From Paris to Beirut: Israel’s long record of assassinating Palestinians

Ismail Haniyeh is the latest in a list of Palestinian leaders believed to have been assassinated by Israel.

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 31 Jul 202431 Jul 2024

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/7/31/from-paris-to-beirut-israels-long-record-of-assassinating-palestinians

Hamas political boss Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran in the early hours of Wednesday, after the building where he was staying was struck in an attack that the Palestinian group blamed on Israel.

The group said that Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike” on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. His death comes a day after Israel targeted Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

The assassination comes amid Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, in which more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, when Hamas fighters entered southern Israel in an assault during which 1,139 were killed, and 250 people were taken captive.

Iran has said it is investigating the killing. Israel has yet to comment. But after October 7, Israeli officials had publicly threatened that senior Hamas leaders were on its kill list. In recordings made public on December 4, 2023, the chief of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency, Ronen Bar, said that the country would kill Hamas leaders “in every location, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar, everyone”.

Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran also follows a long pattern of assassinations of Palestinian leaders, from Rome to Paris, Beirut to Athens, and from Gaza to Tunis. Israel has rarely claimed responsibility for the killings — though it usually also does not deny its role. And analysts are convinced that these assassinations bear Israel’s stamp, stretching over more than half a century.

Here are other leaders killed over the decades:

Saleh al-Arouri | January 2024, Beirut, Lebanon

Al-Arouri, 57, was the deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau and one of the founders of the group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades. He was assassinated in a drone strike in a suburb of Beirut.

He had been living in exile in Lebanon after spending 15 years in an Israeli jail. Before the war began on October 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him.

Israel did not take responsibility for his death. However, Danny Danon, a former Israeli envoy to the United Nations, hailed the attack and congratulated the Israeli army, Shin Bet and Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, for killing al-Arouri.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh | January 2010, Dubai, UAE

Al-Mabhouh was a military commander in the Qassam Brigades, responsible for logistics and weapons procurement.

Mahmoud al-Majzoub | May 2006, Sidon, Lebanon

Al-Majzoub was a senior leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group (PIJ) and a close ally of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

He was assassinated in the Lebanese city of Sidon when a car bomb attached to the door of his car door exploded when he opened it.

Israel denied responsibility for the attack, but both PIJ and Hezbollah blamed it for the killing.

Adnan al-Ghul | October 2004, Gaza City, Gaza Strip

Al-Ghul was a high-ranking member of the Qassam Brigades, known as “the Father of the Qassam” for his work in building Hamas’s extensive rocket delivery system.

Identified by the Israeli military as a top bomb maker, he was assassinated in a targeted killing, an Israeli Air Force AH-64 helicopter firing missiles at his car in Gaza.

Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi | April 2004, Gaza City, Gaza Strip

Al-Rantisi was one of the seven co-founders of the Hamas movement, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in the early days of the first Intifada.

He had been named as the new leader of Hamas after the killing of Yassin in March 2004.

He was killed by an Israeli helicopter missile strike in Gaza City, less than a month after Yassin’s assassination. The Israel Air Force had fired Hellfire missiles from an AH-64 Apache helicopter at his car.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin | March 2004, Gaza City, Gaza Strip

Sheikh Yassin was considered the spiritual leader of Hamas. Yassin, a quadriplegic who was nearly blind, had been reliant on a wheelchair due to a sporting accident when he was 16.

He was killed in an Israeli helicopter missile strike as he was being wheeled out of morning prayers outside a Gaza City mosque.

Israeli security sources said at the time that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had personally ordered and monitored the helicopter attack against the paralysed cleric.

Salah Shehadeh | July 2002, Gaza City, Gaza Strip

Shehadeh was among the founders of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and spent a decade in Israeli jails.

He was killed after the Israeli Air Force bombed his house in Gaza City.

In a statement, the Israeli military confirmed that Shehadeh was the target of the attack, saying that he was behind “hundreds of terror attacks in the last two years against Israeli soldiers and civilians”.

Yahya Ayyash | January 1996, Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip

Ayyash, nicknamed “the Engineer”, was known for his work as a bomb maker and commander of the West Bank battalion of the Qassam Brigades.

He was regarded as responsible for introducing suicide bombings as a strategy against Israel.

