In his speech at the 78th United Nations General Assembly held around two weeks ago, Netanyahu presented a map of what is called the "new Middle East." In this map, Israel controls all of historic Palestine, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The map that grants Israel total control from the river to the sea represents boundless racist ambitions and expansionist dreams! Going further, his fanatical Finance Minister, Smotrich, claimed "There is no such thing as Palestine," and shared a map in which Lebanon and Syria are part of "Greater Israel!"
This expansionist bent is not new. It was made public following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu continued where Ariel Sharon had left off, seizing territory, expanding settlements, and violating the Palestinians' rights to end the Oslo Accords and undercut the two-state solution, in what amounted to a rolling genocide. To this end, he exploited the Palestinian conflict. The wars in Gaza did not prevent him from favoring Hamas as part of his strategy to besiege, weaken, marginalize, and delegitimize the Palestinian Authority. This approach allowed him to argue that Israel does not have a partner for peace in Palestine, and to stall and ultimately put an end to the peace process!
All of the actions that Israel has taken over the years were a repudiation of peace. Their objective was to foil initiatives, and stall agreements, nourish the right wing, and force a "population transfer" towards Sinai and Jordan. Meanwhile, its daily violations of international law accelerated the explosion. In fact, the war on Gaza preceded “Al-Aqsa Flood.” The wardens were always going to pay a heavy cost for imprisoning more than two million Gazans.
Much has been said about the Palestinians’ "October 7," an event that is likely to recur, but Israel’s retaliation, its instigation of a war of annihilation on Gaza with overt and limitless support from the US and Western capitals, suggests that much of what has changed remains unspoken. Indeed, while the most prominent development may be that the Zionists’ hubris has been shattered, exposing the delusion of deterrence, the Palestinians also demonstrated that they could tear up Netanyahu's map.
Given that Tel Aviv has declared that it has put the laws of war to one side, no one should be surprised by the Baptist Hospital massacre. Their objective is clear: force civilians to flee and accelerate the "population transfer" from Gaza. It followed Israel’s denial of access to water, food, medicine, and electricity, as part of this desperate campaign Netanyahu is pursuing to wipe out the Strip and displace his own people in order to salvage his personal reputation. He is indeed having trouble in this regard, as opinion polls indicate that the public feels let down and blames the attack on his neglect.
For its part, the United States has provided him with an air bridge through which it is sending smart bombs and missiles to Israel. It has also made a substantial naval deployment in the Eastern Mediterranean. Questions are being asked about the motives behind deploying the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, which will soon be followed by the Dwight Eisenhower carrier. Washington has sent several messages through these deployments.
The most notable among them is a deterrence signal to Iran and Hezbollah. It's a show of intelligence support for Israel and a demonstration of American aerial dominance. It seems to amount to a bold US return to the region, a significant shift away from the policy of “leading from behind” that the US has pursued since the Iranian regime threatened to avenge Qassem Soleimani by expelling the US from the region!
Its robust deployment also aims to prevent this war from snowballing into a broader conflict. For the US, and the West in general, they have enough on their hands with the war in Ukraine, and it should remain the priority. Thus, these actions, which continued nearly two weeks after "October 7th," go beyond Gaza, where the issue cannot be addressed through force alone. Attempting to do so will only engender retaliatory violence in the future. Secretary Blinken heard Arab leaders vociferously denounce the collective punishment of Gazans and the threats of replicating the 1948 Nakba. Demands for a political solution were probably the major theme of his discussions.
In this context, the American president's visit of "solidarity" to Israel seems like an unfamiliar development. The visit was certainly made with domestic electoral considerations in mind. Nonetheless, another question presents itself: is betting on a change course tenable, especially after Tel Aviv committed this atrocity at the Baptist Hospital as a prelude to his visit, which will permanently stain its perpetrators and their backers? A serious assessment of the state of affairs in the region demonstrated that the United States, if it wanted to, could single-handedly make progress in undermining extremists. Notably, the US president recently rebuffed an occupation of Gaza and affirmed his commitment to the two-state solution and that establishing an independent state for Palestinians alongside Israel has been the United States' policy “for decades.”
Everyone is waiting for these words to be translated into action. To shut the gates of hell and prevent the region and the world’s descent into it, serious steps are needed to protect the Palestinian people, beginning with a ceasefire and the release of hostages.
At the same time, it is alarming and frightening to see the escalation on the southern Lebanese front and the death of civilians who could not evacuate their towns and villages. It is deeply distressing and deplorable to see citizens left to their fate: the government has abandoned its responsibilities. Things have gotten so bad that the Parliamentary Speaker, on behalf of Hezbollah, prevented MPs from making a parliamentary appeal in rejection of the violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and "dragging Lebanon into a devastating war to serve the Iranian regime's interests at the expense of Lebanese lives and infrastructure."
In this context, it is obvious, after his meetings with Resistance Axis forces, that Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian speaks on their behalf and that Iran holds all the cards. Iran has given Hezbollah the green light to begin raising the temperature on the southern Lebanon front on a daily basis, ignoring the public's broad rejection of its actions and citizens’ opposition to embroiling Lebanon in a war whose costs the Lebanese cannot afford.
As the situation evolved, Abdollahian warned that "new war fronts could be opened," "the fingers of all the factions in the region are on the trigger," and that "time is running out, and war is becoming increasingly likely!" Only an acceptable peace process can defeat Zionist extremism and contain Iran’s heedless enthusiasm for violence.
