Is Iran Behind The Current Chaos In Israel?

ANALYSIS: Is the Current Chaos in Israel Related to Iran?

Yochanan Visser

It has been another turbulent week in Israel with very violent riots in and around Jerusalem’s Old City and dozens of rockets fired at the south of the Jewish state over the weekend. At the same time, the political crisis in Israel worsened and the end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reign now seems in sight. Israel also faced a missile strike from Syria and took again action against illegal oil shipments from Iran to Syria.

Some of these events came as entirely unexpected, such as the Syrian surface-to-air missile that exploded 30 kilometers from Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona in the Negev desert. The Israeli military’s anti-aircraft defense system failed to intercept the missile this time around, something that rarely happens.

Syrian media later reported that the S-200 or SA-5 missile was fired when an Israel Air Force (IAF) F-16 over Syria was about to attack “a target”. The missile narrowly missed its target according to these media and the IAF pilots returned to Israel safely.

The SA-5 surface to air missile, however, continued on its way and flew another 250 kilometers before exploding 30 kilometers from the nuclear reactor in Dimona.

It now looks like Netanyahu, after 12 years of uninterrupted Prime Ministerial status, will be replaced by Bennett and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, whose center-left party became the second-largest party in Israel after the last election with 17 seats.

The combination of Yamina and Yesh Atid is a highly problematic one because the two parties are ideologically far apart and in the past often had conflicts about, for example, Israel’s politics in Judea and Samaria.

The political chaos in Israel is, no doubt, gleefully watched by the enemies of the Jewish state and they use the crisis to create more tensions.

After the Mossad action against the Natanz nuclear plant two weeks ago, it was clear that Iran was going to respond, but not through conventional warfare. Iran implements its military agenda through so-called “proxies,” terrorist organizations trained and funded by Iran.

The Syrian missile could also have something to do with Iran and its response to the Mossad sabotage of the Natanz power plant.

On Sunday, the commander-in-chief of the military in Iran, General Mohammad Bagheri, warned that the “resistance front was going to teach Israel a lesson”.

“We are not disclosing anything about the incidents that took place recently, nor do we know who did it, but the Resistance Front will teach Israel a good lesson,” said Bagheri.

More...