A War of Survival: Iran, Israel, and the Politics of Escalation

Reading Time: 3 minutes As missiles thundered across the skies of the Middle East last week, a familiar refrain returned to the region: confrontation between Iran and Israel, this time more direct and more dangerous than ever. Yet, while the strikes and counter-strikes dominated headlines from Tel Aviv to Tehran, the real battle may be unfolding not in military bunkers, but in the corridors of political survival. For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the decision to initiate Operation Rising Lion, a precision air and cyber assault targeting Iran’s nuclear programme has been hailed by some as a bold act of national defence. But for many others, it is being interpreted as a high-risk gambit to regain control of an increasingly fractious domestic front. According to polling by the Israel Democracy Institute, Netanyahu’s approval ratings have plummeted to historic lows near 28%. His coalition government, a narrow patchwork of far-right and