Everybody Loses… Except Iran

 

“It’s decision time… A cease-fire with living hostages, or a forced cessation of hostilities with dead ones.” 

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a mid-December opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Iran didn’t pick the date that Hamas would mount a clear and highly provocative attack on Israel. But!!! The weapons Hamas used were either locally manufactured or supplied by Iran. Recent British spy planes recorded weapons transfers in Syria, clearly destined for Gaza. The Iran-backed Hezbollah (Lebanon) and Houthis (Yemen) were equally well-supplied with Iranian weapons, including sophisticated missiles and drones. Iran’s rising relationship with Russia, where Iran’s factories and weapons storehouses are working at a furious pace – benefitting from Russia’s designs and manufacturing expertise – results in her supplying Russia in its Ukraine war as well as Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in their sophisticated attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf. Strikes to regional vessels directly from Iran straddled the line of provocation with Western naval vessels defending shipping.

Israeli intelligence was apparently well aware of Hama’s training activities, conducted in plain sight, albeit from nearly obsolete Israeli spy ballons and observation towers… and US satellite imagery. But the Israeli high command simply dismissed this activity as merely aspirational. They had faith in a system of reinforced concrete walls separating Israel from Gaza, where those watch towers had performed well for many years. Too many years. The mocked-up buildings in those rather obvious Hamas training facilities, demolition experts training on concrete walls, Hamas fighters learning how to use motorcycles and two-seater powered parachute aircraft and urban assault programs… were all dismissed. Indeed, every aspect of the October attack was well-planned and well-rehearsed. Again, in plain sight with no attempt by Hamas to disguise it.

After all, Israeli policymakers believed that the West Bank rife with growing settlements, of very militant and well-armed Jewish residents, kept those Palestinians well-separated from a more militant Gaza – with monthly Israeli allotments to Hamas. To Netanyahu, this was sufficient to maintain highly destabilized Palestinians with very weak West Bank leadership. But clearly Iran had other plans. Using wiping out Israel as a regional rallying cry (a lesson lingering from the days Gamal Abul Nasser ruled Egypt), Iran’s autocratic theocracy was prepared to fight Israel and her regional and global supporters fiercely. Without Iranian troops, just her well-supplied surrogates.

Hamas was acutely aware of Israel’s struggles with a very unpopular Trump-like rightwing extremist government. They expected a beleaguered PM Benjamin Netanyahu, being tried for corruption, would “double down” to defend any Hamas attack with massive retaliation to distract and rally his citizens to support him. Especially if that attack were particularly morally reprehensible, taking lots of hostages for bargaining power. Iran and Hamas feared the pending rapprochement between Israel and regional Arab nations, most recently a proposed formal détente with Saudi Arabia. And they knew Israel had faith in a wall with observation towers that had successfully deterred small incursions and lone assaults. They also knew how to take down such walls in a mass, full-scale military assault.

Netanyahu followed the Hamas script down to the letter. Hamas did not care about their Palestinian shields. Even in the last “election” in 2006, where Hamas actually campaigned as moderates, they never got more than a plurality. And with no elections since (having wrested control of Gaza from other political parties by force), and with half of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents being under 18, Hamas was truly not elected by those now living in Gaza. So, the visions of casualties from the Israeli strikes against Gaza – dead and maimed children, starving civilians, non-functional hospitals, miles and miles of rubble, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians – was well-covered by the international press soon that seemed to forget the horrors of the Hamas trigger-attack. Hamas managed to change the narrative from “Israel vs Hamas” to “Israel’s overkill decimating non-combatant Palestinian citizens.”

As Hamas’ leadership seemed able freely to travel (for example, to Egypt), and knowing that no matter Netanyahu’s threat totally to eliminate Hamas was highly improbable political rhetoric, they did not care about the “martyrdom” of their soldiers or the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians. They cheered when the United States (aka “the Great Satan’), the major foreign supplier of weapons to Israel, vetoed UN Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire… eventually allowing a watered-down request for another humanitarian respite (again). Now, Hamas, following Iran’s most cherished desire further to isolate the United States from the rest of the world, was winning the hearts and minds of people all over the world… even in major pockets within the United States. Antisemitism and Islamophobia have exploded here.

Writing for the December 24th Los Angeles Times, Laura King and Tracy Wilkinson tell us that a meaningful ceasefire followed by meaningful negotiations were nowhere on the horizon: “The death toll in Gaza grows by the hour. International pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steadily increases. And ordinary Israelis voice more and more frustration over the direction of the deadliest war yet against the Palestinian militant group Hamas… Yet as the year winds down, it’s unclear whether the combination of factors will force even a temporary hiatus in fighting that is exacting a vast human cost, eroding U.S. support around the world and threatening to influence American elections next fall.

“The death toll in Gaza, exacerbated by one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare, reached a bleak milestone Friday, surpassing 20,000. The United Nations has said about two-thirds of the Palestinians killed were women and children… Israel launched its bloody campaign to eliminate Hamas after the militant group launched a cross-border attack Oct. 7 in which it killed at least 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and took about 240 hostages, many of whom remain captive in Gaza.

“In the latest show of resistance to U.S. calls to stem civilian casualties, Netanyahu told President Biden in a phone call Saturday [12/23] that Israel would ‘continue the war until all its objectives are met,’ the prime minister’s office said… Netanyahu also sought to portray as a show of solidarity what was widely read as a rare public U.S. rebuke of Israel: the Biden administration’s decision Friday not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that more aid be allowed into Gaza.

“The prime minister’s office said after the phone call that Netanyahu had ‘expressed his appreciation’ for the U.S. stance on the resolution, which stopped short of demanding a cease-fire while calling for ‘unhindered’ humanitarian aid for Gaza. Biden, in brief comments outside the White House, was more taciturn, saying he’d had a ‘private’ conversation with the Israeli leader and did not request a cease-fire.”

Facing increasing pressure to accept a cease fire, Israel has announced it will intensify its attack on Hamas. Meanwhile, “Egypt has put forward an ambitious, initial proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war with a cease-fire, a phased hostage release and the creation of a Palestinian government of experts who would administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat said Monday [12/25].” AP Christmas Day. It is increasingly clear that the United States no longer has the power to act as an intermediary in any peaceful resolution regarding the future of Palestine. Will the US even take any tangible steps to reinforce its official embrace of a “two state” solution that Israel has categorically rejected? Is Biden’s presidential candidacy at risk with his failed efforts to encourage peace? What is possible to end this horrific war?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am increasingly of the opinion that a regional Arab mediation and control of the peace process (under UN supervision) is necessary sooner rather than later… before Iran, with Russian and Chinese support, finds a very different conclusion that very much excludes the US entirely from the process.