Iranophobia: Netanyahu’s bid to transform fear into political survival

As the right-wing coalition government that oversaw the genocide in Gaza, launched attacks across the region, and eroded civil liberties at home appears to lose its grip on power by the day, caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly frantic efforts to derail the political transition suggest a growing desperation to stay in office. Among those efforts appears to be an attempt to reignite the war with Iran. Netanyahu has reportedly ordered the Israeli military to prepare for war ahead of a potential attack on Iran, in defiance of the opposition's calls for restraint.

The reports follow revelations that Netanyahu had been phoning US President Donald Trump almost daily to press for renewed strikes on Iranian targets. Israeli media have also reported repeated confrontations between Netanyahu and military chief Eyal Zamir, who has resisted proposals for military action against Iran, warning that they could trigger a wider conflict.

Political Gamble

Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has been tasked with forming a viable government, but that is not a foregone conclusion. Netanyahu has been pushing for a national unity government that would include himself and his Likud party, or waiting for Eisenkot to fail, leading to another election.

Many in the opposition, including Eisenkot himself, have accused Netanyahu of attempting to drag the country into a potentially devastating war for his own political survival, or of deliberately stalling the coalition-building process in the hope of running down the clock and forcing another election.

Iranophobia Factor

Israel's decades-long cold war with Iran has been a constant throughout much of the Israeli population's lifetime. For decades, Israelis have lived with the threat of attacks from Iran's regional allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon. That fear has been reinforced by repeated warnings from Israeli leaders, dating back to at least the 1990s, that Tehran was on the brink of acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Tensions came to a head as Israel launched multiple wars across the region following the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. A 12-day exchange of strikes with Iran in June 2025 was followed by a joint attack with the US launched in February, which has disrupted critical waterways and thrown financial markets into turmoil.

Desperate Measures

Political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University suggested that another war with Iran may offer Netanyahu a route out of the political bind he finds himself in. As things stand, a majority of the public oppose him and his coalition, and, in Bar-Tal's framing, he is 'fighting for his life', with multiple active criminal cases against him.

Although Bar-Tal doubted that Trump, Israel's principal ally and military backer, would allow Netanyahu to derail US negotiations with Iran, he believed that Israelis would still 'support such a war, and this is a good card for him to play to create the turmoil needed to extricate himself from his current predicament.' For now, Ram said, Israel maintains what, for many, feels like a state of permanent expectation.

People know that any case for war would be manufactured. They're not stupid and they see it for what it is. However, many people regard it as inevitable. They're just waiting, and if and when it happens, despite everything they know, they will still report for duty and do what they're ordered.