Sir Vincent Fean’s 39 years of diplomatic experience include serving as Consul-General in Jerusalem (2010-14), Ambassador to Libya (2006-10), and High Commissioner to Malta. An Arabist, he has engaged in senior policy-making, government affairs and negotiation in Whitehall, the Middle East and Western Europe. He is a Trustee of the Britain Palestine Project (www.britainpalestineproject.org), a UK charity raising awareness of Britain’s historic responsibilities in Israel/Palestine, and advocating equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis.
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The Iran war is Israel’s war of choice – and is unlawful. There was no imminent threat from Iran. For 20 years, Benyamin Netanyahu has urged the US to attack Iran. Successive US Presidents resisted temptation, until Donald Trump in his second term succumbed – first last year, when the US attacked Iran’s main nuclear facilities and Israel destroyed Iran’s air defences, and then now.
US Secretary of State Rubio told the truth : the US decided to attack Iran this time because Israel was going ahead with or without the US. Iranian retaliation would hit US facilities in the Gulf states hard, so the US decided to get its retaliation in first. The US was engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme when the US and Israel struck, betraying good faith mediators like Oman. Mediation will be needed to end the Iran war, or in its aftermath.
Since the appalling Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israel has bombed Gaza to make it unliveable, taken land, forcibly displaced and killed Palestinians in the West Bank, bombed Lebanon and Syria taking land in both, and bombed Iran, Yemen and Qatar. The leaders of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah have been killed.
The pattern is clear. It may deliver electoral success for Netanyahu and his Jewish supremacist coalition partners. We will learn that in October, or earlier, if he decides to go to the polls on the back of the Iran war, popular domestically. The fate of the Palestinian people will play virtually no part in the choices of 80% of the electorate – the Jewish majority. For them, it will be a referendum on Netanyahu : saviour of the nation or destroyer of the checks and balances which kept Israel democratic for the 80%. That the International Court of Justice will rule on the charge of Israeli genocide in Gaza, while the International Criminal Court already seeks Netanyahu’s arrest for alleged war crimes, will be marginal to the electoral campaign.
Palestine
The eyes of the world are on Iran, not least because the war harms the economies of the world (except Russia, thanks to President Trump easing the oil embargo). Meanwhile, four months after the UN Security Council outsourced the future of Gaza to Trump’s Board of Peace, the Israeli army holds over 50% of Gaza. It continues to restrict aid access, including mobile hospitals and temporary accommodation, for the 1.7 million Palestinians in the other half of the territory. Israel wishes to destroy the UN Relief and Works Agency, which is uniquely equipped to deliver aid at scale in Gaza and in the West Bank refugee camps. It seeks to ban 37 reputable international NGOs from working anywhere in Palestine. The International Stabilisation Force for Gaza remains a paper exercise, because no state will put its soldiers in danger to make peace when there is no peace to keep. Over 600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the « ceasefire » last October.
In the West Bank, Israel is accelerating its policy of annexation through illegal settlement expansion including the disastrous E1 project, forced displacement of entire Palestinian communities and settler violence with impunity. There are many reliably recorded instances of settlers and the Israeli security forces literally getting away with murder. The Israeli occupying power’s legal responsibility to protect is distorted to apply only to protecting illegal settlers, not the defenceless occupied Palestinian people. No wonder that the young – Muslims and Christians alike – lose hope and decide to leave. That, too, is the aim.
Lebanon
Over 800 Lebanese people have been killed by Israel in the latest fighting ; over 750,000 of the 6 million population are internally displaced. The Lebanese Government has no love for Hezbollah, and desperately wants to talk to Israel – but Israel is refusing mediation, including by President Macron. Israel is taking Lebanese land, illegally, ostensibly to create a buffer zone to protect Israelis living near the border who were displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire in 2024. It is not clear where or when Israel will stop.
Iran
While US objectives for this war change by the day or the hour, Israel’s aims are clear : to do as much damage as possible before the US declares victory and stops its own bombing and that of its ally. Israel wants to take Iran out of the regional power equation – thus chaos and civil war leading to another failed state are desirable outcomes. Already over 3 million Iranians are internally displaced. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria was a severe blow to Iran, massively reducing its influence in Lebanon. Now Israel is seizing the opportunity to weaken it still further.
