On the first anniversary of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the possibility of a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel is now on the world’s agenda. Israel’s attack on Lebanon, the escalation of Netanyahu’s inhumane activities and Israel’s destructive actions in Lebanon have become a new page of events in the Middle East over the past year, and we still see Israel’s war machine advancing on this battlefield. However, the Iranian issue could lead to a new type of conflict, and the regional and global implications of this war will be profound.

One year after Israel’s attack on Gaza and the historic genocide, and with the war spilling over into Lebanon – aimed at destroying the Lebanese Hezbollah, one of Iran’s main allies in the Middle East – what is the analytical situation in Iran, and how do ordinary citizens and public opinion assess the situation?

Ordinary citizens are worried, but united against the external enemy

Iran has gone through a difficult social, economic and political period in recent years. The events surrounding the rise in petrol prices, which led to violent demonstrations in some cities, and the events that followed with the death of Mahsa Amini are considered to be one of the most important turning points in Iran’s social history in recent years. The sudden and suspicious death of President Ebrahim Raisi and the sudden change in the ruling wing were also among the issues that preoccupied Iranian society last year. In addition to these events, chronic inflation and economic stagnation, the continuous devaluation of the national currency, rising prices and falling incomes are among the deep crises in Iran’s social environment. Growing income inequality, rising unemployment and dwindling hopes for a better quality of life in the future have placed a heavy psychological burden on Iranian society. In such an environment, the prospect of war looming over the country seems alarming at first glance. When the threat of war is added to the existing economic and social crises, it can be expected that these crises will deepen or that social conflicts will erupt in the country. Based on this analysis, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people in a video message in recent weeks, trying to put psychological pressure on society and the government by drawing attention to the current problems in Iran.

Contrary to this initial perception, however, it is clear from the wider Iranian society and people’s reactions on social media that the sense of national consensus and unity has increased across the country as the war approaches. The attendance of millions of Tehranis at Friday prayers, where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei delivered a sermon after a four-year hiatus, is a clear indication of this sense of national unity. The missile attacks on Israel by the Iranian armed forces and their reverberations around the world have both increased the Iranian people’s sense of national pride and honor and reduced their worries about how their state would respond to a possible attack by Israel.

Israel’s inhumane behavior in Gaza and Lebanon has also drastically changed the Iranian public’s view of the war. Compared to a year ago, Israel now has no credibility among the Iranian people, and they have developed a sense of disgust at the atrocities committed by Israeli forces in Gaza and Lebanon. This disgust manifests itself in the form of support for the Iranian state in any action against Israel. The last time the Iranian people experienced this disgust and support for the government was in 2014 and 2015. In those years, ISIS committed the most brutal crimes against humanity in Syria and Iraq, which led the Iranian people to support the armed forces in their cross-border operations in Iraq and Syria, making Qassem Soleimani a historic national hero for Iran. For the Iranian people today, Israel is not much different from ISIS in 2014.

One of the most important effects of the tensions between Israel and Iran has been to discredit and even destroy the opposition abroad in the eyes of the Iranian public. Over the past year, the Iranian opposition group abroad has become a supporter of Israeli crimes in Gaza and, with the escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel, a supporter of Israeli military aggression against Iran. This small but vocal group claims that the Israeli attack on Iran is actually directed against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that this attack poses no danger to the Iranian people. With this rhetoric, this group belittles and ridicules the humanitarian feelings of the Iranian people as well as their nationalistic feelings. Therefore, one of the consequences of the year-long war in Gaza for Iran can be seen as the erosion of domestic support for the Iranian opposition abroad.

The elite community is divided: Defence or offence

The Iranian political elite, and especially the strategic analysts, have been going through turbulent times, especially in the last year and after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. The current discourse among Iranian analysts can be divided into two groups: those who approach the war situation in the region from a tactical perspective and those who see the current situation as the result of some strategic actions. Both groups draw different roadmaps for the future, depending on their approach to events.

