in the Middle East before the upcoming election.

In the past, the struggle between Israel and Iran was basically a "shadow war" through "proxies". Despite the recent escalation of the conflict, both sides have exercised restraint. In light of this, the two countries are likely to fall into a cycle of low-intensity retaliation in the future.

The five wars in the Middle East in history have brought great suffering to the local people. In recent decades, Israel has not been at war with its neighboring sovereign states. Although the countries concerned, including Israel, the United States, and Iran, do not want the current conflict to escalate into a large-scale war between sovereign states, each side is adopting a "brinkmanship", that is, taking advantage of the other side's psychology that does not want war to threaten war or launch quasi-war behavior, so as to maximize its own interests. As everyone knows, this practice is very dangerous, and if there is a miscalculation, the situation may get out of control.

(Produced by the People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Horn)