Israel hits back at Iran: How domestic politics is determining Israeli actions

By James Horncastle, Simon Fraser University

Israel has carried out a missile strike on Iran in retaliation for a recent barrage of missiles and drones launched by the Iranians towards Israeli soil.

Notably, Israel’s strike against Iran appears to have been more symbolic than substantive. Nevertheless, the overnight Israeli strike is the latest escalation in tensions between the two countries.

The hostilities boiled over after Israel’s April 1 attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus, which killed a senior Iranian military leader. Israel, in eliminating a key figure in the Quds Force, sought to undermine Iran’s influence with its proxy forces in the region, most notably Hezbollah and the Houthi.

Reputations at stake

Iran soon retaliated. To do otherwise would have damaged the Iranian government’s reputation among both its allies and its citizens.

But the form that Iranian retaliation took is a key indication of Iran’s intentions. Its choice to mostly use slow-moving drones and cruise missiles, even though on a large scale, is demonstrative of its own relative weakness.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system and U.S. military bases in the region made the likely impact of Iran’s attack minimal.

Iran, in choosing a means to strike Israel that was easily countered, seemingly sought to symbolically strike back at the Israelis by providing an avenue for the cycle of violence to end by not inflicting significant damage. This effort, however, ignores the domestic situation within Israel that ultimately fuelled the country’s decision to strike targets in Iran in the early morning of April 19.

The proxy dilemma

Since the Iranian Revolution, Iran, through the Quds Force and its predecessors, has actively courted several proxy groups in the Middle East to increase its strategic influence. Most prominent among these groups is Hezbollah, a militant group turned political party based out of Lebanon.

Hezbollah came into existence in response to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in the 1980s, and received extensive support from Iran.

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