According to the pro-minimal intervention group, Iran should not fall into Israel’s trap of escalation and its responses should be calibrated so as not to lead to a direct war and serious conflict with Israel, while providing deterrence. This is because a direct conflict between Iran and Israel would trigger a war between Iran and the United States, which could create an uncertain future for the region and the country. According to this group, Iran should allow Hamas and Hezbollah to fight Israel on their own and manage the situation in such a way that the conflict eventually ends in a ceasefire. While it is possible that Iran could provide support to prevent Hezbollah’s defeat, too much support would create unnecessary costs for Iran. Moreover, this group sees the possibility of Israeli damage to Iran’s oil infrastructure and Iran’s inability to repair it in the short term due to sanctions as one of the main reasons for a minimalist approach to intervention.

On the other hand, some Iranian analysts believe that ignoring a major war in the region that could have strategic consequences and adopting a minimalist approach to the current situation is strategic blindness. According to this group, Iran is engaged in a major war, and whether or not Iran strengthens its position on the battlefield will not change the intensity of the war; it will only affect Iran’s interests.

This group argues that Iran should immediately move from a position of reacting to Israel’s military actions to a more active and entrepreneurial stance. As long as there is a constant reaction to Israel, the power to control tensions will remain in the hands of Tel Aviv and the Israelis will continue to be able to manage the field through various shocks. According to this group, Hezbollah is a strategic asset of Iran and Iran cannot and should not give up this asset. Giving up its strategic assets means cutting off its own hand and arm, and the counter-front will only stop by destroying all existential aspects of Iran.

According to these analysts, Israel has convinced America that the best way to reduce the strategic power of Russia and China is to create chaos in the Middle East, weaken Iran’s strategic power and intimidate Middle Eastern countries. America is therefore prepared to support Israel for a long time to continue this war. They argue that Iran should not wait for Israel’s actions and should prevent Israel’s next moves in advance by attacking Israel’s security and economic infrastructure. Therefore, some analysts believe that Iran is considering an attack on Jordan as an option to damage American forces in the region and Israel’s military security system.

This group of analysts believes that the transfer of the war to Iran could become an opportunity and an advantage for Iran. This is because Israel has been waging a security war against Iran for the past two decades and has carried out numerous assassinations and sabotage against Iran’s strategic installations. Iran has always been weak in this security war because of its lack of resources and technology and because it does not have the intelligence support of the Mossad. But now that the conflict has shifted from a security war to a military war, Iran has gained considerable power and initiative and should use this opportunity to pacify Israel in the future. Otherwise, Israel will compensate for its military weakness with security sabotage in the post-war period.

Speaking on 9 October at the Ukraine-South-East Europe Summit in Croatia, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that Ukraine has an opportunity to “promote peace and lasting stability” in the next three months and that the situation on the battlefield creates an opportunity to take decisive steps to end the conflict with Russia by 2025 at the latest. He then launched efforts to lobby for help and support from the four main members of NATO and the EU, namely Britain, France, Italy and Germany.

This was Zelenski’s most optimistic message of peace since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and with the clearest timeframe. It clearly shows that he is not only pinning his hopes on the planned second “peace summit” on the Ukrainian conflict, but also trying to prepare public opinion for the Kiev leadership to make major concessions. Many recent indications suggest that the two-year and eight-month-long direct Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the war with the indirect involvement of 32 members of NATO, in relation to the fundamental interests of the great powers and the ambiguity of US policy, are beginning to give way to the prospect of a peaceful settlement. This situation seems to be tending towards a rapid transformation from “Afghanization” to “Palestinianization” in order to prevent the war from getting completely out of control and turning into a real “Third World War”.

At the military level, the balance of victory in the war seems to have tipped even more clearly in favor of Russia. On October 3, the Russian army took control of Ugledar, Ukraine’s major military base in the Donbas, which it had operated and defended for nearly 10 years. This area was Ukraine’s major logistical support and supply center, the junction point of the Ukrainian army on the southern and eastern fronts, and had become the site of a two-year ‘meat grinder’ struggle between the two armies. The loss of Ugledar was strategically equivalent to the loss of key battle points such as Mariupol and Bakhmut.

After taking Ugledar, Russia was able not only to facilitate its advance in the Donbas region, but also to strengthen its southern land connections and railroad security to the Kerch Strait. Ukraine, on the other hand, lost important maneuvering space and strong bridgeheads in the east and south, while the Kiev leadership and its people had to feel a series of psychological, public and diplomatic defeats.

