Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faulted Iran for “export[ing] aggression … beyond the Middle East” in a rare hint of displeasure over the regime’s military ties with Russia that dovetails with U.S. efforts to rally military support for Ukraine.
“Many in the international community … have seen the true face of Iran,” Netanyahu said after a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “They’ve seen the barbarism of this regime against its own people. They’ve seen how it exports aggression beyond its border and beyond the Middle East, and I think there is a common consensus that this regime must not acquire nuclear weapons.”
That statement, spare as it was, points to a growing tension between Netanyahu’s desire to avoid antagonizing Russia and his desire for U.S. assistance against the broader spectrum of threats from Iran. Blinken underscored that tension in his own remarks as he implied that Russia’s war in Ukraine has developed into a threat both for Europe and Israel, due to Moscow’s partnership with Tehran.
“Just as Iran has long supported terrorists that attack Israelis and others, the regime is now providing drones that Russia is using to kill innocent Ukrainian civilians,” Blinken said in his appearance alongside Netanyahu. “In turn, Russia is providing sophisticated weaponries to Iran. It’s a two-way street.”
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Netanyahu, like the coalition government he displaced in his return to power in November, has declined to send military aid to Ukraine. Israeli officials have maintained that posture in the face of repeated U.S. and Ukrainian requests, even to the point of reportedly denying a U.S. request to open its storehouse of Hawk air defense batteries, a U.S.-made weapon from that Vietnam era. Those requests have acquired urgency in recent months, as Ukrainian and Western officials expect the Kremlin to continue mobilizing conscripts in a bid to overwhelm the Ukrainian defenses and reverse the military setbacks sustained over the last year.
“We see that they are preparing for more war, that they are mobilizing more soldiers, more than 200,000, and potentially even more than that,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday while traveling in South Korea. “They are actively acquiring new weapons, more ammunition, ramping up their own production, but also acquiring more weapons from other authoritarian states like Iran and North Korea … there is an urgent need for more ammunition, more weapons to Ukraine, if they don’t get that, they will not able to resist and repel the Russian invaders under Russian aggression.”
Netanyahu’s recalcitrance stems in part from the fact that Russia, as a partner with Iran in supporting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, has a military presence in Syria that could impede Israeli efforts to strike Iranian targets near the Syrian-Israeli border. Yet Blinken took the opportunity to encourage Netanyahu to abandon that policy.
“Russia’s ongoing atrocities only underscore the importance of providing support for all of Ukraine’s needs — humanitarian, economic, and security — as it bravely defends its people and its very right to exist, a topic that we also discussed today,” Blinken said. “One of the most effective ways to make Israel more secure is to continue to build bridges in the region and even well beyond the region.”
Netanyahu and Blinken “had very good discussions on forging a common policy on trying to work together to thwart the danger” posed by Iran.
“In addition to thwarting the danger, we also see an opportunity to seize opportunities, the opportunities of expanding the circle of peace,” Netanyahu said before invoking the Abraham Accords, the peace agreements that the U.S. brokered between Israel and two Gulf Arab states in 2020.
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“We discussed some of the initiatives that we are considering doing together,” Netanyahu continued, “but also to perhaps achieve dramatic breakthroughs that I think could be both historic and enormously significant in our common efforts to bring prosperity, security, and peace to this part of the world and beyond.”
