Day 306: Is escalation inevitable?

War clouds are gathering. But is a regional conflagration inevitable?

Israel claims that it doesn’t want an all-out war with its regional adversaries, but appears to be doing everything in its power to provoke one while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obstructs an agreement to end the war in Gaza.

A war seems increasingly near with the genocide in Gaza entering its eleventh month and following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, and Fuad Shukr, a founding leader of Hizballah, last week.

In a speech eulogizing Shukr on Tuesday, Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah laid out what’s at stake in the current battle, the epicenter of which is in Palestine. If Israel were to defeat the resistance, he said, nothing would stand in the way of its aims to expel Palestinians from their homeland and there would be no deterrent to it running rampant in the wider region.

Soon after Nasrallah’s speech, Hamas announced that Yayha Sinwar, widely thought to be a chief architect of the Operation al-Aqsa Flood, would succeed Haniyeh as the head of Hamas’ political wing.

Israel pokes Biden in the eye

Helena Cobban returned to The Electronic Intifada livestream this week for a discussion of these historic developments with hosts Nora Barrows-Friedman and Asa Winstanley. (The livestream can be watched by playing the video at the top of this page.)

An expert long engaged with Western Asia, Cobban is co-editor of the forthcoming book Understanding Hamas And Why That Matters.

The conversation began with the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran, where he was present for the swearing-in ceremony of the new Iranian president.

“[The assassination] was a huge provocation, not just to Palestinians, not just to Iranians,” Cobban said. “But it was also a provocation to the United States because it completely undermines the ‘integrity’ of the US mediation effort.”

“So it’s just like poking President Biden in the eye or in a much more sensitive part of his anatomy, honesty, and what does he do? He does nothing except he says let’s not have any further escalation,” letting Israel off the hook once again, Cobban explained.

Meanwhile, the head of the US Central Command just traveled to Israel to meet with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the same time that the head of Russia’s security council visited Tehran to meet with Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.

“So clearly this confrontation that is looming in the region, in West Asia, has massive geopolitical impact, and we don’t know what it’s going to be,” Cobban said.

Israel is currently braced for Iran and Hizballah’s reprisals for the assassinations of Haniyeh and Shukr. Cobban reminded viewers and listeners that Iran waited 12 days before the killing of its Revolutionary Guards at its embassy in Damascus earlier this year.

“There’s an old saying that revenge is a dish best served cold … and they’re just letting the Israelis stew in their terror for a little while,” she added.

As regional resistance actors deliberate their next move, fissures in Israeli society are deepening. Messianic extremists demanding the right to rape Palestinian detainees and ultra-Orthodox Jews refusing mandatory service both overran military bases in separate incidents over the past two weeks.

“In terms of having a military, political system that has integrity and clear lines of command and clear goals and a clear strategy – this is all crumbling in Israeli society,” Cobban said.

This is a scary situation, she added, “because the extremists are clearly in control.”

Resistance hits back

As usual, Nora Barrows-Friedman delivered a summary of major developments in Gaza, including Israel’s bombing of three schools being used as shelters for displaced people.

She also highlighted two recent stories on The Electronic Intifada reporting on the long-term consequences of Israel’s military offensive for children in Gaza: “Israeli ordnance kills long after initial impact” by Nada Hamdouna and “Children traumatized by 10 months of genocide” by Razan Abu Salem and Khaled El-Hissy.

Jon Elmer gave his regular report on the state of the battlefield in Gaza, with a focus on the south, where Israel is intent on holding onto the so-called Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt – a major point of contention in the ceasefire negotiations.

The fighting in Rafah, as well as Khan Younis, has dragged on for far longer than Israel said it would “because their objectives are not being met,” according to Elmer.

Turning to Lebanon, Elmer pointed out that Hizballah has reverse-engineered multiple weapons systems and has used them “to great effect during this war.” Meanwhile, Israel’s education minister recently announced that students from evacuated settlements in the north will not be going back to school in their communities this fall.

In another resistance front, fighters in Yemen downed US MQ-9 Reaper drone – not for the first time – and mocked the world’s sole superpower by posing for photos with the vaunted weapon under their feet.

At the end of the program, the editors discussed the significance of Sinwar being tapped to succeed Haniyeh as well as a new CNN investigative report finding that Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza has reorganized and regenerated its fighting forces despite Israeli claims to have dismantled its battalions.

Asa Winstanley also commented on the racist mobs that have recently broken out in the UK. He said that “the background to it … is just years and decades of successive governments and successive mainstream media scapegoating and demonizing Muslims in particular and immigrants in general.”

“I’m increasingly getting a feeling there is a connection to the demonization of the Palestine solidarity protests,” Winstanley said.

“It’s kind of the Israelification of Britain in some ways,” he added, noting the “quite long running history” between Tommy Robinson, one of the main instigators of the riots, and the Zionist movement in the UK.

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

The Electronic Intifada executive director Ali Abunimah is off and will return to the livestream next week.

Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.