Day 320: Iran's retaliation against Israel is coming

There is no doubt that Iran will launch a retaliatory strike at Israel for the assassination in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on 31 July, Mohammad Marandi told The Electronic Intifada livestream this week.

“The Iranians will strike the Israeli regime, and they will strike them and hurt the regime,” Marandi, a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, said.

Iran’s anticipated response was the headline topic on the Electronic Intifada livestream, on day 320 of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

On the program, we also discussed the ultra-pro-Israel policies in the Democratic Party’s newly released platform, and how so-called progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are trying to market the Biden-Harris administration’s genocidal anti-Palestinian policies to the party’s base.

Contributing editor Jon Elmer guided us through the latest resistance videos from Gaza and Lebanon, and we analyzed the endless Gaza “ceasefire” talks.

You can watch a recording of the whole program, which began with a news brief from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman, in the YouTube video above, or listen to the audio at the end of this article.

Iran will hit Israel hard

Marandi, a well-known geopolitical analyst, dismissed a report published by Reuters last week claiming that several senior Iranian officials had told the news agency that Tehran would be willing to hold back its retaliation if a Gaza ceasefire were reached quickly.

One of the sources, “a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along with allies such as Hizballah, would launch a direct attack if the Gaza talks fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations,” Reuters reported.

But according to Marandi, “anything Reuters says when it comes to Iran … whenever they say an unnamed Iranian official or security official, they’re making it up.”

“There is no high-ranking official in Iran who would speak to a Reuters journalist, and therefore, I would throw that in the bin,” Marandi, who served as a media adviser to Iran’s negotiating team during multilateral nuclear talks, said.

He also dismissed the idea that Tehran and Washington might be negotiating behind the scenes to forestall Iran’s response.

“The Iranians are always, or I should say, regularly, in some sort of communication with the Americans. And this has been going on for years. Messages always go back and forth,” Marandi said. “But there is no agreement between the United States and Iran with regards to the Iranian strike, and there will be no agreement.”

He stressed that Iran wants a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s genocide, but only on terms acceptable to the Palestinian resistance.

If Hamas reached such a deal, he said, Iran, along with all the Axis of Resistance countries and groups – including Hizballah, Syria, Yemen and the resistance in Iraq, would abide by it and end the military conflict.

“But all that aside, the Iranian response to the Israeli regime will take place, whether there is a ceasefire or whether there is or is not a ceasefire, that is definite,” Marandi added.

Marandi recalled that Iran’s carefully calibrated response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus was designed to send Israel a warning, establish deterrence and gather intelligence.

“The Iranians wanted to see what capabilities the Americans have and what capabilities the Israeli regime has, and what regional installations are being used,” Marandi said, noting that the Americans had used bases in Turkey, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan to intercept missiles headed towards Israel.

However, the deterrent effect of the operation was clearly limited, as Israel resumed brazen attacks, including the bombing of Beirut and the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

Now Iran will have to retaliate more harshly because, Marandi said, “if Iran doesn’t retaliate, then deterrence won’t be established. And if deterrence is not established, then the Netanyahu regime will carry out further acts of terror.”

Marandi was sober that a wider regional war was possible, although Iran does not seek it, and he said Tehran has warned Washington and what he calls the Axis of Genocide – the countries supporting Israel – of its consequences.

He said Iran was taking a cautious approach to explain to countries in the Global South that Iran is acting within international law, in response to a genocide and in self-defense.

“It could possibly bring down the whole global economy without any exaggeration,” Marandi said. “It could be significantly worse than the 1930s in the United States, because, of course, all the oil and gas installations in the Persian Gulf could possibly be destroyed.”

Moreover, according to Marandi, “Iran is warning the West that an escalation would be catastrophic for them too, because … if the United States makes a stupid mistake of striking Iran, then all of its bases in the Persian Gulf region and in Iraq are targets.”

Creating uncertainty about when the response might come is also intended as psychological warfare, as Iranian officials have said.

Waiting for the response “has been very costly” for Israel, according to Marandi. “It has caused a lot of harm to the way in which the Israeli military and industry and intelligence conducts itself, the way in which everyday business is carried out, how key infrastructure is managed, and also it creates a constant fear among Israelis,” Marandi said.

