By Samia Nakhoul
DUBAI, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Israel's election next week may change its leader, but not its strategy: Iran will remain its chief adversary, military force will continue to be its preferred tool and Palestinian statehood a distant prospect, regional policymakers and analysts say.
That is because the strategic assumptions underpinning Israeli policy were hardened by the October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israeli communities by Palestinian militant group Hamas and by the wars in Gaza,
Lebanon and Iran.
If anything, Israel could toughen its security policy, the analysts said, as victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the backing of far-right coalition partners could embolden him to step up the war with Iran, tighten Israel's grip on the occupied West Bank and push diplomacy further to the margins. Israel's security doctrine now rests on three pillars: breaking Iran, holding buffer zones beyond its borders and using force to deter enemies.
The real divide is one of degree rather than direction — how aggressively Israel fights its wars, how far it expands Jewish settlements in the West Bank and whether any leader opts for diplomacy, the analysts said.
From Tehran to Riyadh, Tuesday's election is not seen as a potential turning point but as a test of whether the Middle East is settling into a long confrontation, where wars ebb and flow while the underlying conflicts are unresolved.
"If Netanyahu is elected, he'll do whatever he thinks he wants to do," said Aviv Bushinsky, a former adviser to Netanyahu. "Expansion of the settlements will continue. The wars against Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah will continue." "What you see now is what you'll see after the election, maybe even more aggressively," he said. "As long as Iran is in such a situation, it's a waste of time talking about Palestine.”
Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel must prioritise “prevention and offence over containment and defence”, including pre-emptive strikes to thwart emerging threats, while establishing Israel as a regional power and maximising its independence in armaments.
WHY THE COURSE IS UNLIKELY TO CHANGE The election pits Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and its ultranationalist allies against an opposition led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party. Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib sees no prospect of a fundamental shift in policy towards the Palestinians, with Israeli political parties competing to project harder-line positions as public opinion moves further to the right. “The substance of the policy remains the same: No to a Palestinian state and yes to further settlement expansion. On this, they are all in agreement,” he said.
A government led by Netanyahu's opponents might seek to repair Israel's international standing by curbing some settler violence or pursuing settlement expansion with less fanfare. But such changes would be a shift in style rather than substance, al-Khatib said.
Michael Young of the Carnegie Middle East Center said Israel's security establishment and much of its political class share a common strategic outlook, centred on confronting Iran, maintaining "forward defence" and preserving military deterrence, reducing the scope for big policy shifts. Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, who has conducted research in the West Bank, said growing settler violence, mounting Palestinian frustration and the absence of a "political horizon" had created combustible conditions, where even a minor trigger could spark a wider uprising.
'VENOMOUS OCTOPUS'
Some regional policymakers ask whether Israel's confrontation with Iran has become the organising principle of Middle East security, regardless of who wins the election.
US President Donald Trump's praise of Netanyahu as a "great warrior prime minister" has reinforced expectations that the Israeli leader will try to finish the campaign against Tehran if he retains power.
Netanyahu has made clear his ambitions extend beyond containing Iran to toppling its clerical rulers.
“Completing the task means toppling the terrorist regime in Iran, the head of the venomous octopus,” he said in a speech this week.
But military and political analysts question whether anything short of a US-Israeli ground invasion would force Tehran to abandon what it views as its core security interests in what it sees as an existential fight. After surviving months of war, Iran may be betting it can outlast its opponents while continuing to exert pressure through regional allies. "This is a quagmire," Young said. "The Iranians can outlast Trump." Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have been weakened, but the broader network of Iran-aligned groups has survived and the conflict could strengthen Tehran's determination to pursue a nuclear deterrent, the analysts said. For all the alarm Netanyahu causes in the Arab world, some Gulf leaders still see him as the Israeli politician most likely to keep Iran under pressure.
This creates a dilemma for them. They oppose what they view as his expansionist policies but want Iranian influence curbed.
"Netanyahu's policies in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon are damaging," said Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center. "As for Iran, a settlement is needed before the conflict escalates further. If Iran's role is not curbed, the region could be heading toward 50 years of Iranian hegemony."
(Additional reporting from Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Writing by Samia Nakhoul, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
