Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh and Israeli genocidal war in Gaza

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Muhammad Mahmood | Published: August 10, 2024 20:45:09

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Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the Palestinian resistant movement Hamas was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran on July 31, hours after attending the inauguration of the newly elected Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian. Both Hamas and Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed Haniyeh's death. Iran has blamed Israel for the killing and pledged "harsh punishment" in retaliation. Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility.
According to the Washington Post, Israel informed the US that it was responsible for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh immediately after the killing took place. The killing of Haniyeh took place a day after Israel confirmed that it had "eliminated" senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an air strike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The assassination of Haniyeh by Israel was aimed at humiliating Iran, destabilising its leadership, undermining confidence in its security forces. Haniyeh was Hama's chief negotiator in the protracted Gaza war peace negotiations. Now, the assassination of Haniyeh effectively puts an end to the Gaza ceasefire charade that the US claims to support.
While tensions are rising throughout the Middle East following the targeted killings of Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh, the US media has been at pains to highlight diplomatic efforts by the US to prevent the outbreak of a regional war. The Washington Post in an article said, "The Biden administration is racing to avert an explosion of violence across the Middle East."
But such an assertion portraying the US as a moderating influence in the Middle East while backing both militarily and financially genocidal war in Gaza is utterly hypocritical. In fact, Israel informed the US in advance of its plan to assassinate Shukr and in all probability also of the plan to assassinate Haniyeh. The US did not condemn either of these two calculated assassinations knowing full well these barbaric and criminal acts of violence were designed to provoke a wider war in the region.
Many commentators in media outlets and on social media are questioning what role, if any, the US played in Haniyeh's assassination. The Iranian foreign ministry said it holds both Israel and the US responsible for the assassination.
While Iran is not seeking a wider war, Israel's Zionist regime is very clearly seeking to provoke one. US diplomats are supposedly scrambling to de-escalate and several Biden administration officials also told the Washington Post that they consider Netanyahu, not Iran, as "the chief wild card in containing a broader regional conflagration."
However, the US is preparing for a wider war in the region as reflected in Antony Blinken's statement issued early this month. He said, "Our commitment to Israel's security is ironclad." The US has already deployed aircraft carriers and other military hardware at an undisclosed base close to Israel.
The Intercept in its own investigation found and listed more than 60 U.S. bases, garrisons, or shared foreign facilities in the Middle East. These sites range from small combat outposts to massive air bases in 13 countries: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Some Gulf states and Jordan have also provided logistical and commercial support to Israel and continue to do so.
It is widely believed that that the timing of Israel's more aggressive behaviour by conducting a deliberate attack on Iranian soil assassinating Haniyeh was designed to expand the Gaza genocide into a major regional conflict and this was greenlighted by the US during Netanyahu's recent visit to Washington.
On July 24, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress where his 55-minute speech was full of contradictions, lies and propaganda. He entered the chamber to a standing ovation. Netanyahu's appearance during the genocide in Gaza demonstrated the total complicity of the US government in mass murder. He used the podium before the US congress to further drum up continued support both militarily and financially for his country and more specifically to continue with the genocidal war in Gaza.
As the genocidal war in Gaza enter its tenth month and close to 40,000 Palestinians killed, Netanyahu continued with his racist chants in his speech and told Congress, "This is not a clash of civilisation. This a clash between barbarism and civilisation." He then further continued with his racist verbiage and said' "For the forces of civilisation to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happen: We win, they lose."
Implicit in his speech was that he spoke on behalf of "civilisation" but most of the countries in the world see now for almost ten months Israeli genocidal war against the Palestinians as the embodiment of barbarism.
The vilest thing was not the speech itself, which was predictably racist, blood thirty and mendacious, but the ovation given by the members of congress, both Democrats and Republicans. Netanyahu perfectly understands what sustains American support for the Zionist colonial settler state called Israel is a combination of Zionist political and financial pressure, evangelical Christians' (constituting a third of the population of the US) hopes for a Middle East Armageddon and the US political and financial establishment.
He then went on to outline his vision that involved Israeli forces maintaining control over Gaza. He outlined his objective, "My vision for the day is of demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza."
In other words, Israel wants to replicate in Gaza in the post war Japanese model devised by the US. Like the US did in Japan, Gaza not only will be militarily defeated (i.e. demilitarised), but will also make Gaza completely a subservient entity with a client regime with the Israeli occupation force (IOF) in full control. In fact, this Japanese model for Gaza has been quite openly discussed within the Israeli ruling establishment. That will require putting the country on a war footing in the face of resistance put up by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups. Israel has proved it can kill massive numbers of Palestinians and assassinate political leaders, but it has been unable to defeat the armed resistance in Gaza.
Netanyahu's visit to Washington took place against a backdrop of global and regional shifts that could potentially be of far-reaching consequences. Tensions on Israel's northern borders have escalated with open conflicts with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The "Axis of Resistance" (comprising Hamas in Gaza, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen's Ansar Allah, and various armed resistance groups in Iraq and Syria) also continues with its attacks on Western military targets while new rounds of escalations have been observed between the Israeli armed forces and Yemen's Ansar Allah.
Not surprisingly the Israeli prime minister has proposed the creation of a "Middle East NATO" and labelled it as the "Abraham Alliance" against Iran. Netanyahu's intent is to ensure that the US will continue to arm and financially, diplomatically and politically support him in his wars to create Eretz Yisrael or greater Israel over the whole of historical Palestine from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea.
But this will also come with a heavy price tag both militarily and economically for Israel as well. There is a mounting sense of strategic failure within Israel. There is also growing despondency within Israel as indicated in reverse migration of Jews from Israel. It is estimated that half a million people left Israel since October 7, 2023.
Now a single secular democratic state stretching from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea is the only option to stop the continuing Israeli violence against the Palestinian people. In such a democratic and secular single state Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews can live together as equal citizens with equal rights based upon human rights and the rule of law. This is the only option that has any chance of delivering lasting peace.
muhammad.mahmood47@gmail.com