After Israel carried out a series of high-level assassinations of its opponents and launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brought the Middle East to the brink of regional war. One day after Israel announced what it described as a limited ground invasion of Lebanon, Iran launched 180 missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted with U.S. help. Iran declared its missile attack was in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of its ally, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, which also killed a prominent Iranian general and the July 3 killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Thus far, over 1,000 Lebanese have died in Israeli airstrikes, and one million have been displaced.
All this as Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza continues, with now more than 41,000 dead. On the West Bank unchecked Jewish settler violence and seizure of Palestinian land has killed over 630 Palestinians since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 and kidnapped 240 hostages.
As prospects for a wider Middle East war looms ever closer, President Biden has reiterated his commitment to defend Israel, where some 40,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the region along with two aircraft carrier battle groups. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, who examines Israel’s objective in its invasion of Lebanon, and what many believe is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s larger goal to provoke a war with Iran with the intention of involving the United States military in such a conflict.
JOHN FEFFER: The narrow objective, according to the Israeli government, of course, is to eliminate Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, preventing them from launching attacks on Israel. Both missile attacks on Israeli cities, but also a bombardment of kibbutzim and various towns and settlements in northern Israel. But I think the larger objective is really to eliminate Hezbollah as any kind of fighting force wherever in Lebanon, not just in southern Lebanon.
This is comparable to its stated objective, Israel’s stated objective to eliminate Hamas as an effective fighting force. But of course, Hezbollah has always been a much larger, more formidable adversary for Israel. It has invaded Lebanon twice before. It has been fought to a standstill with Hezbollah when Israeli forces are fighting on Lebanese territory, which of course, Hezbollah knows far better than Israeli forces.
But I think Israel sees an opportunity here after eliminating, as you said, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, seven leading officials in Hezbollah, basically taking out its capacity to coordinate a response to Israeli attacks. And indeed, over the last week, the retaliation by Hezbollah for what Israel has done has been rather ineffective. And I think Israel sees that as an excellent opportunity to launch this ground assault, to take care of as much of Hezbollah’s leadership as possible while it is weak and kind of flailing in its ability to respond to this aggression.
SCOTT HARRIS: Many observers are looking at what Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing with the intention of provoking a wider Middle East war that many are concerned, believe is calculated to entangle the United States in a major war against Iran. I wondered if you just speak to that briefly, because we’ve heard some reports recently amidst all these airstrikes that Israel is launching in the region, it could be cover for an Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear weapons research facilities with Donald Trump’s withdrawing from the nuclear treaty that Barack Obama negotiated.
Iran is concerned about Israel’s ability to breach its borders and attack the country. And there are certainly officials within Iran who are advocating pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
JOHN FEFFER: Yeah. Well, we’ve obviously seen that the Israeli government has no problem violating the sovereignty of its neighbors, whether it’s the aforementioned attack in Tehran or the use of pagers and walkie talkies to kill people in Lebanon. I think there’s a tremendous anxiety among the far right in Israel today — Benjamin Netanyahu among them — that is that Iran is on the verge of a more conciliatory position, a conciliatory position that might, quote unquote, call the Americans into, for instance, another nuclear agreement.
And Netanyahu and the Israeli far right were notoriously opposed to the nuclear agreement that was negotiated in 2015, 2016 by the Obama administration. And they do not want to see a return to that. Now, there was an election in Iran back in the beginning of the summer. And to the surprise of many, including those people following this election in Iran itself — a reformer, Masood Pezeshkian, won in the two rounds of the election.
And he came to power promising greater reform. Now, he’s not the only political actor in Iran by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the Israelis are concerned that they might have the Middle East peace negotiated above their heads by the United States and Iran, some kind of a compact. They, I think, are eager to disrupt that.
They will have an easier time of disrupting, not if Donald Trump wins in November, they will obviously have Donald Trump as an ally who, as you said, destroyed the first nuclear treaty and would probably do his utmost to prevent any subsequent iteration of it.
But if Kamala Harris wins, they face the possible reality of some kind of ceasefire-plus arrangement in the region. Or at least, efforts by the United States, its allies, and potentially Iran, potentially China, to orchestrate some kind of Middle East peace that I think probably 90 percent of Israeli society would support, but not Benjamin Netanyahu and his far right allies.I think that is what Netanyahu is resisting as much as a ceasefire. I think he worries that his own kind of political legitimacy will be eliminated in the case of the ceasefire. In other words, that it is only war that keeps him in power. Take away the war and suddenly he is a leader who presided over one of the greatest intelligence failures ever in Israeli history, surrounding the failure to anticipate and deal with the Oct. 7 events. And a leader who has been indicted on a number of charges of influence peddling and the like.
So I think he fears not only being kicked out of office, not only being subjected to the ignominy of history, but also the possibility of a jail sentence.
And I think that is one of the major things that stands between us and peace, as well as between us and an Israeli administration that could, in some fair fashion, negotiate such a deal.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with John Feffer (27:35) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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