The risk of a regional war in the Middle East remains high, triggered by the aggressive actions of Israel and its imperialist ally America. On Friday, Israeli forces deliberately killed a Hamas official in deep Lebanon. A Reuters report revealed that Washington will lift a three-year ban on the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The Israeli attack on a car killed Samer al-Hajj and two civilians near the Lebanese city of Sidon. Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from southern Lebanon, commented: “Sidon is just over 50 kilometers from Lebanon’s southern border and about 40 kilometers from the capital Beirut. This shows that Israel is penetrating deeper into Lebanon.”
The killing of another senior Hamas official makes a mockery of the far-right Netanyahu government’s claim that it is interested in ceasefire negotiations with Hamas – not to mention the posturing of its imperialist backers for a ceasefire. The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran came less than two weeks ago and underscores Israel’s deliberate policy of systematically eliminating the leadership of the organization with which it is supposedly negotiating. Neither Washington nor the imperialist capitals of Europe have condemned the Israeli killings, but have repeatedly threatened Iran with consequences if it responds to Israel’s provocative aggression that killed Haniyeh during the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
This silence on the Israeli regime’s crimes is consistent with US imperialism’s unconditional support for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The Zionist regime continues to bomb the enclave on a daily basis, killing two more journalists on Friday. Israeli forces also announced a new major offensive in Khan Younis on Friday. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, some 70,000 people have been ordered to flee by Israeli forces. However, with Gaza’s civilian infrastructure destroyed and Israel’s aid limited to starvation levels, these desperate people have nowhere to go.
Underscoring Washington’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes, the State Department confirmed that there would be no sanctions against the Israeli Netzah Yehuda unit, which is notorious for the serious human rights abuses committed by its mostly far-right members in the West Bank. One of the most high-profile cases involving the unit was the 2022 killing of an 80-year-old Palestinian with American citizenship. Netzah Yehuda members handcuffed and gagged him before leaving him to die in a parking lot.
Meanwhile, video evidence has emerged confirming that a group of Israeli soldiers committed a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner in the notorious Sde Teiman detention center. Of the 10 soldiers arrested in the incident, five have already been released. In response to the video, far-right Finance Minister Bezalil Smotrich called for a “criminal investigation” to determine who recorded the video, which he said “caused enormous damage to Israel in the world.” The systematic use of torture and the cruel mistreatment of prisoners were documented in a report released this week by Israeli human rights group Bet Selem, titled “Welcome to Hell.”
Amid this ongoing barbarism, Washington issued a joint statement with Egypt and Qatar, which acted as mediators in previous rounds of talks, calling for the resumption of ceasefire talks on August 15 in Cairo. Netanyahu announced that an Israeli delegation would travel to the Egyptian capital.
Despite its recent public statements, Washington is the most provocative actor pushing the entire Middle East into a catastrophic conflict. Washington’s support of the genocide was linked from the outset to long-held war plans against Iran, which American imperialism sees as essential to consolidating its hegemony over the energy-rich and strategically important region. It used Haniyeh’s assassination to legitimize the deployment of more warships and fighter planes to the region.
The Biden administration confirmed on Friday that it will release $3.5 billion for Israel’s purchase of American weapons. The additional $14.1 billion approved by Congress in April will come from those funds. Washington’s announcement that it will resume sales of offensive weapons to the absolutist monarchist regime in Riyadh as early as next week is another step in the preparation for a full-scale war with Iran. Saudi Arabia has long been a regional rival of Tehran and has been built up by successive U.S. administrations as an ally of Israel in a U.S.-led anti-Iranian alliance. Concerns were raised in U.S. foreign policy circles last year when China brokered a deal between Riyadh and Tehran that was intended to ease tensions after the regional rivals each supported opposing sides in the wars in Yemen and Syria.
Washington sees its war preparations against Iran as closely linked to the other fronts of the global conflict in which it is involved with the aim of suppressing its rivals in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. This rapidly escalating third world war has its roots in crisis-ridden capitalism, which is forcing the major powers to re-divide the world to secure their economic and geostrategic interests. In Ukraine, NATO is increasingly emerging as a direct party to the conflict, as was demonstrated last week when the far-right Kiev regime used NATO military equipment to launch an attack on Russian territory.
In response to a report that Russian military personnel were training in Iran to use short-range Fath-360 ballistic missiles, a White House National Security Council spokesman warned Tehran that the US and NATO were “prepared to respond swiftly and harshly if Iran made such deliveries.” According to Reuters, the two countries signed an agreement last December on the Iranian-made missiles, which have a range of 125 kilometers.
Given the region’s proximity to open war, Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is reportedly divided over how to respond to Haniyeh’s assassination. Although the targeted killing was a humiliation for the Iranian authorities, effectively forcing them to respond, Pezeshkian is reportedly trying to persuade Iran’s Revolutionary Guard not to launch a direct attack on Israel for fear that doing so could spark a war. Instead, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Pezeshkian would prefer to attack Mossad spy bases in neighboring Azerbaijan or Iraq. Senior IRGC officials are in favor of attacking military facilities in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities in alliance with Hezbollah.
According to Iran’s Tasneem news agency, IRGC deputy commander Ali Fadavi stated: “The Supreme Leader’s orders regarding the harsh punishment of Israel and the avenging of the blood of the martyr Ismail Haniyeh are clear and precise… and they will be implemented in the best possible way.” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has the power to determine Iran’s response, including through Pezeshkian’s transgression.
Regardless of the immediate intentions of the regime in Tehran, tensions in the region are already so high that any action could plunge the Middle East into a bloodbath. In April, a precedent for direct attacks between Israel and Tehran was set. After Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing seven senior IRGC members, Iran responded by sending hundreds of drones toward Israel. It announced the attack several hours in advance, after which the US and its regional allies mobilized to intercept most of the attacking aircraft.
The urgent task of preventing a full-scale war in the Middle East is the international working class. The mass resistance to the Israeli imperialist-backed genocide of the Palestinians, expressed in protests around the world over the past ten months, must be developed into a conscious movement to stop imperialist war by fighting for socialism.