At the diplomatic level, the US elections are starting to send negative signals for Ukraine. The Biden administration is gradually reducing military aid to Ukraine, shifting from an initial approach of “do what Ukraine needs” to “do what the US can do”. Republicans, who have a 50-50 chance of winning the election, are openly saying that they are tired of supporting Ukraine and that if Trump is elected, he may reverse Biden’s policies and abandon Ukraine. Under Harris, the Democrats may even be forced to accelerate the Russia-Ukraine war by the internal divisions in America and the need to rally public opinion. In the NATO-Europe camp, discomfort with prolonging the war is growing; stocks of military equipment and ammunition are running out, the economic situation is difficult, and it is becoming a binary choice: To switch to wartime or to continue with a normal time economy?

Under the influence of this situation, the authorities in Kiev are moving towards an increasingly pessimistic picture. On the one hand, while trying to hold on to the battlefield, they have mobilized strategic reserves in a futile attempt to strike against the Russian mainland in a last ditch effort, and are even being accused by Russia of “covert use of chemical weapons disguised as smoke bombs”. On the other hand, the Ukrainian government has started to give peace signals, willing to negotiate with Russia.

On October 7, the Financial Times reported that Kiev was holding secret talks about ceding part of its territory to Russia in exchange for Ukraine joining NATO or obtaining other security guarantees. The report read as follows: “The talks are taking place behind closed doors. Under the deal, Moscow would retain de facto control over about a fifth of the Ukrainian territory it occupies, while the rest would be allowed to join NATO or receive similar security guarantees.”

At the end of March this year, Zelensky, always a hardliner, clearly weakened his position, backtracking and saying that he would accept negotiations for peace even if they could not restore the 1991 borders. In fact, the latest Financial Times report is not new information; it is perhaps the outline of an agreement generally agreed by the two sides at the beginning of the war, or perhaps the essence of the US withdrawal plan.

In August 2023, Danish media revealed that US CIA Director Burns made a secret visit to Kiev to test the possibility of getting Ukraine to give up 16 percent of its territory in exchange for an end to the war, and on August 15, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s chief of staff publicly suggested that Ukraine cede some of its territory to Russia in exchange for a license to join NATO.

These and other developments show that the games of the great powers are getting more complicated and that the new strategies for ending the Russian-Ukrainian war are accelerating the transition from “Afghanization” to “Palestinianization”. The terms “Afghanization” and “Palestinianization” are academic conceptual approaches that I adopted after the outbreak of the war, and they have been confirmed by developments on the battlefield.

First of all, the US is forcing Ukraine to become the “European version of Afghanistan”, trying to make Russia relive the historic tragedy of the Soviet Union, which for a decade was buried in Afghanistan and accelerated its collapse; while Russia is using its overwhelming comprehensive power and geographical advantage over Ukraine to make Ukraine the “European version of Afghanistan”, thus trying to make its rivals relive the strategic nightmare. In Afghanistan, they failed to conquer the Taliban for 20 years and eventually had to withdraw their troops in distress. While both sides are building a “European version of Afghanistan”, if the Russian-Ukrainian war takes the path of “Afghanization”, it will be a brutal war of consumption and stagnation. It could last three to five years in the short term and eight to ten years in the long term. This scenario is similar to what the Soviet Union and the United States and NATO experienced in two successive Afghan wars.

On the other hand, it is clear that the United States and NATO do not intend to fight a World War I and World War II-style conventional world war with Russia, because nuclear weapons and long-range delivery vehicles are sufficient to allow both sides to annihilate each other and destroy the world. The Russians, from Tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union, have a long history of warfare and have only accepted to cede territory in defeat. Small countries in Europe have always been allies or victims at the table of the great powers. Based on this general judgment, an outcome in which Russia will win with a huge costs but Ukraine would lose totally. Most of Ukraine seems to have been foreseeable from the beginning of the war: Russia would permanently annex Crimea and parts of southeastern Ukraine, while losing the West, and the remaining western Ukraine would perhaps join NATO. Russia would then do everything to “Russify” the annexed territories, while Ukrainian nationalist insurgents would harass Russia for a long time and try to regain the lost territories. This picture could eventually turn Ukraine into a “European version of Palestine”: First it will be divided by great power interests, then it may be dragged into a perpetual conflict of division, counter-division, occupation and counter-occupation, annexation and counter-annexation. Just like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has been going on for more than 70 years.

