Following Israel’s assassinations of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut—along with a woman and two children (Al Jazeera, 7/30/24)—and of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, corporate media pundits have called for the US and Israel to escalate the region-wide war.
According to the Wall Street Journal (7/28/24), the “way to make war less likely is to announce that American munitions transfers to Israel will be expedited immediately.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial (7/28/24), using galaxy-brain logic, said the
way to make war less likely is to announce that American munitions transfers to Israel will be expedited immediately, as they were earlier in the war and as Congress has approved, and that all oil sanctions on [Hezbollah ally] Iran will be enforced again.
US-supplied weapons have already been a major part of Israel’s post–October 7 attacks on Lebanon, inflicting a terrible cost. The Washington Post (12/13/23) reported that, in October, Israel fired US-made white phosphorus—incendiary material that can cause ghastly injuries and death—into the Lebanese village Dheira; the attack incinerated at least four homes, according to residents, and injured nine. In March, Israel used a US-provided weapon in an airstrike on the Lebanese town of al-Habariyeh, killing seven volunteer paramedics, aged 18–25, in violation of international law (Guardian, 5/6/24).
Prior to last week’s Israeli attack on Lebanon, Israel had killed at least 543 people in Lebanon since October 7 (Al Jazeera, 6/27/24), including roughly 100 civilians (BBC, 7/22/24); US fighter jets have played a key role in Israel’s Lebanon campaign (Deutsche Welle, 7/19/24). Far from “mak[ing] war less likely,” US armaments enable Israel to kill and maim Lebanese people. (According to Israeli officials, Hezbollah attacks have killed 33 Israelis, mostly soldiers, since October 7—BBC, 7/17/24.)
The editorial invoked a tissue-thin casus belli on Israel’s behalf, saying that Hezbollah carried out a “rocket attack on Saturday [that] killed 12 children and wounded more on a soccer field in Israel’s Golan Heights.” One problem: There is no such thing as “Israel’s Golan Heights”; there is only Syria’s Golan Heights, which Israel has illegally occupied, illegally annexed and illegally settled (Foreign Policy, 2/5/19). Casting the deaths in Majdal Shams, the predominately Druze village in the Golan where the killings occurred, as an attack on Israel makes it sound as if Israeli violence against Lebanon (such as its Beirut bombing) is what the editorial calls Israel “defend[ing] itself.”
‘Israel returns fire’
The Wall Street Journal (8/1/24) maintains that the assassination of a Hamas negotiator could help peace negotiations, as “Hamas politicians remaining in Qatar now know their lives are also on the line if they continue to resist Israel’s reasonable terms.”
A second Wall Street Journal editorial (8/1/24) pushed a similar line, deploying the headline, “Israel Returns Fire on Iran and Its Proxies.” Strangely, Iranian actions are not described as “return[ing] fire” for Israel’s years of attacks on Iranian territory, which have taken the form of sabotaging the Iranian electrical grid, cyberattacks (New York Times, 4/11/21) and murdering Iranian scientists (Politico, 3/5/18). Doubling down on its demands for belligerence, the editorial’s authors argued:
The US can help Israel prevent a larger war by putting pressure on Hezbollah and Iran. Expediting weapons to Israel, including deep-penetrating bombs that would put Iran’s nuclear facilities at risk, would send a message, as would enforcing oil sanctions again. Sending US warships to the eastern Mediterranean, as after October 7, would also make Iran think twice about Hezbollah’s next move.
The Journal seems to think that doing the same thing over and over again—namely, sending more weapons to Israel, choking Iranian civilians through sanctions (Canadian Dimension, 4/3/23) and upping the US military presence in the region—will produce different results. Maybe this time, the authors seem to suggest, Iran and Hezbollah will decide to just let the US and Israel dictate what happens across West Asia.
Nor does the editorial explore the possibility that Iran might be less inclined to strike Israel if Israel were to cease carrying out assassinations on Iranian soil, bombing its embassies (Reuters, 4/4/24) or carrying out genocide against Iran’s Palestinian allies.
‘Response to Hezbollah’
For the New York Times‘ Bret Stephens (7/30/24), Israel is at war not only with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, but with “Israel’s most strident critics” on campuses, with the “‘yes but’ thinking” that supports Israel while condemning civilian deaths, and with “Jews who provide moral cover and comfort to Israel’s enemies.”
