Across Europe, the United States, and even parts of Asia, Jewish communities and Israeli citizens are facing a wave of renewed hostility, not because of their religion, but because of Israeli government’s devastating actions in Gaza. What began as a war of self-defense following the October 2023 Hamas attacks has transformed into a prolonged humanitarian catastrophe. With over 50,000 Palestinians killed, Gaza is not just a battlefield, it is a humanitarian graveyard. As an Indian scholar, I observe with deep unease how Israel’s image, once rooted in resilience and survival, is now increasingly associated with moral decline. And at the heart of this shift is not just war, but the man directing it: Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel’s military response was initially understood as retaliation against an unprecedented act of terror. But nearly two years later, it is difficult to decipher the objectives. Hamas cannot be bombed out of existence, and Palestinians, as a people, cannot be erased. If Hitler, with his genocidal machinery, failed to annihilate the Jews, how can Netanyahu expect to eliminate a people or an ideology with force alone? Wars have ethics. Occupation has limits. And leadership, above all, demands responsibility.

What Netanyahu is doing now is not merely retaliatory—it’s strategic self-preservation. It is a war prolonged, not solely against Hamas, but against political dissent, democratic institutions, and increasingly, against the very soul of Israel. Even among partner countries like India—long friendly to Tel Aviv—concerns about Gaza’s devastation are making it harder to maintain stable, open ties. Realist foreign policy may prioritize interests, but no nation can long ignore the moral stain of collective punishment.

Israel was beginning to emerge from a prolonged era of covert diplomacy, carving out a new regional foothold through the Abraham Accords and enjoying an unprecedented wave of Arab diplomatic engagement. But Netanyahu’s persistence in prosecuting a war with diminishing returns has jeopardized that progress. Many of Israel’s allies are starting to speak up against Bibi, and are getting increasingly uncomfortable in being publicly associated with his government.

Power as an End, not a Means: Netanyahu could have left behind a legacy of economic prowess and geopolitical pragmatism. Instead, it is now marked by democratic backsliding and institutional sabotage. His judicial overhaul effort aimed at neutering Israel’s Supreme Court ignited one of the largest civil resistance movements in the country’s history. Reservists refused duty, former Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs condemned the plan, and economists warned of irreversible investor flight. Netanyahu dismissed them all, invoking “the will of the people” while undermining the very frameworks that make democracy resilient.

Like Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Netanyahu has mastered the art of cloaking authoritarian instincts in the rhetoric of patriotism. But history tells us that strongmen rarely exit gracefully. Mussolini, too, believed Italy’s future rested solely in his hands; he left behind a legacy of ruin. Bibi’s trajectory is alarmingly familiar.

When Leaders Become Liabilities: For a man who built his brand on security, the October 2023 attacks exposed staggering failure. Years of undermining the Palestinian Authority, fixating on Iran, and ignoring brewing tensions in Gaza created a blind spot that Hamas exploited with precision. In most democracies, such a collapse would lead to resignation or serious political reckoning. Netanyahu chose deflection and denial.

What followed was not just war, but the tightening of his political grip—vilifying opponents, rallying far-right allies, and portraying himself as indispensable. He brought fringe figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich into mainstream power, sacrificing societal cohesion for coalition arithmetic. Israeli democracy, long admired for its vitality even amid war, now teeters as Netanyahu aligns with messianic ultranationalists who reject pluralism and inflame racial tensions. And while Israel burns internally, the consequences are global. Jews around the world are being judged for the decisions of a government many did not elect and even more do not endorse. The reputational damage Netanyahu has inflicted on Jewish communities globally is immeasurable.

Political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt warned in How Democracies Die that it is often elected leaders, not generals, who destroy democracies by gradually dismantling institutions and norms to advance their own political agendas. Netanyahu has followed this script faithfully: inciting against judges, delegitimizing Israel’s Arab citizens, tolerating/promoting violence from settlers, and branding dissenters as traitors. Israel once prided itself on institutional strength amid constant external threat. But Netanyahu’s reign has hollowed out that pride. His obsession with avoiding prosecution has taken precedence over national interests, and his consolidation of power resembles more an autocrat than a statesman.