Initially defending the alliance strategy and trying to rebuild the transatlantic relationship severely damaged by the Trump administration, by the end of 2021 the Biden administration rejected Russia’s demand to halt NATO’s eastward expansion and withdraw the defense line to the 1999 position, and openly declared that it would not deal with Russia’s troops by military means, encouraging desperate Moscow officials to penetrate the US undercurrents and categorically launch a “special military operation”. Subsequently, the Biden administration, through Britain, pressured Ukraine to break the ceasefire that was about to be reached between Russia and Ukraine and promised to provide support to Ukraine through NATO members. This support was reinforced by the promise to “continue to support for as long as it takes”.

Based on thousands of years of “Russophobia” and the “chilling effect” of reality, Western European countries, driven by the need to help each other, resolutely supported Ukraine in order to block Russia’s attempt to annex Ukraine. By supporting Ukraine to thwart Russia’s annexation attempts, it has made this war of comparable overall strength increasingly permanent and turned it into a proxy war. The dual strategic goals of the Biden administration are to exhaust Russia, a long-time strategic competitor, and to contain the European Union, which is trying to break free from long-term US control and realize strategic autonomy, diplomatic independence and even military self-improvement in order to maintain “Pax Americana”, i.e. US-style world hegemony.

However, politicians are often quick and forgetful, the war has started and has reached a stalemate, whether the US or the European partners are deeply aware that there is no possibility of defeating Russia on the battlefield, with its vast territory, population, strong and comprehensive national character. Moreover, it is undesirable for Europe and the United States that both the United States and Europe suffer heavily from this war and that it ultimately paves the way for a new great power game with China’s “beautiful landscape”. If the new model of the great power game avoids the ‘Afghanization’ of the Russia-Ukraine war, then this conflict will end up in ‘Palestinianization’.

Russia in particular, having learned the lessons of the war after the first half a year of failure and hardship, is rapidly seizing strategic control for victory. By 2025, it plans to increase its defense spending by 25%, launch a military mobilization plan for 133 thousands people, increase the number of active military personnel to 1.5 million and significantly increase its military production capacity. It has also reached the capacity to fire around 10,000 artillery shells per day, increased drone production six-fold and greatly expanded its inventory of hypersonic missiles.

In short, three and a half years after the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO continues to violate Russia’s “red line” to supply Ukraine with offensive weapons and even condones Ukrainian counter-attacks on Russia’s mainland; Russia is increasingly using military and even nuclear weapons to deter its rivals; and the war situation is spiraling upwards. If the war continues, even if it does not spiral out of control and trigger a ‘Third World War’, it will reopen similar wounds for the US and NATO, such as the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and ultimately the blood money.

War is the mortal enemy of peace, but he who has not been through war cannot appreciate peace, and the closer the death and destruction, the easier it is to achieve peace, echoing the Chinese saying that “refuse to admit defeat until faced with overwhelming evidence; only when death is staring one in the face.”

‘Afghanization’ is certainly a tragedy for all parties to the conflict, but can ‘Palestinianization’ bring peace to Europe and the world? Shouldn’t those who caused these crises and conflicts bear their historical responsibility and public criticism?

Prof. Ma is Dean of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (ISMR) at Zhejiang International Studies University (Hangzhou). He specialises in international politics, particularly Islam and Middle East politics. He worked for many years as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine and Iraq.

On 4 October, Israel and the United States were discussing how to respond to Iran’s second missile attack on 1 October. In particular, an attack on Iranian oil facilities was on the agenda. Iran made it clear to the US and Israel that it would no longer be limited to ‘unilateral restraint’ and that any Israeli attack would be met with ‘extraordinary retaliation’. As a result, international oil prices rose for three days in a row, to $75 a barrel for Brent and $71 a barrel for Texas crude, the longest such increase since August.

Israel’s military means are now advancing rapidly and ignoring US President Biden’s suggestions and concerns, constantly escalating the situation in the Middle East and worsening the crisis. It does not even hesitate to pay a huge price for the global economy by jeopardising the world energy supply. Israel may even decide to end its 45-year proxy war with Iran and engage in direct conflict.