“It creates tension and concern for all of the regime’s business partners across the world … and its partners in crime across the West,” Marandi added. “So businesses that contemplate working with the Israeli regime, every day they are hearing about a possible Iranian strike.”

Marandi spoke to The Electronic Intifada livestream from Beijing, where he was attending a conference on the BRICS countries and the emerging multipolar world.

He noted that outside the West, Israel’s genocidal actions had virtually stripped it of any legitimacy and support.

“The longer this war lasts, the more entrenched the hatred for this regime,” Marandi said. “In China, people hate the Israeli regime. This was not how it was a year ago.”

But that effect is extending to views of the United States and the collective West.

“They have been crushed by this genocide because they’ve been exposed to the world for what they really are,” Marandi said. “They’re the greatest violators of human rights in the world.”

“What makes it especially disgusting for people across the global South, in my opinion, is that people across the global South, when they see these images [from Gaza] online, they recall their own history. They recall the history of their own people,” he added.

The wide-ranging discussion with Marandi touched on Iran’s domestic politics, and its recent election which brought its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian to office.

Resistance report

In his weekly resistance report, contributing editor Jon Elmer covered an ambush against Israeli forces in the Netzarim corridor, which bisects central Gaza, and isolates the northern and southern parts of the Strip from one another.

Elmer noted that the sophisticated operation documented on video was carried out by fighters who identified themselves as new recruits.

“The use of new recruits is something that, of course, we expected,” Elmer said. “There’s an entire generation of youth watching these fighters, in their minds, heroically defend their homeland, and people want to join.”

“They could have left that detail out that they were new recruits, because there’s nothing in this operation that would indicate they are new recruits. They’re skillful fighters,” Elmer said. But Qassam made a decision to communicate to Israel, and the world, through the video that it is able to sustain and renew its fighting capacity, after almost a year of grueling combat.

Elmer also showed a video released by the Lebanese resistance group Hizballah, providing glimpses of a vast, never before seen underground missile facility complete with mobile launchers carried on trucks traveling through underground roadways.

“These tunnels built in Lebanon are built in stone. They’re built in the mountains. They’re extremely fortified,” Elmer said.

“We’re seeing this massive underground bunker system, a tunnel network connecting to all of these hidden launch pads for the 200,000 rockets and missiles” believed to be held by Hizballah, Elmer said.

“Once you have capability to truck launch, you can launch everything in Hizballah’s arsenal,” including the heaviest missiles that most worry Israel, Elmer said.

Democratic platform backs Israel’s genocide

This week, the Democratic Party is holding its national convention in Chicago to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as its presidential candidate.

On Sunday, the Democratic National Committee unveiled its 2024 platform. The policies it sets in support of Israel effectively reaffirm the party’s support for the genocide in Israel and they are a slap in the face to the party’s voters, as this writer explained.

Back in March, a YouGov poll – one of several with similar findings – found that a majority of Americans agreed with the statement: “The US should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza.”

Among Democrats, the number who wanted an arms embargo rose to almost two-thirds. Just 14 percent of Democrats disagreed.

But none of that is being reflected in what is happening on the convention stage in Chicago, or in the platform, which vows to continue massive funding for Israel. Harris herself has rejected any form of arms embargo.

In our discussion, we showed how so-called progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are being sent out to try to placate anger at the genocide that is being armed by the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration with vague calls for a “ceasefire.”

But what they are not demanding is the one thing that would bring it about almost immediately: an end to US arms transfers to Israel.

And while the Democratic Party platform demonizes Palestinians and repeats Israel’s debunked claims of mass sexual violence by Hamas on 7 October, it exonerates Israel of the horrific crimes it has been committing in broad daylight for almost 11 months.

In our discussion, we showed how the Democrats are trying to outflank Donald Trump and the Republican Party from the right, presenting the Biden-Harris administration as more militaristic and more confrontational and bragging about how many countries the Democratic Party has been willing to bomb.

The Electronic Intifada’s Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program and Maureen Clare Murphy contributed writing and production. Eli Gerzon contributed post-production assistance.