Ayyash was assassinated in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya by Shin Bet operatives who placed an explosive device in his phone, detonating it remotely after he received a call from his father.

Imad Akel | November 1993, Shujayea, Gaza Strip

Akel was a commander of the Qassam Brigades, where he served as a mentor to the current commander Mohammed Deif.

He was nicknamed “the Ghost” owing to his use of disguises to launch ambushes on Israeli forces.

In November 1993, Akel had been hiding at his home in Shujayea, which was under siege at the time. After several hours, he tried to escape and was shot by Israeli special forces.

Abu Jihad | April 1988, Tunis, Tunisia

Khalil al-Wazir, known as Abu Jihad, was a key figure in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — he had helped found Fatah in the late 1950s. For years, he was the effective deputy to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

He was shot dead by Israeli agents in an audacious commando raid in 1988.

Israel denied responsibility for nearly 25 years until 2012, when an Israeli newspaper published an interview with Israeli soldier Nahum Lev, who killed Abu Jihad, eventually revealing the truth.

Khalid Nazzal | June 1986, Athens, Greece

Nazzal was the central committee secretary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and a leader of the PLO.

Israel held him responsible for the 1974 Ma’alot attack in which Palestinian fighters killed 22 school children and four adults.

He was assassinated by Mossad agents in Athens.

Ali Hassan Salameh | January 1979, Beirut, Lebanon

Salameh founded the Black September armed group that attacked the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, killing 11 Israeli athletes and one German police officer. Five of the attackers also died.

Mossad spies had enrolled at Salameh’s gym to befriend him weeks before his assassination. A British-Israeli operative rented an apartment close to Salameh’s home to monitor his movements.

He was blown up in his car as it passed a booby-trapped parked Volkswagen in Beirut.

Mohamed Boudia | June 1973, Paris, France

Boudia, an Algerian poet and playwright, was a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who had also fought for the liberation of Algeria.

He was assassinated by a car bomb placed under the seat of his car by Mossad agents following the attack by the Black September armed group at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Abdel Wael Zwaiter | October 1972, Rome, Italy

Zwaiter, a Palestinian translator, was a representative of the PLO in Rome.

Israel accused him of being a commander of the Black September armed group that attacked the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

His supporters say he was an intellectual with no conclusive links to the group.

Zwaiter was shot dead by agents in the lobby of his apartment building.

Ghassan Kanafani | July 1972, Beirut, Lebanon

Kanafani, a prominent Palestinian author and poet, was a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

He was assassinated in Beirut along with his 17-year-old niece. A grenade had been connected to the ignition switch of his car. By starting the car, he ignited a plastic bomb that had been planted behind the bumper.

Israel said his killing was in response to the 1972 Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) mass shooting in which 26 people were killed and dozens others were injured.

But some analysts believe the assassination was already being planned well before that.

One third of the world under US sanctions: Report

Four consecutive US governments have incrementally expanded their reliance on using the US dollar as a weapon of war, forcing nations across the world to create alternative financial systems and pursue de-dollarization

News Desk

JUL 26, 2024

https://thecradle.co/articles/one-third-of-the-world-under-us-sanctions-report

The US government currently imposes sanctions on a third of all nations on earth in a situation that disproportionately affects low-income countries – 60 percent of which are under US sanctions of some kind – according to an analysis of the White House’s long-standing policy of economic warfare by the Washington Post.

This trend spiked during the last four US governments and reached a fever pitch under President Biden, who imposed over 6,000 sanctions in just two years.

“It is the only thing between diplomacy and war and, as such, has become the most important foreign policy tool in the US arsenal,” Bill Reinsch, a former Commerce Department official, told the US news outlet. “And yet, nobody in government is sure this whole strategy is even working.”

Washington’s over-reliance on using the US dollar as a weapon of war took a marked turn following the 11 September attacks in New York City. Up until then, economic sanctions had primarily targeted “rogue states” like Cuba and Libya to block them from taking part in the global financial system and instigating regime change.

However, from 2001 onward, sanctions were more freely used by successive US presidents to isolate nations worldwide, in particular, shifting their strategy to West Asia and further east. “As the Treasury Department became a key player in the global war on terrorism, US policymakers began to understand the power of the nation’s financial hegemony,” the Washington Post details.

