EDITORIAL: All things considered; it was only a matter of time before Iran responded to Israel’s deliberate escalation of the Gaza war.
The effort to provoke an active front with Iran started with Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran in July and peaked with Hassan Nasrallah’s killing in Beirut last week, by which time the Iranian government would have realised that Israel had the backing of the West to expand the war. And rather than sit back and watch his allies drop one by one, Khamenei decided to move a couple of his own pieces across the board.
And now that everything is out in the open, how much uglier this situation is allowed to get is really in America’s hands, not Israel’s. For, Tel Aviv has been able to carry out the genocide in Gaza over the last year, and carry out airstrikes in Syria and Lebanon as and when it wills, only because of Washington’s tacit support.
If not for this blank cheque there’s no way Israel would have got away with its disproportionate response to the October 7 surprise. Yet all indicators, especially Israel’s rhetoric following Iran’s missile barrage on Tuesday, seem to show that Washington is playing along with Netanyahu’s plans to expand the war.
All this has pushed the world to a very dangerous point. Surely, everybody understands that war with Iran will be nothing like an operation in Gaza, or unchecked strikes in Lebanon. It will be a very bloody affair that will send shockwaves through the region and financial markets and, possibly, draw in other countries as well. The fact that the American government is willing to take such needless risks just to satisfy the bloodlust of the Israeli government goes to show the extent and depth of the notorious Jewish lobby’s influence in Capitol Hill.
It’s very important to note that Netanyahu’s extremist policies have little support in his own country as well. Most Israelis, who have been protesting for much of the last year, are in favour of a strategy that brings the hostages back and wraps up the operation, not one that opens more fronts and drags the war.
Netanyahu relies on extremist right wingers that dominate his cabinet to keep the fire burning so he can stay in power and delay the corruption trial that he will not be able to avoid once he’s out of office. And so this war goes on; and such is the global power construct that nobody is able to do anything about it even though Israel’s, and America’s, strongest allies have expressed shock and horror over the manner of the war.
This is also a moment of serious reflection for the Muslim world. Once again it stands too divided, too ineffective, and too impotent to play any sort of role when it really matters. Turkey, with Erdogan fuming, is the only country other than Iran that has defended the Palestinian resistance over the last one year.
Others have not gone beyond the usual gestures and statements of concern, etc. Now, however, with the war getting worse, they will be forced to play a more active role. So it would be better if they got together, took a common position, and made their collective concerns very clear to Washington before, not after, Israel rolls out any more of its misadventures.
The world watches, and waits. There’s still time to avoid a much larger, completely needless disaster; one that will entail considerable loss of life. But does Washington have the good sense to stop this nonsense and cut Netanyahu down to size?
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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