In this new era, during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the verge of a one-year peace, Iran fired 200 medium-range missiles at Israel, reigniting a potential regional crisis stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Iran claimed that the massive airstrike was carried out to avenge the deaths of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilfrushan, deputy head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. On 28 September, the Israeli Air Force dropped at least 80 depth charges on the Hezbollah headquarters in southern Beirut, immediately destroying several buildings and killing Nasrallah and Nilfrushan.

In the aftermath, Nasrallah’s body was found intact and without obvious wounds, apparently killed by the shock waves from the massive explosion. This suggests that Israeli intelligence knew Nasrallah’s whereabouts and movements very accurately, and that an intensive bombardment of the target was carried out.

On October 2, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Habib told CNN that Nasrallah’s death occurred after he had shown a willingness to approach a ceasefire. Habib explained that following calls from U.S. President Biden and French President Macron at the UN General Assembly, the Lebanese government had negotiated a ceasefire with Hezbollah. Nasrallah had accepted the ceasefire for 21 days, and this was communicated to both the U.S. and France. Iran, however, claimed that Nilfrushan died because he told Nasrallah to go to Tehran to avoid the risks.

The trees want to be quiet, but the wind won’t stop. If Lebanon confirms the above statement, it shows that the Netanyahu government does not want to see Hezbollah declare its acceptance of the ceasefire, that it has no intention of stopping its ‘Northern Offensive’ against Hezbollah, and that it is determined to escalate the conflict to target Iran. The war may even turn into an all-out war involving Lebanon, Syria and Iran. On 2 October, an Israeli air strike on a house in Damascus killed Nasrallah’s son-in-law, Hassan Karsi. Nasrallah has two daughters married to senior Hamas officials, and Nasrallah’s other son-in-law is likely to be on Israel’s hit list sooner or later, as the Netanyahu government is determined to fight Hezbollah to the death.

Hezbollah accepted the ceasefire offer and Nasrallah was killed. Is this a strange situation? No, it isn’t. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by Israeli military intelligence in Tehran on 31 July, was also a peace leader and wanted a ceasefire in Gaza. It is the basic logic and formula of the Netanyahu government to eliminate negotiating partners, to block peace talks, to fight with super-military means, to import endless economic and military aid from the United States and to achieve a zero-sum outcome.

Since Iran’s attack used strategic strike weapons and partially penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, although it deliberately avoided casualties, it ultimately broke Israel’s strategic defence and deterrence system and increased Iran’s capacity for strategic surprise and deterrence. This increases the likelihood of a major Israeli retaliation. It is expected that Israel will not rest and will not rule out that the retaliation will go beyond the symbolic attack of 18 April, that Iranian political and military leaders, government and military units, nuclear and oil facilities, important ports and airports, etc. could become the target of the attack, and even that warplanes could be sent deep into the Iranian hinterland to carry out the attack. In short, the show of force ball is once again in Israel’s half, and it is up to Netanyahu and his war cabinet to decide.

The Netanyahu government has turned into a real war cabinet, a combination of ‘Ivan the Terrible’ and ‘Ivan the Mad’. ‘Ivan the Terrible’ refers to Ivan IV of the Russian Empire, who, out of mistrust, killed anyone he perceived as a threat, including the elderly Crown Prince; “Ivan the Madman” refers to Cold War tactics in which Soviet Union submarines risked collision at sea by making sudden manoeuvres to evade pursuit.

Instead of a ceasefire in Gaza, the Netanyahu government is rejecting the terms of the Axis of Resistance and expanding its attacks in an attempt to destroy Hezbollah, which is stronger and more flexible than Hamas. This is being done at the risk of escalating the regional conflict to the Third Lebanon War or the Sixth Middle East War, putting Israel in a protracted state of war and provoking a war between the United States and Iran.

The American political news network ‘Politico’ reported on 2 October that the Biden administration has become ineffective against the Netanyahu government, trying only to persuade Netanyahu not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities directly, but with little room left to influence his decisions. Citing two anonymous American officials, the report noted that the Biden administration has recognised that its influence in the Middle East is diminishing and that, after a year, it is no longer able to prevent the situation – regional war – that it has been trying to stop. The current option is to limit Israel’s response, but not to stop its actions altogether.