The spike in US economic sanctions globally came hand in hand with the growth of a parallel multi-billion-dollar lobbying and influence industry in which foreign governments and transnational corporations “spend exorbitant sums to influence the system.”

“Congress got in on the act, flooding the State Department and the White House with requests for sanctions that, in some cases, appeared intended to cut off foreign competition to home-state industries,” the report details, adding that, at a holiday party in 2011 Adam Szubin, then director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), sang a song titled “Every Little Thing We Do Is Sanctions.”

“Smart sanctions were meant to be a buffet of choices where you fit the particular imposed sanction to the offense and vulnerability of the country,” George Lopez, a sanctions scholar at the University of Notre Dame, told the Washington Post. “Instead, policymakers walked into the buffet and said, ‘I’m going to pile everything onto my plate.’”

This approach by a revolving door of White House officials ignores the devastating effect of economic coercion policies on civilian populations, as countless studies have shown that sanctions cause immense suffering and possibly deaths in the hundreds of thousands.

“The inconvenient truth is that these sanctions indirectly affect the health of people and generally result in devastating consequences … Soon after imposing economic sanctions on a country, many essential life-saving drugs become unavailable. Even production of some drugs being manufactured in a country is decreased, or even stopped, because of a shortage in basic ingredients or spare machine parts,” Iranian researcher Farrokh Habibzadeh wrote in a letter published by The Lancet in 2018.

“Lack of spare parts affects not only medical devices but also other necessary infrastructures such as electric generators; frequent power cuts cause serious problems (loss of vaccines, drugs, ventilators, monitors, etc). Hundreds of thousands of people die in silence from diseases. This quiet mass murder in a part of the world that is submerged in turmoil is not even noticed or is perhaps overlooked,” Habibzadeh adds.

“The mentality, almost a weird reflex, in Washington has just become: If something bad happens, anywhere in the world, the US is going to sanction some people. And that doesn’t make sense,” Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser in the Obama government, told the Washington Post. “We don’t think about the collateral damage of sanctions the same way we think about the collateral damage of war,” Rhodes added.

According to the report, staffers from the US Treasury Department drafted an internal proposal in 2021 for the newly elected Biden government to restructure the sanctions system in what could have been “the most substantial revamp of sanctions policy in decades.”

However, the White House refused to implement most of the changes and instead has doubled down on upholding thousands of sanctions against hundreds of nations and continued imposing even more.

“By the time Treasury publicly released its '2021 Sanctions Review in October that year, the 40-page draft had dwindled to eight pages and contained the earlier document’s most toothless recommendations,” people familiar with the internal proposal are quoted as saying.

Similar discussions on revamping Washington’s economic coercion policies collapsed in 2022 following the start of the Russia–Ukraine war.

“Until recently, western policymakers have maintained a dogmatic belief in the efficacy of sanctions despite the fact that they had clearly failed to achieve their intended policy outcomes in most countries … But, like St Augustine, who counseled against trying to understand the workings of the heavens, policymakers committed to sanctions policy felt it was ‘not necessary to probe into the nature of things,’” Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, CEO of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, wrote for Responsible Statecraft earlier this year.

The continued reliance on sanctions by the US has pushed many nations across the world to consider de-dollarizing bilateral trade. It has also boosted interest in alternative economic blocs such as BRICS, Mercosur, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

US Delivered 28,000 Bombs and Missiles to Israel Since October 7

by Kyle Anzalone | Jul 28, 2024

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/us-delivered-28000-bombs-and-missiles-to-israel-since-october-7/

The US has delivered 25,000 bombs and 3,000 missiles to Israel since October 7. The majority of the munitions are 2,000-pound unguided bombs that Tel Aviv has used during its onslaught in the Gaza Strip. 

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) – a pro-war, neoconservative think tank based in Washington – issued a report on the US arms transfers to Israel since October 7. JINSA reports Israel received 14,100 2,000-pound bombs, 8,200 500-pound bombs, 3,000 250-pound bombs, and 3,000 Hellfire missiles. 

The list includes those weapons shipments that have been publicly disclosed. Many of the arms sales Washington has approved for Tel Aviv are classified or secretive. 

