Netanyahu's gamble on Friday the 13th

When Israel’s fighter jets reached Iranian skies on Friday, the 13th of June, in an audacious, unprovoked blitz on the country’s nuclear sites and security offices, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the world he was acting to thwart an existential threat.

But peel back the official rhetoric and a far more calculated political logic appears: Netanyahu’s escalation is not only about setting back Iran’s nuclear capability, it is the most brazen attempt yet to sabotage diplomacy, an attempt to rescue his precarious political standing at home, and an effort to deflect attention from Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe.

Consider Netanyahu’s long war on any nuclear deal with Iran. For over three decades, he has portrayed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential menace demanding relentless confrontation rather than negotiated restraint.

Since the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — which put strict limits on Iran’s uranium programme — Netanyahu has done everything he could to block any agreement between Iran and the United States. He made dramatic speeches in the US Congress, leaked secret intelligence and ordered secret attacks inside Iran, all to make sure that Iran and America stayed enemies. He knew that if the US and Iran made peace, Israel might lose some of its special status as America’s closest partner in the Middle East.

This time was no different. Just days before the June airstrikes, Iranian and US negotiators were preparing to meet again to revive a framework broadly similar to the original JCPOA: limits on enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. Iran, its economy battered by years of pressure, was signalling openness to technical compromises that Trump’s envoys saw as a viable diplomatic win. But the first Israeli strike deliberately targeted not just nuclear facilities but Iran’s primary nuclear negotiator with Washington — an unmistakable signal that any pathway to a deal would be attacked.

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The logic is equally stark in the context of Israeli domestic politics. Netanyahu has staked his career on maintaining his pose as Israel’s ultimate security guardian, as the hawk who would never allow a repeat of 7 October. But the reality of Gaza has shredded that narrative. Nearly 20 months after the deadliest attack in Israel’s modern history, Netanyahu’s vow to destroy Hamas and rescue every hostage has disintegrated into a war of attrition with no clear exit and no strategic victory.

Despite levelling entire neighbourhoods and forcing desperate, starving civilians deeper into displacement, Israeli forces continue to suffer casualties while Hamas re-emerges in tunnels and alleys. Many hostages continue to remain out of reach.

Meanwhile, video footage of the ruin and starvation in Gaza, once easily contained by Israel’s domestic censors and loyal press, has begun to break through. Foreign media, UN agencies and even some Israeli outlets now report scenes of humanitarian collapse and increasing discontent with the regime among the Israeli public.

Netanyahu’s approval ratings, already battered by corruption trials and years of political gridlock, have cratered under the weight of this endless war. A Channel 12 poll conducted in March 2025 revealed that 70 per cent of Israelis no longer trusted Benjamin Netanyahu, and his leadership approval rating had plummeted to just 30 per cent.

Internationally, the Gaza carnage has led to a great erosion of Israel’s diplomatic insulation. Once unquestioning Western partners now demand urgent ceasefires and humanitarian corridors. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are examining allegations of war crimes by Israeli officials, an unimaginable prospect even a few years ago. Civil society movements, especially in the West, are foregrounding the humanitarian tragedy of Gaza as a daily moral rebuke of Israeli policy.

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Opening a new front against Israel’s oldest, most demonised adversary is Netanyahu’s gamble to shift the headlines away from Gaza’s misery to high-tech airstrikes, intercepted Iranian missiles and more solemn statements about national survival.

A public exhausted by grim news from Gaza now rallies around the flag once more, believing the story they have been told for decades — Iran’s nuclear bomb is the real threat, and Netanyahu is the only leader with the nerve to confront it head on.

Predictably, his domestic rivals, many of whom were growing bolder in criticising the Gaza quagmire, have fallen back in line, praising the audacity of the strikes and lauding the military’s skill. Even sceptics who know Israel cannot eliminate Iran’s nuclear capacity without US bunker-busting power are hesitant to question Netanyahu while Iranian missiles target Israeli cities. For now, he has bought himself what he needs most: time and breathing room to deflect political accountability.

Yet this diversionary tactic carries catastrophic risks. The fundamental strategic flaw is clear: even if Israel killed half of Iran’s nuclear physicists and flattened a handful of enrichment facilities, it cannot erase the country’s institutional knowledge or bomb-proof sites like Fordow buried deep inside mountains.

This is not Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 nor Syria’s covert nuclear project in 2007. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is vast, with built-in redundancies; it is hardened by decades of sabotage and clandestine warfare.

Without full US military participation, Netanyahu’s goal of denuclearising Iran is unattainable. Worse, by attacking in this way, Israel may ensure that Iran’s leadership, previously hesitant to break out of the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty) framework, sees an actual nuclear deterrent as its only reliable shield against future strikes.

Meanwhile, Iran’s regional proxies, though weakened by the Gaza conflict and internal fissures, are not entirely neutralised. Hezbollah’s capacity may have degraded but sporadic rocket fire from Lebanon continues. Yemen’s Houthis remain defiant, targeting Israeli and commercial shipping. Iraqi militias, newly emboldened, threaten US bases that support Israeli defence.

Even Arab leaders who normalised ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords now face growing domestic unrest demanding solidarity with Iran. However, their willingness to intervene on Iran’s behalf remains doubtful, as the Gaza war experience has shown.

The ripple effects extend far beyond the region. Tehran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply, a move that would send global energy markets into chaos. China and Russia, eager to challenge US hegemony and to paint Washington as complicit in reckless Middle East wars, now have fresh diplomatic ammunition to court Gulf states and expand influence.

China and Iran have been bound by a 25-year Strategic Cooperation Agreement since 2021. Similarly, Iran signed a 20-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty with Russia just five months ago.

Ironically, this escalation also puts President Donald Trump in a difficult position. He had hoped to secure a new Iran deal as a foreign policy trophy early in his second term. Netanyahu’s strike and the killing of Iran’s top negotiator have sabotaged that plan. Iranian leaders now see Trump as an untrustworthy partner complicit in the attack. As Netanyahu continues the military escalation, Trump is increasingly being forced to side with Israel.

The rhetorical goalpost of the war has now shifted from the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities to regime change. However, pursuing this end risks dragging US troops back into the region, with American casualties that could turn Trump’s isolationist MAGA base against him in the midterm elections next year. The humiliating defeat of the regime-change project in Afghanistan is still fresh in the minds of Americans.

None of this seems to trouble Netanyahu. He is gambling that the US will be forced to openly join the war and will keep backing Israel militarily, providing advanced munitions and spare parts, because no American president wants to be blamed for leaving Israel vulnerable amid Iranian retaliation.

This article went to press for the print edition of NH on Sunday on 19 June

Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden. More of his writing can be found here