AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
At a campaign rally in Fort Myers, Florida, Friday night, President Trump addressed the war with Iran.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're doing very well. You have no idea how well we're doing with Iran. Iran is finished. Iran is finished.
RASCOE: But the war is not finished, and tensions are spilling across the Middle East. Here in the U.S., gas prices pushed higher by the war are front of mind for many voters in next week's midterms. And Israel, America's ally in the war, is also holding an election. Tuesday's vote could end the tenure of Israel's longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. We turn now to Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Thank you for being with us.
NATAN SACHS: Thank you. It's really my pleasure.
RASCOE: The Iran war is deeply unpopular with American voters. How is it sitting with Israeli voters?
SACHS: The view from Israel is much more mixed. Israelis, by and large, are in consensus, in almost unanimity, of the Iranian threat and the fear that Iran - not only directly, but through its proxies in the region - that threat towards Israel. There are disagreements on the best way to confront it, but there are many fewer Israelis who oppose the use of force in the extreme, including in this case. So starting out, the war was much more popular in Israel than it was in the United States. It still remains so, although certainly less than it was in the beginning.
RASCOE: It's been widely reported that the U.S. and Israel have drawn up plans for a new offensive in Iran in the coming days. If American voters send a message in the midterms, do you think that could derail those plans?
SACHS: Well, this is more of a question for President Trump. Israel's position regarding confrontation with Iran is that it's not going to be the dove in this conversation. So really President Trump is the one who holds the keys here. Israel will be keen to degrade Iran's capacity and, much more broader than that, the way Netanyahu has put it, to promote regime change in Iran that he still believes can be done or should be done partly through the use of force. Whether President Trump tries to do so or not depends on the message he gets in the House, but especially in the Senate, and whether he then sees himself free from the constraints of any midterm or any election really until the end of his tenure.
RASCOE: These are the first elections in Israel since the October 7 attacks three years ago. It looks like a tight race. How are you reading the polls?
SACHS: Well, polls in Israel cannot be legally published in the last three days before elections. So we have the final polls that were released on Friday. And we should be clear, there is a very clear majority of Israelis voting against Netanyahu. It would be a shocking surprise if Netanyahu won. However, it is not clear that the opposition will be able to form an alternative coalition because of a split within the opposition from the mostly Jewish majority voted opposition and mostly the Arab-supported opposition. And it has become very difficult, especially after October 7, to imagine a coalition that combines the two of them, although not completely impossible.
So we're likely looking at a result that would suggest a clear majority for the opposition and possibly also a clear majority for the Jewish opposition. If so, many different scenarios open up. It would not be a simple, foregone conclusion about how Netanyahu is replaced. But there are tools. There are possibilities for a minority government or for other means to try and depose him. It is not a foregone conclusion, however. He may remain prime minister as well.
RASCOE: OK. Last week, Israel announced a sweeping crackdown in the occupied West Bank after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers there. What do you make of Netanyahu's decision to escalate there so close to the election?
SACHS: Well, Netanyahu wants this election to be about security issues. Traditionally, the right wing in Israel that he leads holds an advantage in public opinion on security - national security, but also individual security. And that is true even after his colossal failure on October 7, when he was prime minister and Israel suffered such a terrible catastrophe. The opposition is trying to triangulate that.
The presumptive leader of the opposition, Gadi Eisenkot, is a former chief of staff of the Israeli military, so the highest rank general, and he's trying to triangulate on that issue and move the conversation to different issues, where Netanyahu is far less popular - domestic issues, including the conscription, the universal conscription - in theory, universal - that doesn't include ultra-Orthodox Israelis or Haredi Jewish Israelis.
So Netanyahu, by talking about these things - even though the terrorist attack happened under his watch, it serves his purpose of discussing security, discussing national security. Whereas the opposition, be it Eisenkot or other leaders in the opposition, like former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, they would like to say, me too, I'm just as hawkish, but I want to talk about something else as well.
RASCOE: As we say, the violence in Iran is rippling across the Middle East. Earlier this month, Iran-backed Houthis struck the airport in Saudi Arabia's capital, killing 18 people. How would you describe the current moment for the region, and what should we pay attention to going forward?
SACHS: Well, the region is very combustible, certainly, and there are a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of question marks for all the different partners of the United States as well. Where does the United States exactly stand, and how does this war wind down? The election in Israel will affect that. It won't change Israeli grand strategy and what it desires for the region. But the difference between, for example, Gadi Eisenkot and Benjamin Netanyahu is profound.
RASCOE: That's Natan Sachs of the Middle East Institute. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
SACHS: My pleasure. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ RYOW'S "PHANTOM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