In addition to the massive number of bombs, the US has sent Israel 36,000 30-mm cannon rounds, 25 F-35s, 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS), 1,800 M141 Bunker Defeat Munitions, and 14,000 tank shells. 

Washington’s military support for Tel Aviv has come almost without conditions. President Joe Biden has suspended a single shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs but continued to ship Israel other munitions. 

The American-made weapons have been used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to devastate Gaza. In under ten months, over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed. Several Israeli attacks on civilian targets have been carried out with US weapons. Still, President Biden has refused to cut-off the arms flow to Israel. 

China throws clout behind Palestine

The Beijing Declaration cements the idea that global conflict resolution is now Made in China. But it also throws a wrench in US–Israeli efforts to manufacture a collaborator Palestinian government after the war in Gaza.

Pepe Escobar

JUL 26, 2024

https://thecradle.co/articles/china-throws-clout-behind-palestine

HONG KONG – The Beijing Declaration, signed earlier this week, constitutes yet another stunning Chinese diplomatic coup, but the document goes far beyond affirming China’s pull. 

The gathering of representatives of 14 Palestinian factions to commit to full reconciliation showed the entire world that the road to solving intractable geopolitical problems is no longer unilateral: it is multipolar, multi-nodal, and features BRICS/Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member China as an inescapable leader. 

The concept of China as a peacemaking superpower is now so established that after the Iran–Saudi Arabia rapprochement and the signing of the Beijing Declaration, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba chose to tell his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing that Kiev is now finally ready to negotiate the end of the NATO–Russia proxy war in Ukraine. 

Palestinians who came to Beijing were beaming. For Fatah Vice Chairman Mahmoud al-Aloul, “China is a light. China’s efforts are rare on the international stage.” 

Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran said the Palestinian resistance movement accepted the Chinese invitation “with a positive spirit and patriotic responsibility.” All Palestinian factions have reached a consensus on “Palestinian demands to end the war,” adding that the “most important” part of the declaration is to form a government that builds Palestinian national consensus to “manage the affairs of the people of Gaza and the West Bank, oversee reconstruction, and create conditions for elections.”

The “three-step” Chinese proposal 

Wang Yi cut to the chase: the Palestinian issue, says the Chinese foreign minister, is at the core of everything in West Asia. He emphasized that Beijing

… has never had any selfish interests in the Palestinian issue. China is one of the first countries to recognize the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] and the State of Palestine and has always firmly supported the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate national rights. What we value is morality and what we advocate is justice.

What Wang did not say – and didn’t need to – is that this position is the overwhelming BRICS+ position, shared by the Global Majority, including, crucially, all Muslim countries. 

It’s all in a name – everyone in the foreseeable future will note this is the “Beijing” declaration unequivocally supporting One Palestine. 

No wonder all political factions had to rise to the occasion, committing to support an independent Palestinian government with executive powers over Gaza and the occupied West Bank. But there’s a catch: this will take place immediately after the war, which the regime in Tel Aviv wants to prolong indefinitely.   

What Wang Yi left somewhat implicit is that China’s consistent historical position supporting Palestine may be a decisive factor in helping future Palestinian governance institutions. Beijing is proposing three steps to get there:

First, a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable” ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible, and “access to humanitarian aid and rescue on the ground.”

Second, “joint efforts” – assuming western involvement – toward “post-conflict governance of Gaza under the principle of ‘Palestinians governing Palestine.’” An urgent priority is restarting reconstruction “as soon as possible.” Beijing stresses that “the international community needs to support Palestinian factions in establishing an interim national consensus government and realize effective management of Gaza and the West Bank.”   

Third, help Palestine “to become a full member state of the UN” and implement the two-state solution. Beijing maintains that “it is important to support the convening of a broad-based, more authoritative, and more effective international peace conference to work out a timetable and road map for the two-state solution.” 

For all the lofty aims, especially when it is patently clear that Israel has de facto buried the two-state solution – as witnessed in the Knesset’s recent vote to reject any Palestinian state – at least China is directly proposing what the Global Majority unanimously considers as a fair outcome. 

Also important to note is the presence of diplomats from China’s fellow BRICS members Russia, South Africa, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, alongside diplomats from Algeria, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkiye at the signing of the declaration. 

