His supporters call him a magician. And there is truly something uncanny about how Benjamin Netanyahu has conjured up three-way US, Russian and Arab support for his hardline security and nationalist agenda. For a small country, Israel packs an ever bigger punch – and pugnacious Bibi’s likely fifth term presages a new era of escalating confrontation.

First in line for the Netanyahu treatment is Iran. He claimed credit on Monday for Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, including its al-Quds force, a foreign terrorist organisation. The provocative move, akin to singling out the US marine corps for punishment, bought a vengeful riposte from Tehran.

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, declared all US forces would henceforth likewise be regarded as “terrorist groups”. The foreign minister, Javad Zarif, termed the move “another dangerous US misadventure” – implying a heightened risk of future clashes with US troops – for example, in Iraq – or Israeli forces over Syria.

Iran, smarting from the virtual wrecking of its 2015 nuclear deal and the resumption of US sanctions, will also see Netanyahu’s hand in renewed US efforts to undermine Hezbollah, Tehran’s close partner in Lebanon, with threats to ostracise its local allies.

Trump and Netanyahu regard Hezbollah as solely a terrorist outfit. In fact, it is Lebanon’s most powerful political organisation, controlling three government ministries. It is also armed to the teeth. US-Israeli attempts to undercut Hezbollah could destabilise Lebanon as a whole – and hasten renewed conflict on Israel’s northern border.

Despite the close poll result, Netanyahu, egged on by a bevy of hard-right coalition parties, may interpret it as an endorsement of his rejection of an independent Palestinian state and his vow to extend sovereignty over the West Bank. That could spell big trouble ahead with Hamas in Gaza, where relations are on a knife edge, but also in the Occupied Territories, where relative calm has reigned of late.

Iran, Lebanon, and now Palestine – intensifying problems potentially loom on all three fronts. As before, Netanyahu is likely to turn to Trump for backing. Having gained US support for his claims to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, he will hope for a White House green light for any annexations, too.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands during the US president’s trip to Jerusalem in 2017. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

Now the elections are over, Jared Kushner, Trump’s amateur envoy, is due to unveil his long-awaited “peace plan”. Legitimising post-1967 Israeli territorial seizures and the overriding of old borders is reportedly part of his proposed deal, in return for economic investment worth $25bn in the West Bank and Gaza and another $40bn in Egypt and Jordan.

Many Palestinians have already rejected Kushner’s efforts as chronically unbalanced. The US, it is claimed, is trying to buy off the Palestinians with cash that, for the most part, would come from wealthy Arab countries that share Trump’s wider anti-Iran, anti-Europe, anti-UN agenda. So fierce resistance can be expected.

Yet Netanyahu’s apparent confidence that he will get his way on Iran and Palestine stems not only from his close relationship with Trump, but also with Vladimir Putin. He has met Russia’s president 13 times in the past four years. Although there are differences of approach regarding Tehran, Netanyahu and Putin are two of a kind who have forged a working arrangement – for example, on Syria – that suits both.

More than that, they share with Trump a harsh, rightwing nationalist-populist agenda, fierce antipathy to Obama-era, European-style multilateralism and multiculturalism, a penchant for divisions, walls and barriers, and a self-serving belief in “strongman” leadership. Among Arab states, they have found enthusiastic emulators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia – and similarly in Turkey.

Netanyahu, Trump and Putin are deceptive, polarising figures with a knack for acting with impunity, said the al-Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara, who dubbed them “three old white men with a mean streak”. Following Bibi’s re-election, the ascendancy of this unlovely triad looks ever more troubling.

• This article was amended on 18 April 2019. Due to an editing error, an earlier version referred to Palestine as if it did not include Gaza.