In today’s Middle East, it is important to recognise that Israel is completely out of control, and no one has the will to rein it in.

This should have been understood back in July 2024, in the waning days of the Biden administration, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington to address a joint session of Congress. His government had already committed atrocious war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon; killed Iran’s Ayatollah and many of its political and scientific leaders; occupied parts of Syria; destroyed much of that country’s military capacity; and was working to deepen Syria’s sectarian strife. At the same time, violent Israeli settlers, backed by the military, were running roughshod over the West Bank, terrorising Palestinians and systematically demolishing the homes of thousands.

In his address to Congress, Netanyahu boasted that this murderous behaviour demonstrated that Israel had become the dominant force in the Middle East, fighting and winning on seven fronts. “You are not defending us,” he claimed, “we are defending you”—terming his bloody rampage across the region as Israel leading the effort to protect Western civilisation against the barbarism of the East.

As inflammatory and disgraceful as........

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