Israel will become “very lonely very quickly” if it retaliates against Iran without listening to its allies first, a leading journalist has claimed.

Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles into Israel in response to a strike on an Iranian consular building in Syria earlier this month which killed two Iranian generals.

While several missiles struck within Israeli territory, the majority (99%) were intercepted by their air-defense system, with additional help from the US, France, the UK, and Jordan.

On The Hard Shoulder today, The Economist’s Middle Eastern correspondent Gregg Carlstrom said Israel will now be forced to listen to its allies who helped defend their territory.

“There was an ad-hoc coalition put together to protect Israel from this attack,” he said.

“There were also other Arab states that contributed intelligence and surveillance.

“You now have heads of state and diplomats who are saying: ‘You owe us a debt, you need to listen to us and not rush into a response against Iran which will escalate this into a bigger war’.”

Isolated

Mr Carlstrom said Israel will become isolated if it doesn’t heed advice from its allies.

“They have a compelling case but whether Israel will listen to the argument is a different matter,” he said.

“[Israel] will become very lonely very quickly and put their allies, particularly the US, in a very uncomfortable position in having to decide either not to get involved or getting involved in a larger Middle East war they don’t want to be a part of.

“That’s not a position American policymakers want to be in.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 24-5-2020. Image: AP Photo/Yonatan Sindel/Pool Photo via AP

Mr Carlstrom said the Israeli war cabinet is eager to retaliate against Iran.

“What we’ve heard from the war cabinets deliberations is that there is broad support for some type of retaliation against Iran,” he said.

“It doesn’t have to mean a massive military strike against nuclear sites or something of that nature in Iran, but there is broad support for doing something - the question now is what that something is going to be.”

Unpredictable

Mr Carlstrom said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become unpredictable in recent times.

“He is usually someone who is quite cautious in using military force if you look at the decades he threatened strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but never followed through,” he said.

“But this is not the same Netanyahu; the Netanyahu [we’ve seen] over the last six months is not the same Prime Minister he was previously.

“There is a lot of concern in Israel and outside Israel about the decision-making right now and his ability to navigate through these very fraught movements.”

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