Is Netanyahu Starting a War with Syria to Save His Government?
Every time he is threatened, Netanyahu finds a new threat to bomb.
The Israeli government is on the verge of collapse. On July 15, the ultra-Orthodox UTJ party pulled out of Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition over the military draft exemption crisis, leaving his majority hanging by a thread. Less than 24 hours earlier, Israeli jets launched strikes on Syrian government tanks in Sweida. The overlap in timing is not subtle, nor is the pattern.
Every time Netanyahu faces political disaster, the bombs start falling.
This week, the pretext was communal violence in southern Syria between Druze militias and Bedouin groups. Israeli officials claimed the airstrikes were a response to threats against the Druze minority near Israel’s border. But the targets weren’t militias. They were Syrian army units. And this isn’t the first time Israel has used that excuse.
Over the past year, Israel has pushed deeper into southern Syria, occupying parts of the UN buffer zone and building outposts in territory that does not belong to them. Each time, they point to either Hezbollah or Iran. Each time, it coincides with political unraveling at home.
Now, with Netanyahu’s government fracturing and corruption trials looming once more, we are watching a familiar strategy play out. Create a foreign crisis. Reframe yourself as essential to national security. Distract the public, divide the opposition, and consolidate the right.
And the cost? Another war front. Another escalation. Another violation of international law. Syria is still rebuilding from a decade of war. Its southern border is not a battleground by accident. It’s a message. To his enemies inside and outside Israel, Netanyahu is saying: I will not go down quietly.
But the question is: will the world stay quiet, too?
If Netanyahu’s latest strikes on Syrian forces are the start of a new conflict, they must be seen not as strategic defense, but political desperation. And if the international community allows him to get away with it again, then it is not just Israel’s democracy that’s being held hostage. It’s the stability of an entire region.