PORTLAND - Although the latest cycle of violence in the Middle East was initiated by Donald Trump at the behest of Israel’s Netanyahu in 2020, Netanyahu has taken it to a new level, endangering the lives of millions in the Middle East and around the world.

Back in 2020, Trump ordered the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian military commander and advisor to Iraq’s anti-terror forces (fighting ISIS), and of an Iraqi militia leader as they descended from a plane in Baghdad on a diplomatic mission aimed at normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia. Thus Trump had taken war to a new level, the assassination of a foreign military advisor in a third country. Earlier Soleimani had cooperated with the United States in Afghanistan and had also been instrumental in defeating ISIS but had fallen out with the U.S. over its presence in Iraq and had been behind the killing of some American soldiers. He was charismatic and undoubtedly Iran’s top military mind, a man Netanyahu saw as dangerous to his dream of creating a “greater Israel.” So Trump obliged the Israeli leader by committing what was a terrorist crime, but we are careful never to call our or Israel’s attacks of this kind terrorist, saving that designation only for attacks carried out by the other side!

Although Iran threatened revenge, it followed up with a tepid response to something that was a dangerous international precedent, but Netanyahu saw a great opening after the murder of the man who even a U.S. general acknowledged was a great military commander.  Netanyahu, with the “ironclad” assurance of U.S. support, no matter how egregious his behavior, started his rampage with escalation after escalation, enjoying U.S. backing at every turn, trumpeting that Israel was acting in self-defense with targeted actions to avoid civilian deaths but yet with thousands of innocent civilians killed along the way that contradict his claims. His goal was to annihilate his adversaries abroad, especially in Iran, silence his domestic critics, avoid a jail sentence for corruption and realize his Zionist dream of creating a greater Israel with the unquestioned support, although camouflaged with mournful eyes and duplicitous words, of a self-declared Zionist U.S. president, Joseph Biden.

Netanyahu attacked the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing Iranian diplomats and military advisors, an act that is tantamount to an attack on Iran and a declaration of war or at least a terrorist attack. Israel assassinated the leader of Hamas who was negotiating a Gaza ceasefire, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran while he was on an official visit for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Israel planted explosives in pagers and walkie talkies presumably owned by members of Hezbollah (an Iran ally) that exploded killing over 3,000 people, some of whom were innocent bystanders in supermarkets and the like, a war crime in international law. Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and head of a political party in Lebanon’s political system, along with Iranian Brigadier General Abbas Nilforooshan, using America’s 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs in a residential area of Beirut and killing many bystanders in the process.

Biden called this assassination “a measure of justice,” presumably for the many deaths attributable to Nasrullah. What was Biden thinking? Was he condoning the assassination of all leaders that the United States considers adversaries or who ordered military action against American allies? If so what about Netanyahu and Israel’s acts of terrorism? Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes with an arrest warrant requested by the International Criminal Court (ICC)? Doesn’t Netanyahu have even more innocent deaths on his hands than anyone alive? Yet Biden berates the prosecutor of the ICC and promises “ironclad” support for Israel’s continued escalation, defending whatever Israel does as in self-defense and targeted. Duplicitous beyond belief!

Earlier in the year, the U.S. House of Representatives even welcomed the criminal Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, giving him more standing ovations than for the sitting president of the United States!

After so many assassinations on top of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and hundreds more Palestinians killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers supported by the Israeli military, Iran followed up its earlier tepid response that was disclosed to the U.S. with a more serious barrage on October 1, with an as yet unknown damage assessment. It was a barrage of about 180 missiles, many of which were intercepted by Israel, again in part using U.S. air defense systems, and with the U.S., UK and French planes also destroying some of the incoming missiles. Netanyahu has escalated his attacks based on the well-known Israeli logic of strategic deterrence by using more force each time to deter its perceived adversaries from attacking again. Each time Israel justifies its escalation as self-defense and targeted but there have been over 42,000 confirmed direct deaths in Gaza and thousands presumed buried under the rubble and even more indirect deaths from lack of medical care, malnutrition and even starvation. All justified as targeted self-defense by the United States and its Western allies!

After the latest salvo of October 1, Israel has vowed crushing blows on Iran (with American planes and bombs). Biden has preemptively endorsed the forthcoming Israeli escalation! Tehran will face “severe consequences” for its large-scale missile attack on Israel on Tuesday, the White House said, after the United States employed military force to help defend its closest Middle Eastern ally …for the second time in five months (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/10/01/iran-israel-biden/?utm_content=contentpacks_pack_sampler_CP-4__position2&utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou). 

