In October 2023 a query on the character of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is way past overdue. Not just in Washington, Europe, and Muslim capitals throughout the world but also at home in Israel there is a dawning fear – can Netanyahu pull off a triple political coup – elude several judicial prosecutions while disarming Israeli courts from ever reviewing his Knesset and Cabinet decisions/processes while achieving a Ben-Gurion Zion coup – annexation of all the West Bank with indigenous Palestinians reduced to a subservient state controlled by Israeli government dictates? Israels Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has made this intenetions known in Paris as his Zionist party works to restore Israel from its 2000 year old Roman dismemberment.
Likewise, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician who called for Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination will now be in charge of the national police force, allowing him to protect growing illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Is this the leadership team that Israel needs? Or is Israel and the Mideast drenched in too much grievance and venegeance intrigue and thus condemned to lurch through retribution and vengeance minefields of increasingly callous carnage?
The historical record in theMideast for the past 60+ years is littered with pogroms, massacres, and internecine warfare. The list is imposing for its treachery and accumulated death tolls:
| 1946 | Iran crisis of 1946[2][15][e] | 
|
2,000 |
| 1948– | Arab–Israeli conflict[f] | 
|
73,000–84,000 |
| 1948 | Alwaziri coup[2] | 
|
4,000–5,000 |
| 1948 | Al-Wathbah uprising | 
|
300–400 |
| 1952 | Egyptian revolution of 1952[2] |
|
1,000 |
| 1953 | 1953 Iranian coup d’état[2][15][27] |
|
300–800 |
| 1954–1960 | Jebel Akhdar War[15] | 
|
100–523 |
| 1955–1959 | Cyprus Emergency[28][29] | 
|
400–600 |
| 1956 | Suez Crisis | ||
| 1956–1960 | Yemeni–Adenese clan violence[2] | 
|
1,000 |
| 1958 | 1958 Lebanon Crisis[2][11][29] |
|
1,300–4,000 |
| 1958 | 1958 Iraqi Revolution[2] | 
|
100 |
| 1959 | 1959 Mosul uprising[2] | 
|
2,000–4,000 |
| 1962–1970 | North Yemen Civil War[30][31][g] | 
|
100,000–200,000 |
| 1962–1975 | Dhofar Rebellion[15] | 
|
10,000 |
| 1963 | 1963 Riots in Iran[15] |
|
100 |
| 1963 | February 1963 Ba’athist Iraqi coup[32] |
|
1,000 |
| 1963 | 8th of March Syrian Revolution[33] |
|
820 |
| 1963–1967 | Aden Emergency[34] | 
|
2,096 |
| 1963 | November 1963 Iraqi coup[32] |
|
250 |
| 1964 | 1964 Hama riot[35][36] |
|
70–100 |
| 1966 | 1966 neo-Ba’athist coup d’état in Syria[15] |
|
400 |
| 1966 | 1966 Arif Abd ar-Razzaq second coup[37] | 
|
80–100 |
| 1970–1971 | Black September[29] |
|
2,000–25,000 |
| 1972 | Yemenite War of 1972 |
|
100+ |
| 1974 | Turkish invasion of Cyprus[22][38] |
|
1,500–5,000 |
| 1974 | Shatt al-Arab clashes[39] | 
|
1,000 |
| 1975–1990 | Lebanese Civil War[40][h] |
|
150,000 |
| 1976–1980 | Political violence in Turkey (1976–1980)[41][42][43] | 
|
5,000–5,388 |
| 1978–1982 | NDF Rebellion |
|
100+ |
| 1978– | Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)[44] |
|
30,000–100,000 |
| 1979 | Yemenite War of 1979 |
|
1,000+ |
| 1979 | Iranian Revolution[45][46] | 
|
3,164–60,000 |
| 1979–1980 | Consolidation of the Iranian Revolution [i] |
|
10,171 |
| 1979–1983 | Saudi Eastern Province unrest[47] | 
|
182–219 |
| 1979 | Grand Mosque seizure[48] |
|
307 |
| 1979–1982 | Islamist uprising in Syria | 
|
40,000+ |
| 1980 | 1980 Turkish coup d’état[49][50] |
|
127–550 |
| 1980 | 1980 Sadr uprising[51] |
|
1,000–30,000 |
| 1980–1988 | Iran–Iraq War[22][52][j] |
|
1,000,000–1,250,000 |
| 1986 | South Yemen Civil War[53] |
|
5,000–12,000 |
| 1986 | 1986 Egyptian Conscription Riot[54] | 
|
107 |
| 1986 | 1986 Damascus bombings[55] |
|
204 |
| 1987 | Iranian pilgrim riot (Mecca massacre)[56] |
|
402 |
| 1987–1988 | ANO Executions |
|
170 |
| 1989–1996 | KDPI insurgency (1989–1996) |
|
168–503 |
| 1990–1991 | Gulf War[40] |
|
40,000–57,000 |
| 1991 | 1991 Iraqi uprisings[51][57] | 
|
50,000–100,000 |
| 1994 | 1994 civil war in Yemen | 
|
7,000–10,000 |
| 1995– | Islamic Insurgency in Saudi Arabia |
|