[News] Israel Is Provoking The US Into A Conflict With Iran

[Anti-Imperialist News]

popularresistance.org
<https://popularresistance.org/israel-is-provoking-the-us-into-a-conflict-with-iran/>
Israel Is Provoking The US Into A Conflict With Iran
By James North, Mondoweiss.
January 2, 2024
------------------------------
[image: 171223_Jerusalem_ZU_002-1024x683-1.jpg]

Above photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a cabinet
meeting at the Israeli Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv on December 17,
2023. Menahem Kahana/EFE via Zuma Press APA Images.
But The Media Ignores The Danger.

*In addition to killing thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has been
routinely attacking at least four other nations in the region: Iran, Yemen,
Syria, and Lebanon. Why does the U.S. media keeps the American public in
the dark?*

For years, this site has warned that Israel, especially Benjamin Netanyahu,
have tried to instigate the U.S. into a wider war in the Mideast,
particularly with Iran. We’ve also regularly indicted the U.S. mainstream
media for ignoring this danger.

Today, the threat is greater than ever. And, true to form, the *New York
Times*, National Public Radio, and the others continue to cover it up,
instead treating Netanyahu as the embattled but honest leader of an Israel
that is only trying to defend itself.

For more than a decade, Netanyahu’s main aim was to destroy
<https://mondoweiss.net/2022/06/nyt-report-on-stalled-iran-deal-talks-hides-israels-ongoing-sabotage-effort/>
Iran’s alleged (and unproven) program to build nuclear weapons. He openly
tried to sabotage the Obama administration’s successful nuclear deal in
2015, and then vigorously encouraged Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to end
the agreement 3 years later. Secretly, Israel conducted a long campaign of
sabotage against Iran, which included cyber warfare, and actual
assassinations inside the country, including the November 2020 killing of
an Iranian scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Netanyahu wanted to provoke
Iranian retaliation, which would draw in the U.S., and — he hoped — trigger
an American attack that that would set back or even destroy Tehran’s
nuclear program.

Since October 7, the stakes for Netanyahu are much higher. Israelis blame
him for the Hamas attack, and the opinion polls show his popularity has
never been lower. A number of Israeli commentators have called him the
worst leader in the country’s history. If just a handful of members from
his own coalition in the Knesset abandon him, his government will fall, and
he will be trounced in new elections. Even worse, the pending court cases
against him for corruption will then revive, and he could well end up in
prison.

Luring the U.S. into a conflict with Iran will distract from his own
troubles, and give him time to maneuver. So:

On December 24, an Israeli air strike assassinated Iran’s top commander in
Syria, Razi Mousavi. The always valuable Iranian/American expert Trita
Parsi, asked
<https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israeli-airstrike-syria-iranian-commander/>:
“Did Israel kill Iranian commander to provoke a wider war?”

Also last week, a cyber attack
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-12-26/ty-article-magazine/.premium/when-predatory-sparrow-strikes-israel-iran-shadow-war-awakens/0000018c-a524-df1f-a7bf-b7e59ba00000#:~:text=In%20the%20second%20time%20in,real%20damage%20to%20Iran%27s%20infrastructure.>
“caused two-thirds of Iran’s gas stations to suddenly stop working,” yet
another sabotage effort with Israel’s fingerprints all over it. No country
will be able to endlessly ignore such provocations.

(Netanyahu is not the only Israeli leader who wants the U.S. to attack
Iran. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett just published an opinion
article
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-us-and-israel-need-to-take-iran-on-directly-proxies-hamas-threat-7f67a238>
in the *Wall Street Journal* headlined: “The U.S. and Israel Need to Take
Iran On Directly.” He disclosed 2 secret Israeli attacks inside Iran during
his 2021-2022 tenure as prime minister: the destruction of a drone base and
the killing of an Iranian military commander. After the article appeared,
some Israeli officials criticized Bennett
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-reveals-details-of-two-direct-strikes-on-iran-in-2022-while-he-was-pm/#:~:text=Former%20prime%20minister%20Naftali%20Bennett%20revealed%20that%20he%20directed%20Israel%27s,The%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%20Thursday.>
“for revealing classified information. . . saying that he was potentially
putting the country in danger.”)

The *New York Times* did run a brief report
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/26/world/middleeast/iran-military-official-israel-syria.html?searchResultPosition=1>
on the December 24 air strike that killed Ravi Mousavi in Syria. But the
article was a model of dishonesty. The paper feigned ignorance in the
report’s opening sentence: “Iran accused Israel on Monday of killing a
high-level military figure in a missile strike in Syria at a time when
concerns are growing that the war in Gaza could escalate into a regional
conflict.” Nowhere do we learn that many observers, including some
Israelis, believe that Netanyahu may actually want a wider conflict, as
long as he can embroil the U.S. in it.

National Public Radio was even worse. In recent days, the network ran three
on-air reports, including one from a correspondent in the region. The
broadcasts were uniformly inept. They barely mentioned Israel’s provocative
killing of Mousavi. In one, host Leila Fadel
<https://www.npr.org/2023/12/27/1221762056/israel-hamas-war-aggravates-an-already-bad-relationship-between-the-u-s-and-iran#:~:text=Music%20Of%202023-,Israel%2DHamas%20war%20aggravates%20an%20already%20bad%20relationship%20between%20the,war%20in%20the%20Middle%20East.>
asked: “Does the U.S. or Iran really want this to become a regional war?”
Somehow, she forgot to add Israel or Netanyahu to her question, although
anyone who follows the story using a range of non-U.S. mainstream sources,
even including some in Israel itself, would have known to broaden the
inquiry.

The *Washington Post* report
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/27/israel-lebanon-gaza-hamas-palestinians/>
has a single throwaway sentence about how an “airstrike” by an unnamed air
force killed a “senior [Iranian] officer” in Syria. That was it.

Of course, the situation in the region is complicated. Ansar Allah, Iran’s
allies (commonly referred to as the Houthis) who control much of Yemen,
have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea, and Hezbollah, the
political/military movement in southern Lebanon that is also allied with
Iran, has been clashing with Israel across their mutual border. (This
site’s estimable Mitchell Plitnick has explained at length
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/biden-administrations-flawed-response-to-yemen-attacks-increases-possibility-of-regional-war/#:~:text=Biden%20administration%27s%20flawed%20response%20to%20Yemen%20attacks%20increases%20possibility%20of%20regional%20war,-By%20Mitchell%20Plitnick&text=Israel%27s%20war%20on%20the%20people,in%20support%20of%20the%20Palestinians.>
how the Biden administration’s flawed response to the Red Sea shipping
crisis could also trigger a broader conflict.) It is doubtful that even
Benjamin Netanyahu would want to widen the conflict to bring in either of
these other two actors.

But what makes Israel’s provocative killing of General Mousavi and its
latest cyberattack even more dangerous that it also raises the risk of a
lethal accident. Let’s go back to July 1988, when tensions in the region
were similarly high. A U.S. Navy warship in the Strait of Hormuz accidentally
shot down <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655> a civilian
Iranian jetliner, killing all 290 people on board. Iran did show restraint,
and so the conflict thankfully did not escalate further.

Today, the danger is arguably even higher. Israel continues to murder
thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and attack at least four other
nations in the region: Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Israel’s desperate
leader is rolling the dice for his last time, and the Biden administration
is letting him get away with it — while the U.S. media keeps the American
public in the dark. The chances for a greater tragedy are high.
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