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Netanyahu Isn’t Interested in Peace, So Why Does Biden Keep Pretending Otherwise?

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Original article by JAMES ZOGBY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Rear Adm. David Saar Salama at the Ashdod Naval Base on October 29, 2023. (Photo: Office of Benjamin Netanyahu)

Instead of turning a blind eye to Israel’s behaviors that are deliberately designed to provoke more war, the U.S. needs to stop playing games and get serious about holding Israel accountable.

Why—in the midst of critical negotiations to implement U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan to bring about a cease-fire in Gaza, release Israelis held captive by Hamas and a significant number of Palestinians held by Israel, and move toward a negotiated permanent end to the conflict—would Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu decide to assassinate the chief Hamas negotiator while he was visiting Iran? And why—while the U.S. says it was working to deescalate tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah—would Israel choose to up the ante by assassinating Hezbollah’s number two?

We know the answers to both questions: Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t interested in peace. He doesn’t want a negotiated deal to release hostages and end the war on Gaza. He doesn’t want to deescalate the conflict there or in the north with Hezbollah. And he most certainly doesn’t want a “two-state solution” that would grant the Palestinian people independence in a sovereign state of their own.

There are two things Netanyahu does want, and, at this point, both are perversely connected. Above all, he desperately wants to remain in office, because should he lose his post as prime minister, the prosecution of the corruption charges against him will continue in full force. As the charges are so serious and the evidence so clear, he will likely be convicted and humiliated. This is not speculation—it’s widely discussed in Israel and was even hinted at by President Biden in a May 28 interview with Time Magazine. When he was asked “Is Netanyahu prolonging the war for political reasons?” Biden responded, “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

Why hasn’t the administration condemned the assassinations in Beirut and Iran when they know that they will surely sabotage the efforts of negotiators?

The second reason is that Netanyahu wants the war to continue and even be accelerated. He made this clear in his remarks before U.S. Congress and in an address to the Israeli public a few days ago. He seeks “total victory,” which he defines as more than the military defeat of Israel’s enemies. Without acknowledging any Israeli culpability, he charged that the Palestinians had created a hate-filled culture which in the post-war period would require massive deradicalization—the outcome of which would have Palestinians accepting Jewish hegemony in Eretz Israel and understanding their place as a conquered and subordinate people.

This is the messianic Zionist vision that has long driven Netanyahu and which he now sees as possible, but only if all of Israel’s enemies—meaning Iran and its surrogates—are brought to heel. And this can only be realized if Israel can involve the U.S. in their regional conquest.

Netanyahu’s worldview raises several additional questions that must be considered. If we know that Netanyahu has never accepted the terms of the Biden plan, why has the president continued to maintain that it was “Israel’s plan” and placed the burden on Hamas to accept it? And if we know that Netanyahu is unwilling to make any peace agreement for fear of losing his other extremist coalition partners (who have threatened to abandon his government should he accept any terms leading to peace), why do we continue to dance around that fact? Why hasn’t the administration condemned the assassinations in Beirut and Iran when they know that they will surely sabotage the efforts of negotiators? Why, when we know that Netanyahu has no intention of completing a deal to release those held captive, do we continue to allow him to exploit the pain of their families, pretending that negotiations are close to completion, when we know they aren’t? And why, when we know that the demands and actions of Netanyahu’s extremist coalition partners are wreaking havoc in the West Bank and Jerusalem—terrorizing the Palestinian population, annexing more land, building more settlements, and erasing the possibility of Palestinian self-determination—have we been so passive and tolerant in response?

Let’s be clear: Hamas and Hezbollah are not good actors. The former was born of the brutal and sustained Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. It was nurtured by Israel to create division in the Palestinian ranks and fueled by Israel’s ruthless decades-long strangulation of the population of Gaza. The latter was born of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and by that country’s corrupt sectarian system that denied the Shia community adequate representation and resources. It was fueled by Israel’s decades-long occupation of Lebanon’s south and massive devastation of the country’s infrastructure in 2006. To be sure, both have engaged in condemnable actions. But to criticize only them, while absolving Israel of its far greater crimes, is hypocritical at best.