Genocide as a wellness treatment

Now compare China’s diplomatic coup with the US Congress giving 58 standing ovations to Israel’s psychopath-in-chief peddling the notion of genocide as a wellness treatment. 

Bibi Netanyahu’s hero’s welcome in Washington takes the notion of collective psychopathology to new heights. And yet complicity in the Gaza genocide is not exactly an exception to the rule when it comes to American political leadership. 

The Hegemon’s political “elites” – with Franco-British help – have also been active collaborators and weaponizers of the oppressive Saudi and Emirati bombing and blockade of Yemen, which, over nine years, collectively caused even more civilian deaths than in Gaza. Famine in Yemen is far from over, yet this has been a completely invisible war to the collective west.   

At least karma ended up intervening. China promoted the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Riyadh has become a BRICS+ member and deeply engaged in the de-dollarization drive, in which the petroyuan is emerging. 

Moreover, the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah managed to single-handedly humiliate the US Navy. The US–UK “revenge” was to open another war front, bombing Yemeni installations to protect Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and waterways beyond.   

As much as Yemen remains at war on two fronts – against the Hegemon and Israel while keeping an eye on potential Saudi shenanigans – Palestine continues to be decimated by a fully US-backed Israel. The Beijing Declaration will not mean anything if not implemented. But how?

Assuming a partial success, the declaration may be able to put a spanner in the works of the absolute impunity of the Tel Aviv–Washington agenda because after the Beijing deal, finding a collaborator Palestine government to perpetuate the occupation could be much more difficult.   

All Palestinian factions now owe China a serious debt; internal squabbling will have to cease. Otherwise, it would amount to a serious loss of face for Beijing.   

At the same time, the Chinese leadership seems very much aware that this bet is a Global South bet – laying bare the Hegemon’s hypocrisy for the whole world to see. Much like the Saudi–Iran deal clinched in Beijing, the optics could not be more auspicious, especially when compared to the Israeli–American refusal of a meaningful ceasefire.   

Real Palestine unity will also give extra bite to each and every global initiative at the UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and other global forums.  

All of the above, though, pales in comparison to the dire facts on the ground. The ideologically genocidal Israelis – fully supported by US political “leadership” – continue to get away with what they really want: the outright mass murder-cum-ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians, something that, in theory, should lead to an absolute demographic majority for Israel’s expansion into all Palestinian lands. 

This tragedy will not stop anytime soon. The Beijing Declaration won’t make it stop. Only the Hegemon severing its weapons funnel to Tel Aviv can force it to stop. Yet today, what we’re instead seeing from Washington is 58 standing ovations for genocide. 

Netanyahu Upset with VP Harris’s Remarks After Meeting

Israeli official says Harris more critical of Israel after talk with Netanyahu than to his face.

by Kyle Anzalone July 26, 2024

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/26/netanyahu-upset-with-vp-harriss-remarks-after-meeting/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly upset with Vice President Kamala Harris’s remarks after the two met in Washington. After the meeting, Harris said it was time for a ceasefire in Gaza. Netanyahu claims her statement set back any potential agreement with Hamas.

On Thursday, Netanyahu held separate meetings with President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris. After her sit-down with Netanyahu, Harris reaffirmed that she is committed to arming and supporting Israel. However, she also called for a ceasefire and expressed that too many Palestinians had been killed.

According to Israeli officials speaking with Axios, Harris’s remarks irked the Israeli leader. One official said Netanyahu was taken aback by her tone following their discussion. “Harris’ statement after the meeting was much more critical than what she told Netanyahu in the meeting,” they told the outlet.

Describing the meeting to reporters, Harris said “I told him that I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah.” She continued, “From when I was a young girl collecting funds to plant trees for Israel to my time in the United States Senate and now at the White House, I have had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the state of Israel, to its security and to the people of Israel.”

The vice president also called for an end to the war in Gaza. “And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. Let’s get the deal done. So we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home,” she added. “And let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.”

Israeli officials said behind closed doors, there was little difference between the PM’s discussions with Biden and Harris. They told Axios that the sit-down with Biden “was much more constructive than his meeting with Harris, but stressed the meeting with the vice president wasn’t tense or difficult.”