The article also stated that the Netanyahu government has repeatedly ignored American proposals and expanded its war aims in Gaza, which has created serious domestic political pressures on the Biden government due to the growing humanitarian crisis. This has led to even stronger calls for Biden to distance himself from Netanyahu. It was stated that with the weakening of Biden’s influence on Netanyahu, his anger increased, and his phone calls began to turn into more and more ‘loud debates’. Biden told close friends that Netanyahu had no intention of reaching a ceasefire, but rather was trying to save his own political future by prolonging the conflict and at the same time trying to help Republican candidate Trump in the November elections.

Netanyahu is known to have strong personal ties and interests with Trump and his Jewish son-in-law Kushner. According to some reports, Netanyahu stayed at the Kushner family home while studying in the United States. When Trump entered the White House in 2017, he made his first official visit to Israel; recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, breaking with the policies adopted by more than 20 years of bipartisan government; terminated the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), hated by the Israeli right; presented the ‘Deal of the Century’, which sacrificed key Palestinian interests; and persuaded four Arab countries to normalise relations with Israel, abandoning the principle of ‘peace in exchange for land’.

In contrast, Netanyahu’s relationship with the American Democratic Party is highly sensitive and turbulent. Although Biden is personally close to Israel and the Jewish people, the Obama administration tried to balance Palestine and Israel, promoted reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, reached a nuclear deal with Iran despite the opposition of the Israeli right, recognised the ‘Shiite crescent’ as Iran’s sphere of influence, and had the United Nations Security Council adopt Resolution 2334 condemning Israel’s illegal settlements before the end of its term at the end of 2016.

A month before the American elections, the Netanyahu government decides to expand the scale of the Middle East war, putting the Biden government and the Democrats in a difficult situation, and raising the suspicion of winning votes for Trump and the Republican Party. The problem is that as long as Netanyahu continues to go this far, the Biden team cannot stop, even if it wants to; it follows Israel’s war policies dependently, constantly supplying it with weapons and continuing to offer strategic support. It can be said that America maintains its security commitment to Israel, but in fact America’s Middle East policy and national interests are completely under Israel’s influence.

If the Netanyahu government shows some respect to the Biden team and prevents attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation, but will it miss the opportunity to attack Iran’s oil facilities, restrict oil revenues and drive a wedge between the Iranian people and their government? Iran is one of the leading oil producing countries in the world, although it is under US sanctions and embargoes, its actual daily production and grey exports are estimated to be around 2 million barrels. Although the oversupply situation in the world oil market is currently quite stable, the destruction of Iran’s oil facilities could lead to a major contraction in future energy supplies, especially since Russia is not expected to resume normal oil and gas exports in a few years.

More importantly, how will Iran retaliate against Israel again? After the Haniyeh incident, Iran announced that it would take revenge on Israel, and even notified Israel of predetermined targets through Hungary, but the second move has still not materialised. For Iran, the killing of Nasrallah and Nilfrushan meant that a new hatred was added to the old revenge unpaid, and it was a great humiliation for Iran that Israel went one step further. Therefore, with no chance of retreat, Tehran was forced to respond harshly and for the first time used medium-range missiles, difficult to defend and of great political significance.

Of course, regardless of whether the revenge was real or not, one should look at the effects rather than propaganda. Such a massive and shocking punitive air strike seems to have caused no serious damage to Israel, the only confirmed death being a Palestinian civilian in the West Bank who died from the debris of Iranian missiles. What an irony this is!

Iran has already announced the end of its military confrontation with Israel, which means that they are loudly presenting their ‘peace offer’. The question is that Netanyahu has now realised that Iran does not want to escalate and that America will support Israel in any case, so it is entirely up to him to decide when to attack, how small or how big. The conflict and hostility between Israel and Iran is a structural and long-term problem. Either Israel ends its illegal occupation of Arab lands, or Iran renounces the export of the ‘Islamic Revolution’; there is no other way to peace.

Prof. Ma is Dean of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (ISMR) at Zhejiang International Studies University (Hangzhou). He specialises in international politics, particularly Islam and Middle East politics. He worked for many years as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine and Iraq.