By means of pursuing its aggressive policy in the Middle East, Israel intends to redirect the transit of energy resources through its own territory.
The Middle East retains its undeniable strategic role not only as the cradle of civilizations and spiritual centers but also as a key crossroads of global trade and transit routes.
Within this geopolitical dynamic, Israel, pursuing an active policy in the region, seeks to reroute the transit of energy resources through its territory.
Oil as a geopolitical factor
Sources of strategic raw materials, primarily oil, and the markets for their sale have always been in the spotlight for the world’s leading powers. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, when oil began playing a key role in industry, world history has been full of conflicts related to control over its extraction and sale. Oil has consistently acted as a powerful geopolitical factor, generating, sustaining, and fueling conflicts wherever the irreconcilable interests of key players collide.
The considerable distance between oil fields and consumer markets makes transit communications critically important. Whoever controls these connecting links gains the ability to dictate the terms of trade and to make both producers and consumers dependent on them. The advantageous geographical position of the Middle East, at the crossroads of three continents – Asia, Africa and Europe – turns the region into a strategic centre of world affairs. The military bases of leading powers are located here, with the most important transit routes passing through its territory and maritime areas. On top of that come the richest oil reserves concentrated in the Gulf countries.
Israeli strategy in the realms of regional competition
Within this complex picture, Israel, which does not possess significant raw material resources of its own, relies on its military power and strategic alliance with the United States. Using the ideology of anti-Semitism in the Muslim countries of the region, Israel pursues an aggressive policy aimed at containing its competitors in the struggle for the role of the key regional power. Its goal is to establish its own control over global oil flows destined for world markets.
One of the objectives of the two military campaigns against Iran (the 12-day war in June 2025 and the current aggression that began on 28 February 2026) is to revise the established routes for oil supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. In particular, to move away from the maritime tanker option in favour of a pipeline route across the Arabian Peninsula to Israeli territory and then through Israeli ports on the Mediterranean Sea to the consumer markets of Europe and Africa. This is rightly argued by the Pakistani expert Qamar Bashir in his article “Israel captures global oil flows”, published in the newspaper Pakistan Today. The logic behind the massive air strikes on Iran’s vital infrastructure, energy infrastructure, defence complex and governing institutions assumed that, in response, Tehran would be forced to target the oil-producing Arab countries complicit in the conflict on behalf of the United States, as well as to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20–30% of the world’s oil is exported.
As a consequence, the continuation of hostilities and the blockade of the Strait by Iran would create the conditions for the Arab countries of the East to seek alternative routes for hydrocarbon supplies via pipelines across the Arabian Peninsula to Israeli territory and its Mediterranean ports.
Moreover, large oil fields have been unearthed in the Israeli sector of the Mediterranean Sea and on its shelf (including the ‘Leviathan’ field with reserves amounting to 1.5 billion barrels of oil). The Israeli Golan Heights have also seen large oil fields discovered, where the thickness of the layers is 350 metres (the average thickness of layers worldwide is 20–30 metres).
Hence, Tel Aviv is interested in controlling the main export flows of oil from the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf through alternative routes – pipelines across Israeli territory to external markets. Such a prospect would strengthen Israel’s influence over the Middle Eastern countries, enhance its energy security, and increase its military potential. Therefore, the Israeli authorities are extremely interested in the resumption of hostilities against Iran and in demonstrating a threat to tanker shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which, taken altogether, would allow Tel Aviv to promote the idea of creating alternative pipeline export routes for oil with its own control established over them.
Disagreements between the United States and Israel on ending the military campaign against Iran
Overall, the American political class and society did not support the idea of US complicity in a war against Iran at Israel’s insistence. US intelligence agencies (including the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard) did not perceive Iran as posing a direct military threat to the interests of the US. And the head of the Counterterrorism Centre, Joe Kent, resigned from his post because he disagreed with the US attack on Iran and attributed this mistaken decision of President Donald Trump to the pressure from Israel and the influential Jewish lobby in the United States.
In Iran, the Americans encountered stiff resistance and a strategy of attrition. As a result, Trump was constrained to agree to a ceasefire and resume negotiations with the Iranians. This decision by the American leader was also prompted by a sharp drop in Trump’s popularity among voters, as well as the threat of losing the upcoming midterm elections to the Democrats.
Israel opposes ending the war with Iran and makes the achievement of peace conditional on a number of unacceptable demands for the Islamic Republic. The Israelis are trying to convince Trump that peace now would mean the collapse of US Middle Eastern and global policy because it would showcase “America’s weakness” and “Iran’s strength” to the whole world.
However, aside from domestic political processes and the costs associated with the threat of Republican failure in the upcoming elections, the United States was losing between $35 and $50 billion per day in the Iranian war – in other words, the financial costs are obvious. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran not only triggered an energy crisis but also, one way or another, affected the US oil market per se in the form of rising fuel prices. Finally, the US would suffer reputational losses in case of its failure in the second phase of the Iranian war.
This is probably why snap parliamentary elections have been called in Israel for September. This will allow them to justify a temporary freeze on the Iranian conflict, focus on replenishing the arsenal of the Israel Defense Forces, and then, after the US elections, resume military action against Iran.
In the meantime, the United States and Israel are preparing for new massive airstrikes on Iran and a limited ground operation to seize and remove enriched uranium. Tel Aviv, regardless of the way the events are unfolding, will insist on an external blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This will allow it to persuade the oil-producing countries of the region that it is necessary to transport oil via a pipeline through Israeli territory.
Alexander Svarants – PhD in Political Science, Professor, specialist in Turkish studies, expert on Middle Eastern countries.
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