Israel’s series of overnight attacks were a dramatic and calculated attempt to spark a wider war in the Middle East.
As well as the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and the targeting of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Lebanon, three people were killed and others wounded in a series of airstrikes at a base near Baghdad in Iraq.
The killing of Ismail Haniyeh in particular could not have been more provocative. Haniyeh was not just the political leader of Hamas, he was the lead Hamas figure in the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza taking place in Qatar and elsewhere.
Israel chose to kill Haniyeh in Iran rather than in Doha where he lived, quite deliberately throwing down a gauntlet to the Iranian regime. Amongst other things all the strikes were attacks on foreign sovereign territory, justifying responses in international law.
The level of provocation is only underlined by the fact that the killing of Haniyeh took place during the swearing in of recently elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian who has vowed to try to end the sanctions regime imposed by the US on the country.
If you are serious about a ceasefire, you don’t assassinate the people you are negotiating with. All this points to the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, given carte Blanche by the Israeli cabinet as to how to respond to the recent attacks on the Golan Heights, is looking for a way to escalate his war.
Netanyahu has claimed the attacks are a response to a rocket attack on a Druze town Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights that killed at least twelve children. No one has claimed responsibility. Hezbollah emphatically denied Israel’s claims that it carried out the attack. There is not even a suggestion that it was carried out by Hamas.
The Wounded Beast
For all its terrifying destruction, the military campaign in Gaza is not going well for Netanyahu. He has not succeeded in destroying Hamas or releasing the hostages.
It has caused unprecedented opposition at home including large and sustained street protests. On the world stage the war has been a disaster. Israel is isolated like never before. The few governments that continue to support it, most importantly those of the US and Britain, face growing opposition. Netanyahu is wanted for arrest for war crimes.
Netanyahu’s last hope is to drag the US into a wider war with Lebanon or Iran. The attack on Tehran comes a few days after he received a standing ovation in the US Congress. The US have been deeply involved in developments since the attacks on the Golan Heights. It is almost inconceivable that it hadn’t discussed Israel’s plans.
The initial response from Secretary of State Lloyd Austin that the US will be steadfast in its defence of Israel and that he doesn’t ‘think war is inevitable’ can only underline that the US is unable and frankly unwilling to restrain Israel.
The job of everyone who opposes a wider war in the region is to escalate our global struggle against the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s spiralling aggression.
Britain is the main Western backer of US policy in the Middle East and a prime supporter of Israel. What happens here matters. The movement has forced the new Starmer government to signal some changes over its stance to Israel. But shockingly it appears the government is using this crisis to delay plans to cancel some arms sales to Israel. This Saturday’s national demonstration against Israel’s genocide in Gaza now also needs to be a massive show of strength against a wider war in the Middle East.