The Israeli official said Netanyahu believes Harris’s remarks make an agreement with Hamas less likely and is unwilling to link a hostage deal with a permanent ceasefire. However, the vice president also said that any agreement must affirm Israel’s security. Netanyahu has argued that Israel will not be safe without the eradication of Hamas.

Prior to the meeting, a senior US official offered a similar perspective to reporters during a background briefing, saying there was “no daylight between the president and vice president” on their position on Israel.

Biden has previously called for an agreement to end the war in Gaza. In late May, the president claimed that Israel had accepted a proposal that would lead to the release of all hostages and an end to the war in Gaza.

Having stepped down from the 2024 presidential race, Biden has endorsed his VP for the Democratic nomination, which will be decided at the party convention in August.

 

Washington gives Netanyahu ‘full backing’ to expand war on Lebanon: Report

Hebrew media reports that the army is urging Tel Aviv that ‘now is the right time’ for escalation against Hezbollah and Lebanon.

News Desk

JUL 25, 2024

https://thecradle.co/articles-id/26109

Former Israeli intelligence and security official Yuval Malka told Hebrew media on 25 July that Washington has greenlit a wider war on Lebanon.

“According to the information I received from the delegation and what I know, Netanyahu has received full legitimacy in the United States to wage a war in Lebanon,” Malka told Israel’s Channel 14.

“When he arrives in the country, he is expected to head to the ‘Al-Bur’ in Al-Kiryah, and from there he will start the war in Lebanon,” he added, referring to a military complex that houses the headquarters of the Israeli army’s different corps.

Netanyahu visited Washington this week for a speech in Congress and talks with officials.

The Israeli army has reportedly signaled to the government that the time is ripe for an expanded war against Lebanon, according to a defense analyst for Hebrew media. 

“The Israeli army is prepared for a major ground maneuver in Lebanon and warns: Any delay will be in Hezbollah’s favor when there is progress in the background in negotiations to release the hostages,” said Amir Bohbot, military editor and senior defense analyst for Israeli news site Walla, on 24 July.

“The Israeli army is sending a signal to the government – we are at the height of preparations for war in the north, and now is the right time,” he added. 

Citing sources, Bohbot says, “postponement for another year or two will lead to the rehabilitation and alignment of Hezbollah and all parties,” and that “the achievements of the Israeli army will be in vain … Hezbollah will have difficulty launching a campaign against Israel without the two division commanders [recently assassinated by Israel].” 

“The IDF confirms that the forces trained for the ground maneuver mission in Lebanon, including forces that have gained significant experience in the Gaza Strip, raise the IDF to a very high level of competence.”

Meanwhile, Hebrew newspaper Makan reported that the Israeli navy held a reception ceremony on Wednesday for two new US-made landing ships at a naval base in Haifa.

Combat systems will be installed on the two vessels before they enter service on “several fronts.” 

Despite Bohbot’s comments, Maariv newspaper reported on Wednesday that the Israeli army is losing its readiness to launch an all-out war against Lebanon and Hezbollah because its forces have been worn out from almost 300 days of fighting in Gaza. 

Hezbollah released the third episode of its “Hoopoe” series on 24 July, revealing recent drone footage of the sensitive and strategic Ramat David Airbase and several other important sites it is capable of striking in the event of all-out war with Israel.

The Lebanese resistance group has recently struck new Israeli settlements not previously targeted in response to assassinations and indiscriminate Israeli attacks on south Lebanon. 

Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has warned Israel that it is prepared to fight “without limits, rules, or restraints” if a wide-scale war is waged against Lebanon. 

In a speech on 17 July, Nasrallah responded to increased Israeli threats against Lebanon and to a recent Hebrew media report that Tel Aviv faces a significant shortage of tanks due to losses in Gaza, saying, “If your tanks come to Lebanon and its south, you will not suffer a shortage of tanks because you will have no tanks left.” 

THE SURRENDER OF “EL MAYO” ZAMBADA AND JOAQUIN GUZMAN LOPEZ

The agreed surrender of the man considered the last drug trafficker of the “older” or “founding” generation of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, almost 80 years old, and one of the sons of “El Chapo” Guzman, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, to the United States Department of Justice in El Paso, Texas, has several interpretations and considerations.

The fact that the most wanted drug lord, after “El Chapo” Guzman, has decided to surrender to the United States authorities, together with one of the sons of his former compadre, implies two possible hypotheses.