Israel has even rebuffed the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres after he issued a statement, “I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz banned the Secretary General from coming to Israel, saying, “ [Guterres is] persona non grata due to his unwillingness to condemn Iran.” It would appear that Israel wants Iran condemned and Israel applauded! Israel feels it can do anything it wants because it is assured of American support. This is arrogance and hubris beyond the pale. And today, Biden called for a joint statement from the G-7 because Iran was “off course.” All along, Israel can escalate as it wants but others cannot respond. How do you think the rest of the world assesses America’s words and actions in support of Israel with thousands of dead in Gaza, the West Bank and now in Lebanon?

This so-called ironclad support for Israel has many tentacles besides U.S. taxpayer dollars (around $350 billion) over the years, to a country that has a higher per capita income than France and Germany while its own disadvantaged lack nutrition and medical care and its national debt balloons. It includes top-of-the-line military equipment, bombs, missiles, intelligence, political support around the world, threats to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the ICC and dozens and dozens of U.S. vetoes at the UN Security Council (UNSC) to cover Israel’s crimes, which are condemned by most of the world. Inside the United States, Israel’s supporters have muzzled the free press into unbelievable bias in reporting and non-reporting. The bias in the American media has a long history going back to at least the 1967 War. But in more recent times, MSNBC, a supposedly liberal cable channel, eased out Mehdi Hasan allegedly for challenging the lies of an Israeli spokesman and pressing him for answers, and reduced the role of two other supposed Palestinian sympathizers. The much heralded New York Times employs the über-Zionist Bret Stephens as a columnist but doesn’t afford the same outlet to a moderate Arab, Muslim or Iranian. The October 7 Hamas attack has been coined a terrorist act by all U.S. media outlets killing 1200 and taking over 200 hostages, but what of the Israeli targeting of Hezbollah communication devices that killed over three thousand, including many innocent bystanders?

American corporations have fired employees who show sympathy toward Palestinians in words or who wear the kaffiyeh. Universities have severely restricted free speech in support of Palestinian rights. Americans are fed biased news and are muzzled to support Zionist propaganda.

One can only question Biden’s state of mind. How can the president of a serious country source out its foreign policy to another country (Israel) by giving it “ironclad support” and then vowing to defend that country no matter what it does? Isn’t it obvious that Israel’s current and longest serving leader, Netanyahu, has little incentive to reach a ceasefire because he is under threat of jail when he steps down from office. The Israeli leader does not even listen to Biden and does what he wants, knowing full well that Biden will not cut off support, especially not in an election year with the Israeli lobby ready to pounce. The Biden-Harris support for Israel is irrational and can only be attributed to leaders who have little or no backbone and moral standing. Just think about all that and what Israel is doing:

Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land (the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem), in contravention to international law, to say nothing of the mass evictions of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-1948;

Israel is illegally evicting Palestinians from their homes on a daily basis and imprisoning hundreds for years without charge;

Israel is considered an apartheid country by much of the world;

As of June 2024, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 146 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, yet the United States does not recognize a Palestinian state and pressures other countries not to do so; 

Many go further and argue that Israel is treating the Palestinians akin to how the Nazis treated the Jews.

America supports Israel’s excesses that cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries, it’s America’s vetoes that make a mockery of the UNSC, its attacks threaten the ICJ and in the process alienate much of the world. Just look at the polls (the most respected Pew Research) of how America is viewed around the world, not a pretty picture and much of it from America’s arrogant foreign policy and its support of Israel. Also not a good foreign policy for the long term, something that increasingly angers the younger generation of Americans, those who will have to deal with the fallout of Biden-Harris policies for years to come.

Do Americans want to be a party to what Israel is doing? Its crimes? Is this what Americans aspire to? Has America learned anything from its own treatment of native Americans and African Americans and from the Nazi horrors of WWII? Do Americans want to be mentioned in the same breath along with oppressors of the past? Do Americans want much of the world hating them because of its ironclad support for Israel and its past and ongoing horrors and human rights abuses?

There can never be peace in the Middle East until the United States treats Israel as it does any other ally, no worse but no better and definitely not as if Israel was an integral part of the United States of America.

America’s foreign policy is a choice for Americans and not for Israelis to make, but Americans must stand up, have a moral compass and make their voices heard.

*Hossein Askari is an emeritus professor of business and international affairs, George Washington University