In the New York Times, columnist Bret Stephens (7/30/24) put forth a similar view, writing that
the world will soon know the full shape and scale of Israel’s response to Hezbollah for [the] rocket attack on a Druze town in the Golan Heights, which killed 12 children.
Another problem with this line of argument is that there is some doubt as to whether it was a Hezbollah projectile that hit the Golan, and a great deal of doubt as to whether, if it was Hezbollah’s rocket, it was deliberately fired at Majdal Shams (LA Times, 7/30/24).
Despite Stephens’ suggestion that an Israeli assault on Lebanon would be a “response” to a Hezbollah “attack,” only 20% of Majdal Shams residents have accepted Israeli citizenship, while the bulk of the town’s inhabitants continue to be citizens of Syria (LA Times, 7/30/24).
Not content with last week’s attack on Beirut, Stephens wrote that
whatever Israel does next, it should be calculated to advance the national interests on all [fronts of its multifaceted wars]. If that means postponing a fuller response to explain its rationale, necessity and goal, so much the better.
The “fuller response” he has in mind seems to be more Israeli violence, since what it would be “fuller” than is the bombing of Beirut, and the premise of the article is that the Israeli government is fighting a five-fronted war. Worry not, Stephens assures his readers, any further Israeli bombings and assassinations will by definition be a “response,” and thus defensible.
‘Iranian imperialism’
Thomas Friedman (New York Times, 8/1/24) recasts the Gaza crisis as “part of a broader Iranian campaign to drive America out of the Middle East.”
Meanwhile, Stephens’ colleague Thomas Friedman (8/1/24) painted Iran as the primary aggressor in West Asia. He called Iran an “imperial power,” condemning “Iranian imperialism” and “Tehran’s regional imperialist adventure.” Iran’s goal, he asserted, is “to control the whole Arab world.”
Since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the state has carried out zero full-scale invasions of Arab majority countries (and zero such attacks on non-Arab nations). In the same period, the US, which is evidently not imperialist, and not trying to “control the whole Arab world,” has carried out full-fledged invasions of Libya and (more than once) of Iraq. In addition to annexing and colonizing part of Syria, Israel has repeatedly invaded Lebanon. Colonizing, occupying and annexing Palestinian land, and now committing genocide against Palestinians, presumably also constitute the US and Israel seeking to “control” an important slice of the “Arab world.”
Yet in Friedman’s topsy-turvy universe, Iran is the main source of violence in the region. That misleading framing wrongly suggests that past and future acts of war against Iran are legitimate and necessary.
Nobody knows what the political and military outcome of a broader conflagration in the Middle East would be, but the human and environmental toll on the region would be colossal. High-profile pundits in America are doing their part to help such an outcome materialize.
Your repetition of US imperialist lines of argument simply looks threadbare, as if you have no wish to even try thinking outside what the WSJ, WaPo and other corporate media deliver to your brain each day. Iran has a disgusting, reactionary, oppressive and theocratic government, one that used deluded left support in the 1979 revolution and then promptly imprisoned its leaders.
But that makes no difference to the reality that it’s Israel and its Western supporters that are making the Middle East more dangerous by the day. FAIR, in this case, has it right. Iran has been subjected to provocations that, if it directed them at the USA, would result in likely nuclear responses. Is it any wonder Iran’s leaders keep considering equalling the nuclear balance in the region, as morally they have every right to do?
Rebecca you should stick with your Hamas pals who recently announced Yahya Sinwar as its new leader. Yea, the dude who formulated and planned the Oct 7 attack on Israel. That decision sidelined other Hamas leaders who were negotiating with Israel, including Khaled Meshaal, who was supported by Hamas’s longtime Sunni backers, Turkey and Qatar. Sinwar’s victory over Meshaal cemented Iran’s growing sway in the Sunni Muslim world. That Hamas’s senior members would elevate Sinwar indicates the movement supports a continued strategy of waging war against Israel alongside Iran’s other proxy militia allies. Sinwar shares Iran’s goal of destroying the state of Israel just like you do.
Actually, Rebecca is more aligned with the so called Socialist Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Maduro collected 3.2 million votes to 7.1 million for former diplomat Edmundo González, according to data from voting stations compiled by the opposition, made publicly accessible in a database and validated by several independence organizations including the non-partisan Carter Center (former prez Jimmy Carter’s org). He declared himself the election winner regardless of the factual data. “Chávez Lives,” they shouted referring to the late socialist leader, Hugo Chávez, who preceded Maduro as the high command in the armed forces, with the the National Guard, the Bolivarian National Police and intelligence services insured his staying power.
