Israel's September 17 Elections Will Have Regional Repercussions
One of the places where the Deal of the Century seems to be taken seriously is in Israel, where the outcome of the Knesset’s elections on September 17 could have a major effect on whether the Trump administration’s Middle East diplomacy would even take off.
A Likud-Kachol-Lavan coalition which would represent close to two-thirds of the Israeli voters and be led by a group of national security stars would therefore provide Netanyahu with the political backing he needs to counter an unpredictable and tough American president.
It will also allow the Israeli prime minister to take advantage of Trump’s remaining time in office to employ the Israeli military to challenge Iran and its regional satellites—even if that leads to escalation. This scenario could perhaps help create the conditions for establishing the rules of the game for managing the relationship between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic of Iran that would remain in place when a president less friendly to Israel than Trump occupies the White House.
Leon Hadar is a senior analyst with Wikistrat, a geostrategic consulting firm and author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.
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