If the U.S. were serious about ending conflict in the region, instead of turning a blind eye to Israel’s behaviors that are deliberately designed to provoke more war, we need to stop playing games and get serious about holding Israel accountable. This leads to one final question: Why, when we continue to massively supply Israel with weapons and block all efforts to sanction their deplorable behaviors, do we expect that anything will change?

Original article by JAMES ZOGBY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingNetanyahu Isn’t Interested in Peace, So Why Does Biden Keep Pretending Otherwise?

Netanyahu Accused of Sabotaging Cease-Fire Talks With Assassination of Hamas Leader

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

People hold up a portrait of assassinated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran on July 31, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“Netanyahu isn’t playing chicken, he wants to crash the car,” said one observer.

The political leader of Hamas was assassinated early Wednesday in what the group said was an Israeli attack on his residence in the Iranian capital of Tehran, which he was visiting to attend the inauguration of the country’s newly elected president.

The killing of Ismail Haniyeh, who became the head of Hamas’ political arm in 2017, sparked warnings that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing all he can to undermine cease-fire talks with the Palestinian group after they showed signs of progress in recent weeks.

“Netanyahu has systematically sabotaged cease-fire talks because ending the war will likely end his political career,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said following the assassination of Haniyeh, a key figure in the negotiations.

“The assassination buys Netanyahu several weeks, if not months, in which there will be no serious expectation of a cease-fire deal,” Parsi argued. “Thus, the war will continue, as will Netanyahu’s reign as prime minister.”

Haniyeh’s killing prompted fury from Iran, whose supreme leader vowed a “harsh response”—heightening the chances of a long-feared all-out war between Israel and Iran. Earlier this year, Israel killed several Iranian commanders in a strike on Tehran’s consulate in Syria’s capital, prompting Iran to retaliate with a drone attack.

Iranian lawmakers are expected to hold an emergency meeting about Haniyeh’s assassination later Wednesday. As of this writing, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has yet to comment on the killing.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) top prosecutor, Karim Khan, was seeking an arrest warrant against Haniyeh for war crimes committed on October 7. Khan has also applied for an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”

The suspected Israeli strike in Tehran on Wednesday was launched just hours after Israel’s military bombed the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing several people—including two children—in retaliation for a deadly attack on the occupied Golan Heights. Israel claimed its attack on Beirut killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur, but subsequent reporting suggested he may have survived the strike.

News of Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran came days after top officials from Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and the United States met in Rome over the weekend to continue negotiating a possible deal to end Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

The New York Times reported that “despite progress in recent weeks, the monthslong negotiations remain stalled over several critical issues, particularly the extent to which Israeli forces would remain in Gaza during a truce.”

“Earlier in July, Israel hardened its position on maintaining checkpoints along a strategic highway south of Gaza City, weeks after suggesting that it could compromise,” the Times added. “It was unclear on Sunday if Mr. Netanyahu had allowed negotiators to show greater flexibility on the matter during the talks. Mr. Netanyahu faces pressure from members of his right-wing government to stick to a tougher line. The length of the truce is also a source of dispute: Hamas wants a permanent truce, while Israel wants the option to resume fighting.”

Egypt said Haniyeh’s killing is a signal from Israel that it lacks “political will for deescalation,” according toAl Jazeera.

Qatar’s prime minister, meanwhile, wrote on social media: “Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”

Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, warned that with the assassination of Haniyeh, “Netanyahu isn’t playing chicken, he wants to crash the car.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the United States was “not aware of or involved in” the assassination of Haniyeh.

Belén Fernández, a contributing editor at Jacobin, wrote in an op-ed for Al Jazeera that “Israel made its intention to continue and expand the war clear” by killing Haniyeh.

“By assassinating Haniyeh in Tehran, Israel is literally playing with fire,” Fernández wrote. “In order to derail cease-fire prospects and keep up the killing in Gaza, then, it seems Israel is going to end up with a whole lot more regional blood on its hands.”

This story has been updated to include new comment from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingNetanyahu Accused of Sabotaging Cease-Fire Talks With Assassination of Hamas Leader

Hamas leader’s killing in Tehran likely to further escalate violence in Middle East

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Hassan Ammar/AP

Palestinian militant group Hamas says its top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has been killed in his home in Tehran. It blames Israel for the attack, saying it was “a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president”.