At the end of the day, Venezuela shows democracies must rethink how to fight global autocracy.
José Balart, your comment has nothing to do with the Middle East. Can you not try to pay a little more attention to the topic of discussion next time?
Actually, based on her prior responses, Rebecca is more aligned with the so called Socialist Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Maduro collected 3.2 million votes to 7.1 million for former diplomat Edmundo González, according to data from voting stations compiled by the opposition, made publicly accessible in a database and validated by several independence organizations including the non-partisan Carter Center (former prez Jimmy Carter’s org). He declared himself the election winner regardless of the factual data. “Chávez Lives,” they shouted referring to the late socialist leader, Hugo Chávez, who preceded Maduro as the high command in the armed forces, with the the National Guard, the Bolivarian National Police and intelligence services insured his staying power.
At the end of the day, Venezuela shows democracies must rethink how to fight global autocracy.
Here is my question. Who lifted the financial sanctions on Iran allowing them $100B to fund the Houthi, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists in their attacks on Israel and Americans? Hint, hint ,,, the same person who landed planes loads of Euro’s and Dollars pallets to pay off the ayatollahs relative to their nuclear threats. Fast forward. When Biden Says ‘Don’t, ’ America’s Adversaries Do’ or perhaps Secretary of State Antony Blinken can just pick up his guitar and do some more Open Mic nights. Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Fair has it right here. The US has destroyed so many cities and houses and hospitals, taken so many lives, manipulated so many people and stolen so much in west Asia— at this point how could we have any credibility as negotiators of any conflict, there or anywhere? Especially one in which we are arming and funding the aggressors. Who invaded and destroyed Iraq? Who invaded Afghanistan? Who ruthlessly bombed Libya? Destroyed Syria? Who funded and armed the destruction of Yemen? The US. Who bombed and invaded Lebanon? Who is occupying bombing and starving Palestine? Who is occupying Golan? Israel. When one begins their ideas with accurate facts and works outward from there they might understand the context of the last handful of decades. case in point now the choice of Sinwar over others to lead after the occupying forces assassinated the lead negotiator shouldn’t be so surprising. Context is key.
Is the author not aware ?
-Iran is financing Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, two of which are attacking Israel, and the Houthis are attacking shipping and US ships on the seas.
-Iran launched dozens of missiles from it’s own shores against Israel.
-Iran has said it will destroy Israel and America.
-Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and is near completion of that project, their intent is obvious.
-Israel is protecting itself from Iran proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, who are still lobbing missiles into Israel daily, and war is hell, they have made no ‘humanitarian’ mistakes
This is an extremely good article by the author. In addition, the July 30, 2024 APNEWS article, ‘A cratered field, a mangled fence. Clues emerge from strike that killed 12 children in Golan Heights’,by Julia Frankel and Sarah El Deeb, stated regarding the attack on Majdal Shams,
‘The Israeli military’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said an Iranian-made Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram (117-pound) warhead belonging to Hezbollah was used in the attack that landed in the town of over 11,000 inhabitants.
Israel released images of rocket fragments it said the military found, with visible lettering that matched pictures of Falaq rockets also provided by the military. The AP was unable to verify that the fragments were found on-site. No ordinance debris was visible when AP reporters visited the site on Monday.’
The Majdal Shams soccer field should have been treated as a crime scene. Immediately locked down, and international forensic scientists should have been immediately flown. To process the carnage. The low trajectory of the missile, its going through a fence, to reach its target, indicates it may have been fired locally, drone. And not from Chebaa six miles away. Israel’s supposed response to the killing of the 12 Druze children,
” ‘The IDF carried out a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians,’ the IDF said in a statement”, in the article, ‘Israel strikes Beirut, says it killed Hezbollah commander in response to rocket attack’, by Joey Garrison, USA TODAY, July 30, 2024
Israel limited response to the killing of the twelve children in Majdal Shams, is its admitted assassination of Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr. This Israeli response , is not consistent with its known eye for eye, tooth for tooth mentality. ‘You kill twelve of mine, Israel will kill twelve hundred of yours’. Israel’s relatively ‘weak’ response seems to imply that the IDF and Netanyahu are actually responsible for the Majdal Shams murder of children. That is more consistent with Israel’s known policy in Gaza of genociding women and children. The International Court of Justice should investigate this murder of 12 children in Majdal Shams. Israel has been silent on the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iraq.