The author is a researcher and journalist focusing on conflict and geopolitics in the Middle East and North Africa, primarily related to the Gulf region. ISTANBUL  Just a day before launching airstrikes on Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing bribery and fraud charges, narrowly survived a Knesset vote that could have collapsed his government [1]. Alongside the legal charges, Netanyahu’s domestic popularity has plummeted over corruption, economic woes and failures to return