First, “El Mayo” Zambada lost the internal power struggle with other members of the Sinaloa cartel, significantly, the other two sons of “El Chapo,” Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, as well as with “El Chapo’s” brother, Aureliano Guzmán Loera.

Unconfirmed versions indicate that “El Mayo” was firmly opposed to the export of fentanyl to the United States, since this would cause an unusual reaction from the authorities in Washington, due to the overdose deaths that this substance is causing in the neighboring country, which could well even mean the possible dismantling of the cartel.

On the other hand, the Guzmán Salazar brothers and the brother of “El Chapo” were in favor of continuing with the export of millions of fentanyl pills to the United States.

If this hypothesis is true, “El Mayo”, given his advanced age and given that his son has been in prison in the United States for years, preferred to surrender to the DEA and the Department of Justice, as a “protected witness” to reveal the cartel's activities in the export of fentanyl, in exchange for his son being given a reduced sentence and/or more favorable treatment for him and his son in American prisons.

In this context, it would be assumed that Joaquín Guzmán López (brother of Ovidio Guzmán López arrested in 2023), half-brother of the Guzmán Salazar brothers, would also agree with the position of “El Mayo” and having lost influence and power within the cartel, he also decided to agree to surrender to the American authorities.

Second, it could also be that the entire operation was a strategy by the cartel itself to make the most of a situation that has been deteriorating, as both the United States and Mexican authorities have reinforced their actions against fentanyl smuggling, and this has seriously affected the operations of the Sinaloa cartel, which is also in a fight to the death against the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel to control both the northern border of Mexico and the border between Chiapas and Guatemala.

In this sense, the cartel would have been willing to sacrifice two of its leaders (they could be the weakest within the cartel leadership), to reduce the pressure from the United States authorities and even suspend fentanyl exports to the United States, waiting for what happens in the presidential elections in that country; as well as the change of federal administration in Mexico starting next October 1st.

This second hypothesis seems weaker, but not entirely ruled out.

Likewise, the handover of “Mayo” Zambada could mean a risk for the outgoing president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has been consistently accused in Mexico and abroad of having intentionally protected the illegal activities of the Sinaloa cartel, which López Obrador has always emphatically denied; since “El Mayo” could reveal compromising information about the current Mexican government and previous governments to the United States authorities, in case federal, state and local officials were linked to the Cartel.

This agreed-upon surrender of two important Mexican drug traffickers from one of the two major drug cartels in Mexico is great news for the Joe Biden government and for the presumed nominee for the Democratic Party nomination, Kamala Harris, since the Republican candidate Donald Trump and his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance have harshly criticized the current Democratic administration and the Mexican government for the crisis of fentanyl overdose deaths in the United States, and have even threatened to launch military operations against the cartels on Mexican territory, if they win the presidential elections.

However, this surrender only buys the Biden and López Obrador governments some time, since Trump and Vance will not stop pressing on this issue and on that of illegal migration to the United States throughout the electoral campaign, until November 5, the day of the presidential elections.

Doesn't matter if Biden, Harris, or Trump: Palestinians say US remains main sponsor of Israel's Gaza genocide

On Sunday, Biden dropped out of the US presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's new nominee.

Sally Ibrahim

Gaza

24 July, 2024

https://www.newarab.com/news/doesnt-matter-if-biden-or-harris-us-sponsors-israels-gaza-war

Regardless of who is in power in the United States, Palestinians are extremely pessimistic that there will be any fundamental shift in US policy about Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, including pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire in the coastal enclave.

In separate interviews with The New Arab, Palestinians in the war-torn besieged coastal enclave say that the US is a "primary partner in this war of extermination" and without its support, "Israel would not have succeeded in destroying the Gaza Strip and killing such large numbers of people."

"The US is the primary sponsor of Israel; it is Zionist, and looks after its interests via this criminal state without a care for human rights, international laws, or universal standards," one Palestinian in Gaza remarked to TNA. 

On Sunday, Joe Biden dropped out of the US presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's new nominee—a stunning move that upended the 2024 race for the White House.

The 81-year-old Biden stepped aside after weeks of pressure from Democrats following a disastrous debate performance, throwing the election battle against Republican Donald Trump into unprecedented turmoil.