A Nation Larger Than One Man: To his credit, Netanyahu does have tangible accomplishments. He globalized Israel’s economy, opened diplomatic doors, and projected strength on the world stage. But a true leader knows when to step aside. Instead, Netanyahu clings to office like a man trapped by his own contradictions—too powerful to be challenged, too compromised to walk away.

Israel is more than Netanyahu. Its people, its institutions, and its moral legacy deserve better. Increasingly, even its allies are making the distinction between the Israeli state and the man leading it. The hope for a post-Netanyahu Israel is not just political, it is moral. For the sake of both Israelis and Palestinians, and for the credibility of Jews around the world, that hope must be realised soon.

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Middle East has turned into a ticking time bomb as Iran and Israel stand on the verge of a full-blown war. A lot has transpired between the two countries since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Gaza war. Israel is more than a thousand miles away from Iran. They do not share any border and there are no significant bilateral claims between them. And yet they are arch enemies.

Michael Faulker in 1950 famously said that, “In the Middle East, past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Surprisingly, not so long ago, the Israel-Iran equation was quite cordial and friendly. Under the Pahlavi dynasty which governed Iran (from 1925) until the 1979 revolution, Iran and Israel were on the same team. When Israel was established in 1948, Iran was the second Muslim-majority nation to recognize it, after Turkey. After Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected as Iran’s PM in 1951, the relations soured for a brief period. He tried to distance from the West and broke off relations with Israel. But in 1953, Mosaddegh’s government was deposed in a coup orchestrated by the US and UK intelligence services. Reza Shah Pahlavi was reinstated.

Arms, Oil and anti-Arabism: Shah wanted to improve Iran’s relations with the US, and he knew very well that the road to Washington passed via Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, as a part of its Periphery Doctrine, Israel reached out to the non-Arab (but primarily Muslim) nations in the region – Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia, to counterbalance the threat posed by pan-Arabism. The Iran-Israel alliance at that time was dictated by simple logic – both the nations had Arab enemies in common, and the enemy’s enemy can be my friend. In 1959, the Shah granted de facto recognition to the Jewish state and in 1960s, Israel opened its embassy in Tehran. Due to its conflict with the Arab world, energy security remained a major concern for Israel. Iran supplied more than 90% of Israel’s oil imports from the mid-1950s till the late 1970s. In a 1963 deal, Tehran offered Israel the first rights to oil produced by Iran’s national oil corporation – NIOC (National Iranian Oil corporation), with Israel agreeing to buy at least 50% of its oil from the corporation. Additionally, the joint Israeli-Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline was also used to transport Iranian oil to European markets.

Tehran and Tel Aviv also had extensive military and security cooperation, but it was largely kept under wraps. As per a 1985-CIA dossier (declassified in 2011), Israel’s main defence exports to Iran included small arms, mortars and ammunition. Besides providing maintenance

support for the Iranian air force and army, Israel also offered technical support for Iran’s infant defence industry. The two allies had a convenient barter-trade arrangement – arms for oil! Interestingly, Iranian security and intelligence service – SAVAK was also partly trained by Mossad, alongside CIA.

1979 Islamic revolution: In 1979, west-backed Shah’s monarchy was toppled in a bloody revolution and the Ayatollahs took over. The legitimacy of the new theocratic regime was based on its commitment to ideals of Shia Islam and its opposition to West led by America (labelled as Great Satan). Ali Shariati, known as the main ideologue of Iranian Revolution asserted that followers of true Islam must fight the West which was marked by excessive materialism and moral degradation.

Besides adopting a fundamentally anti-West position, the new regime prioritized the Palestinian cause. Iran’s Shia regime apparently became more Palestinian than the Palestinians – most of whom are Sunni Muslims. Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat was the first foreign leader to visit Iran, just a few days after the revolution. The Israeli embassy was officially turned into the Palestinian embassy and the keys were ceremoniously handed to the Palestinian delegation. In May, Habib Elghanian, the head of Iran’s Jewish Association was the first Iranian Jew to be executed for alleged espionage. On 7 August 1979, Khomeini proclaimed the last Friday of Ramadan to be Quds (Jerusalem) Day to assert the Palestinian claim over Jerusalem. Since then, huge anti-Israel demonstrations are held across Iran on this day every year. Thus, by supporting the Palestinian cause, Iran assumed a moral high-ground in the Muslim world where many Arab states have mended fences with Israel.