Iran has not yet given any details on how Haniyeh was killed, but says it is under investigation.

With the war in Gaza showing no sign of abating and the whole Middle East on a knife’s edge, the killing raises questions about whether it may spark a wider regional war.

Who is Ismail Haniyeh?

Haniyeh is the most senior political leader of Hamas, based in Doha, Qatar. He was essentially the Hamas leader for the ceasefire negotiations with Israel in the Gaza War, brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar. These negotiations will obviously now be on hold.

While Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for his death – and this is unlikely, given it does not typically claim responsibility for covert actions – Haniyeh has long been on its list of targets.

What is surprising, though, is where and how it was done. Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Details of exactly what happened are still sketchy, but it appears Haniyeh was killed along with one of his bodyguards by an explosion in his building. We do not yet know if the explosion was from a remotely controlled bomb or a missile attack.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is investigating the killing.

Haniyeh at a rally in 2007, when he was Palestine’s Prime Minister. EMILIO MORENATTI/AP

What does this mean for a wider regional war?

There are two important issues that will be under close scrutiny in the coming hours and days.

The first is that, assuming it was Israel that was responsible for Haniyeh’s killing, it raises the question of whether Iran will retaliate because Haniyeh was under the country’s protection when he was killed. His death is likely to cause enormous anger in Iran, and may in turn prompt retaliation against Israel on top of that from Hamas.

Tensions between Iran and Israel have been long been high. In April, Iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. The attack killed several senior IRGC leaders.

The attack on Haniyeh is indicative of a remarkable degree of intelligence and operational access that Israel seems to have in Iran at the moment. In recent years there has been a steady stream of Iranian scientists working on the nuclear program who have been killed. This includes the program’s “father”, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed by a sophisticated remote-controlled machine gun in 2020.

However, there remain Hamas leaders on Israel’s list who, as far as can be discerned, are still alive. Gaza political leader Yahya Sinwar is apparently still directing the operations of militants there. In July, Israel carried out a strike that was believed to have killed the elusive military leader Mohammed Deif. However, Hamas has not acknowledged this, and Deif has survived several previous assassination attempts.

The second major question is whether Lebanon-based Hezbollah will launch an attack on Israel, at Iran’s behest.

The Haniyeh killing comes within hours of an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut, in which Israeli officials believe they have killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

An Israeli airstrike on Southern Beirut, Lebanon threatens to further increase tensions in the region. Hussein Malla/AP

If Iran were to retaliate, it might be through Hezbollah from Lebanon. A major missile barrage from Hezbollah could potentially overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system.

Iran also has other allies on which it can call, including Shia militant groups in Syria and Iraq, as well as the Houthis in Yemen who have already launched a drone strike on Tel Aviv last week. Israel quickly retaliated.

What happens now is difficult to say until there is more information. But what is certain is that the killing of Haniyeh is likely to cause a significant escalation in the Gaza War, and possibly in the wider Middle East.

Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingHamas leader’s killing in Tehran likely to further escalate violence in Middle East

Jeremy Corbyn: Our leaders seem determined to give war a chance. Their thirst for conflict endangers us all

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/23/leaders-war-gaza-jeremy-corbyn

Image of Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party

We seek peace in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, the DRC and elsewhere, but we’re ignored. History will damn the warmongers

“The protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.”

Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers retells the story of the outbreak of the first world war. Mapping a multipolar world enthralled by imperialism and paranoia, Clark refuses to pin the blame on a single power. Instead, he explains how political leaders narrowed the prospects for peace one misstep at a time, and sleepwalked into a global catastrophe that left around 20 million people dead.

Today, once more, our political leaders are stumbling through crisis after crisis to convince themselves that war is the only solution. The principal difference is that this time they are not sleepwalking into war. They are doing so with their eyes wide open.

For months, millions of us have demonstrated for a ceasefire in Gaza to stop the loss of life, end the perpetual cycle of violence and prevent a wider escalation. We have been ignored, maligned and demonised. Last week, Israel conducted missile strikes against Iran in a fast-widening conflict across the Middle East. Even without the involvement of more global players, the human, economic and environmental consequences of all-out war with Iran would be catastrophic for the entire world.

