The world watches as Netanyahu expands his warfront!

After the 2022 Israeli legislative election, Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party formed a government with ultra-orthodox parties like Shas, United Torah Judaism, the Religious Zionist Party, Otzma Yehudit and Noam, which has resisted all opposition attempts to dislodge it from power.

Since assuming office in December 2022, this extreme right-wing entity has been striving hard to provoke the Palestinians through erecting new settlements, intimidating and imprisoning Arab settlers while broadening Israeli presence within Jerusalem. It had been looking for pretexts to come down harshly on the population living in Gaza with the intention of eliminating Palestine altogether and annexing new areas for additional settlements.

Unfortunately, the radical outfit Hamas provided it with the perfect excuse when, unable to tolerate Tel Aviv's ill-concealed aversion to and treatment of Palestinians, it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. The reprisal that followed was almost akin to ethnic cleansing, with Israel reducing the Gaza strip to rubble while killing over 50,000 Palestinians, a majority of whom were children and women.

Although there was no dearth of condemnation from the inter-national community of the barbarism displayed by the Israeli forces, including a "war crime" ruling by the International Court of Justice, neither the UN nor world powers could rein Netanyahu in. It is this global impotence that has removed all bridles from this government.

There can be little doubt that, at the moment, Tel Aviv stands emboldened enough to further try and implement Netanyahu's long-held Zionist agenda, well aware that Donald Trump will look away.

Eliminating Iran's nuclear stockpile had been at the top of Netanyahu's bucket list and the Israeli Prime Minister sees this as an opportune moment to strike, cognizant that the rest of the world, apart from emitting the routine calls for restraint, is absolutely incapable of stopping him.

Israel's attack on Iran, mostly targeting nuclear stockpiles and installations, but not skirting residential urban areas, would not have been feasible before Trump ascended to office, but now that he has trumpeted his hands-off policy, Netanyahu can go all out against his traditional adversary, no matter that even a section of his own people is against escalation.

This time around, however, he has discovered that Iran carries much more sting in its tail than Hamas, for not only have retaliatory missile launches by it have penetrated the famed "iron dome", they have also killed Israeli citizens and destroyed infrastructure.

With Israel, China and the US calling on residents of Tehran to evacuate the city as soon as possible, that there would be further escalation of the Israeli assault has become a fait accompli. Ironically, the Israeli assault on Iran had come in the midst of ongoing US-Iran nuclear negotiations, a stark reminder that Netanyahu gives little weight even to Trump!