Tensions soured in the early 2000s as Iran developed long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear bombs. In 2005, when the newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be “wiped off the face of the earth”, it was a tipping point in Israel-Iran relations (or whatever was left of it). Under moderate conservative President Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021), there was there was some hope for peace. Talks resumed and finally in 2015, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as Iran nuclear deal was signed between Iran and P5+1 countries. While the international community welcomed the historic détente, Israel and Gulf Sunni monarchies opposed the deal.

The talks fell apart as Donald Trump replaced Obama in the White house. On May 8, 2016, Trump formally declared the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran deal. The same evening, Israel launched an airstrike in Damascus, Syria targeting arms depot belonging to Hezbollah and Iran. Since then, both the countries have been fighting a shadow war.

The writer is a New Delhi-based researcher.

The article Iran and Israel’s Love-Hate Relationship: From Shah to Ayatollahs appeared first on Arabian Post.

NEW DELHI: The plans to increase buoyancy in tax collections, widening the tax base and increasing the compliance by taxpayers seem to have been aided by the new income tax (IT) regime in the current financial year. However, experts feel a few more tweaks in the tax rates in the forthcoming interim Budget could make the exemption-free regime more attractive.

So far, more than 80 million income tax returns (ITRs) have been filed for assessment year (AY) 2023-24, against 75.2 million filed in AY 2022-23. Personal income tax collections have also seen a robust annual growth of 29.4% in April-November. These were touted as a “milestone” by the I-T department on ‘X’ on December 29.

In fact, the growth rate in PIT collections is the highest in at least 10 years – barring FY22, which was on a low base, as income tax collections had contracted more than 12% in April-November FY21, the pandemic year.

After the new tax regime was sweetened in the Budget for 2023-24, revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra estimated that around 50% of the taxpayers would adopt the new regime. The earlier version of the exemption-less regime, launched in XX, didn’t get much traction among the taxpayers. This was because the tax slabs in the exemption-less regime weren’t attractive after taking into consideration the benefit of various deductions and exemptions available under the old tax regime.

And given the data that has now been compiled by the department for AY 2023-24, official sources say more than 60% of the taxpayers have adopted the new income tax regime, which is now the “default regime”. “Over 50 million ITRs have been filed under the new tax regime,” an official told FE.

The new tax regime offers lower income tax rates with a threshold of Rs 15,00,000 for the highest tax rate as compared to the old regime where the threshold for highest tax rate was Rs 10,00,000. The basic exemption under this regime has also been increased to Rs 3,00,000 from Rs 2,50,000.

Further, the rebate under the new tax regime has been increased to Rs 7,00,000 from Rs 5,00,000 before and the benefit of standard deduction of Rs 50,000 has also been extended to the salaried class and the pensioners including family pensioners. Accordingly, a salaried individual earning a gross income of Rs 7,00,000 would not be required to pay any taxes even if no investments are made under Section 80C.

Moreover, high networth individuals (HNIs) earning more than Rs 5 crore would prefer the new regime as the maximum marginal tax rate has dropped from 42.74% to 39% due to changes made in the rate of surcharge. The surcharge rate on income over Rs 5 crore was slashed to 25% from 37% in the new regime.

Sudhir Kapadia, partner-tax and regulatory services, EY said: “In FY20, when the exemption-less regime was implemented, deductions were still applicable, and the slab rates without deductions lacked appeal. Consequently, while low-income earners reaped benefits under the FY20 scheme, the majority of middle-income and high-income earners did not experience significant advantages.”

However, experts say that while the changes in the new regime have made it more lucrative for taxpayers, the old regime still has its advantages like availability of deduction for House Rent Allowance (HRA), Leave Travel Allowance (LTA), and 80C deduction.

“Therefore to make the new regime more attractive, the government may consider reducing the highest tax rate from 30% to 25% and increasing the threshold limit for the highest tax rate from Rs 15,00,000 to Rs 20,00,000,” said Divya Baweja, Partner, Deloitte India.

“Further, the limit of the standard deduction and basic exemption limit may also be increased. Allowing the set-off for House Property Loss could provide further boost to taxpayers towards the new regime,” Baweja said. Even though the aforementioned changes may simplify the tax structure and attract more taxpayers, it’s unlikely the government would introduce any more changes, given its the interim Budget before the general elections in 2024.

Source: The Financial Express

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