Israel’s past defiance in spotlight as US calls for Iran attack restraint

Washington has urged Israel to avoid escalation, but Gaza track record raises doubts US will be heeded, analysts say.

Washington, DC – The response from US President Joe Biden’s administration to Iran’s historic missile and drone attack on Israel has been two-fold: Washington has re-upped its pledge to always stand by its “ironclad” ally Israel, while also appealing to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu not to take further action that could drag the region into wider war.

The days ahead will show if those two options are compatible, or if the two governments’ priorities are on collision course, analysts told Al Jazeera.

In the short term, the Iranian attack is a coup for both Israel and its backers in the US: From their perspective, it offers renewed justification for military support to Israel while weakening the world’s focus on alleged abuses committed in Gaza in seven months of war, according to Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Washington-based Quincy Institute.

But defiance from Netanyahu to US calls for restraint could find the Biden administration further hamstrung by its political and ideological commitments to Israel, which could eventually drag Washington into a wider war, he added.

“The Israelis have been told by Biden to take this as a win and stop here,” Parsi told Al Jazeera. “While that is helpful, it is by no stretch of the imagination strong and clear enough given Netanyahu’s systematic defiance of Biden’s advice and warnings in private over the course of the last seven months.”