We need not imagine the worst-case scenario in order to put the brakes on. As the Israeli government weighed up its options in response to Iran’s attack on 14 April, bombs continued to fall on Palestinians in Gaza. Over the past few months, human beings have been forced to endure a level of horror that should haunt us for ever. Entire families have been wiped out – and survivors will face lifelong mental health consequences for generations to come. Neighbourhoods have been completely obliterated, strewn with corpses and limbs. Doctors are performing amputations without anaesthesia. Children are gathering sticks and leaves from the ground and fashioning “bread” from animal feed to stay alive. If the unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people does not already constitute a worst-case scenario, what does?

…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/23/leaders-war-gaza-jeremy-corbyn

Continue ReadingJeremy Corbyn: Our leaders seem determined to give war a chance. Their thirst for conflict endangers us all

Iran’s attacks against Israel has the West scrambling for a narrative

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Original article by people’s dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

David Cameron stumbles while defending Israel on Sky News

The West jumps through rhetorical hoops to defend Israel and condemn Iran after Iranians respond to attack on diplomatic premises in Syria

It is difficult to dispute the major escalation that Israel undertook on April 1 when it bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus, assassinating a top Iranian Commander. This was a major escalation that the West—namely, the US, UK, and France—failed to condemn during an April 2 UN Security Council meeting.

On April 13, after multiple warnings, Iran retaliated—becoming the first country to directly attack Israel in 33 years—launching “extensive” missiles and drone strikes at military targets within historic Palestine. 

The attack did not result in any casualties. No hospital attacks, no mass graves, no thousands of women and children dead. Iran showed no intention of creating a mass casualty event, and predictably, many of the dozens of Iranian missiles were intercepted. 

Although to some, this is a sign of Iranian weakness, not restraint. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, Iran’s attack “showed the whole world that Israel and its Western allies have far superior anti-missile capabilities than Iran has missile capabilities.” Friedman also claims that Iran revealed “that President Biden was able to predict almost the exact hour of attack over a day in advance,” citing that fact that Biden warned Iran not to attack the day prior. Friedman does not take into account that Iranian officials had been openly stating their intention to retaliate against the Zionist state since the embassy attack in Damascus. 

This is a point of view seemingly shared by Biden, who said shortly after the attack that “Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks—sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.” It is unclear how the attacks were unprecedented, however, given that following the embassy attack, Iran’s Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari, whose residence was bombed in the strike, said, “We will give a decisive response to this action.” 

It is international relations common sense that the bombing of an embassy is a major escalation. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, following Iran’s striking of Israel, that “the principle of inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected in all cases in accordance with international law, as I stated when condemning the 1 April attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.”

David Cameron, British Foreign Secretary, went on Sky News to denounce the Iranian attack on Israel, but was thrown off guard when a journalist asked, “What would Britain do if a hostile nation flattened one of our consulates?”

Cameron stuttered through his response, “Well, we would take very strong action.”

Israel has been attacking both Iran and Iranian targets for years. On January 20, Israel killed five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Damascus. At the time, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian claimed that, “although the Zionist enemy has destroyed Gaza on a large scale and martyred tens of thousands of people, it has not achieved any of its goals, so it is trying to make up for its defeat by resorting to blind terrorism.” 

In February of last year, Iran accused Israel of attacking a military workshop complex in Isfahan. Iranian oil tankers carrying oil to Lebanon through Syria were attacked late on November 8. According to IRIB, Iran’s state news source, the attacks were carried out using “Israeli drones.” Israel has openly boasted about committing covert operations against Iran, including the assassination of a nuclear scientist in 2020.

Biden reiterated the US’s “ironclad” support for Israel, promising a Group of Seven (G7) diplomatic response. However, following a similar pattern of recent Biden administration responses to Israeli aggression, a Biden official leaked to Axios that the president privately warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would not support a counterattack against Iran. Biden has several times expressed private frustrations with Netanyahu as the genocide against Gaza continues to unfold, but continues to send massive weapons shipments to Israel and provide unconditional support in public.

Israel’s war cabinet is now meeting to discuss potential responses. According to a source communicating with NBC News, an Israeli counterattack could be imminent. 

Original article by people’s dispatch republished under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIran’s attacks against Israel has the West scrambling for a narrative