The last days of July 2024, have become a dark page in the history of the Middle East. An Israeli rocket killed HAMAS political Leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
He was in Iran for the celebration of the inauguration of the new Iranian president and stayed in a guest house on the territory of the IRGC village. A shell flew right into the room he was in; the head of Hamas and his bodyguard were killed instantly.
The day before, the Israeli army – and it officially announced this – bombed the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, where the headquarters of the Hezbollah political movement were located. The target of the strike was the military commander of the movement, Fouad Shukri.
Such illegal slaughter on the territory of independent states of the region have been sharply condemned by the absolute majority of the world community. These terrorist acts caused enormous indignation among the Palestinians. In addition to this, a strike was declared in the West Bank of the Jordan River. The intensity of emotions is off the scale, but so far, this only about the immediate reaction.
Will the HAMAS leader’s death change the situation in the Middle East?
This summarises Israel’s ten-month war in Gaza, which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, one hundred thousand injured and the enclave almost being destroyed. However, the long-term consequences of these barbaric actions are much more terrible. The current generation of Palestinians will never accept the suffering imposed on them and will seek to avenge the spilled blood of their brothers and sisters. It cannot be ruled out that they will be prepared to do a variety of things to express their anger. Thus, a new bloody cycle of civil strife may begin in this part of the world. Today, Israelis can send high-precision drones, so it is impossible to exclude that Palestinians will also be able to create such a weapon of retaliation in a short timeframe. The Yemeni Houthis have provided an example of this.
Washington is aiding the extremist policies of the Israeli elites
Responsibility for this cycle of violence is borne not only by the ruling clique of Israel, but also by the current US administration, who, through their policies, create an artificial atmosphere of hatred, primarily in their own country, which then spreads to other regions of the world. It was the US authorities that killed the famous Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani with drones in Iraq some years ago.
These acts of state terror are being mimicked by the current Israeli administration and the Kiev regime. All the American cries about international law are worthless in the light of these terrorist attacks.
Washington’s aiding of the extremist policies of the Israeli elites is a ticking time bomb for the Israeli state.
How can the Palestinians communicate and then negotiate with the Netanyahu government in these conditions? That is the question. Also, meanwhile, in front of the entire world community, the US continues not only to support this government, but vigorously supply it with a wide variety of weapons. Congress gave Israel an ovation the other day. Nothing was said about a political settlement of the Palestinian issue, instead that Israel would forever preserve the land that ‘the Jewish people have inhabited for the last 3,000 years’.
Knesset firmly rejects the creation of a Palestinian state
Furthermore, the Israeli Parliament recently adopted a resolution rejecting the creation of a Palestinian Arab state. It was adopted by the majority, 68:9.
It states: “The Israeli Knesset strongly opposes a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the land of Israel will pose a threat to the existence of the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilise the region”. In the event of the creation of an Arab state, Hamas would soon seize power and turn it into a base of ‘radical Islamic terror’ actions in coordination with the Iranian-led axis aimed at eliminating the state of Israel.
It is worth noting that the US, using its veto in the UN Security Council in April, blocking Algeria’s project resolution on Palestine becoming a full-fledged member of the UN.
Israel is already suffering from this extremist policy. After the murder of Haniyeh, the shekel fell by 3.3%, the war with Lebanon forced 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes in the North – and this is without considering the losses of the Israeli army.
There are many rational people in Israel who understand the danger of the current course of the authorities. For example, the head of the centre-left Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, spoke in favour of the existence of two equal states in Palestine, “otherwise there will always be bloody conflicts and interethnic hostility will be indefinite”.
All the arguments of the current Israeli leaders about the impossibility of reaching an agreement with Hamas are the embodiment of obvious hypocrisy; a bunch of extremists in charge of the country are trying to stay in power by escalating tensions under the pretext of ensuring the security of the statein fact, trying to evade responsibility for the failure of the security forces on October 7, 2023.
Here it is perhaps appropriate to recall that Netanyahu, as prime minister in 1997, was forced to make concessions to Hamas. After several terrorist attacks by Hamas members in Israel, Netanyahu agreed to eliminate the head of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, who lived in Amman, the Jordanian capital.
The Jews had a peace treaty with Jordan and relations in general were fine, including informal relations. Mashal had to be eliminated in such a way that no fingers could be pointed to Israel. A complex operation was carried out by the Mossad foreign intelligence service, for which 6 operatives with Canadian passports arrived in Amman. They had to inject him with poison (‘by accident’), presenting it as pouring him a bottle of Coca-Cola. However, the Hamas men, including Mashal’s guards, managed to capture the attackers and the case was on the verge of turning into a massive international scandal. Riots broke out in Amman. More than half of Jordan’s residents are Palestinians.
Having received the head of Mossad, the then-ruler of the country, King Hussein, managed to resolve the situation, forcing Netanyahu to make concessions. He forced the Israelis to hand over the antidote to the Jordanian authorities, and Mashal was thus saved. He also secured the release of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and 19 other Palestinian prisoners, but released all six Israeli operatives from the country (by the way, the Jordanians summoned the Canadian ambassador, and he could not confirm their Canadian citizenship).
Currently, the US administration, which fully supports Israel, is essentially complicit in Tel Aviv’s war crimes. Its short-sighted policy may lead to desperate Palestinians committing the same actions against Israelis as the Netanyahu government did against Hamas, as an of which result, the flames of the fire may engulf the entire region. The Middle East stands on the edge of the abyss.
Vladimir MASHIN, PhD in History, political observer, especially for “New Eastern Outlook”
