Israel is in effect signalling that it is ready to take on Iran directly and is challenging the world’s biggest and most powerful Shia Arab nation to hit back if it dares.

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“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his UN speech.

“And now I have a question to you: will your nation stand with Israel? Will you stand with democracy and peace? Or will you stand with Iran, a brutal dictatorship that subjugates its own people? Exports terrorism across the globe?” Netanyahu said.

It’s not clear if Netanyahu regards that as a rhetorical question. After all, all Israel’s allies, including the UK, were until hours ago pushing him to urgently de-escalate.

Moreover, when Iran launched a massive drone and missile strike against Israel in April, it was a US-led coalition including the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Jordan that swung into action to shoot most of the missiles down.

Will they come together to do it again if Iran attacks Israel directly in response to the strike against the leader of its most powerful terrorist proxy?

That’s the question Iran will be mulling now as it plots its revenge. And given that several of the countries involved walked out of the UN chamber as Netanyahu stood up to speak, the answer is not at all clear.

The Telegraph, London