"While I have intended to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden said in a letter published on social media platform X while recovering from Covid at his beach house in Delaware.

Republicans and Democrats, two sides of the same coin

Over the years, more and more Palestinians have become extremely disgruntled with the United States and believe that they won't be able to achieve justice and peace as long as the superpower remains sole mediator over the question of Palestine. 

At one point there was much hope. In November 2008, former President Barack Obama assumed the US presidency to be the first African-American president. At that time, the Palestinians truly believe that he might be the refuge that would save them from the "ongoing Israeli criminality."

"But unfortunately, we were very disappointed," Mohammad Al-Safadi, a Palestinian from Gaza, said to TNA. Israel launched a large-scale war on the Gaza Strip that lasted for more than 50 days in 2014, killing of thousands of Palestinians and destroying thousands of homes and civilian infrastructure.

"I cannot forget the shameful silence by Obama […] We hoped that he would understand our suffering because he comes from a community that was subjected to persecution, killing, and racism […] Unfortunately, he did nothing but work for Israeli interests," the 65-year-old father of ten said. 

"Whichever party wins in America, whether Republican or Democrat, this will not challenge American foreign policy, which is to care for Israel's interests in the Middle East and expand its control and power in the Palestinian territories and across the Arab world."

A similar sentiment was shared by Rula Abdul Rahman, a Palestinian from the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, when Obama gave his full support to Israel's war in 2014. The 49-year-old mother of four lost her entire family during that war after the Israeli army attacked their home while she was on duty as a nurse in Al-Shifa hospital. 

"In every war that Israel wages and I provide first aid to the victims, the first thing that comes to my mind is America and its endless support for Israel, that it is the real killer before Israel," she remarked.

'No radical change'

There are rare moment in which Kamala Harris has criticized Israel's military approach in its current genocidal war on Gaza. In March, she said that Israel is "not doing enough" to alleviate the "humanitarian catastrophe" due to its ground invasion of a coastal enclave.

Nevertheless, Palestinian political analysts unanimously agree that is US unlikely to change its foreign policy approach towards the Middle East for the sake of the "Gaza file."

If there is a Harris foreign policy do we call it Biden-lite?

The VP has largely hued to the president's agenda but there are a few glimmers of hope.

DANIEL LARISON

JUL 23, 2024

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/kamala-harris-foreign-policy/?

Now that President Joe Biden has made the unprecedented decision to end his reelection campaign and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president, we need to ask: what will be her foreign policy if she wins in November?

It is safe to assume that there will be broad continuity with the Biden administration’s overall approach to the world, but there is some evidence that Harris might guide U.S. foreign policy in a somewhat less destructive direction than where it has been going under Biden.

First off, Harris did not run for president in 2020 on foreign policy and has relatively little foreign policy experience from her short time in the Senate and her tenure as vice president. While she has cast a number of tie-breaking votes in favor of Biden’s domestic agenda in the Senate, she has played a smaller role in foreign policy by representing the U.S. at international meetings that the president has been unable to attend. She was tasked by Biden to focus on the “root causes” in Latin America leading to the undocumented migrant issue at the nation’s southern border, drawing mixed reviews at best.

Meanwhile, her voting record in the Senate offers some bright spots, including her opposition to U.S. backing for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and her early opposition to arms deals with Riyadh. She joined with her Democratic colleagues in objecting to Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and she has been generally supportive of arms control and nonproliferation measures.

During her 2020 presidential run, she signaled openness to “rewrit[ing] the Authorization for Use of Military Force that governs our current military conflicts.” And while Harris has a history of close ties to AIPAC, she called Trump’s Iran nuclear deal exit “reckless” during the 2020 campaign and vowed to re-enter the JCPOA as president.

But no one should expect any radical overhauls under Harris. She is a conventional liberal internationalist for better or worse. There are some hints that she might have a different approach to the war in Gaza than Biden, but these have mostly been differences in tone rather than major disagreements over policy so far. In contrast to the president, Harris has shown more genuine empathy for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. She also called for a ceasefire earlier than Biden did, but on the whole she has followed the administration’s script as one would expect from a vice president.

Harris has indeed been required by her position as vice president to be a vocal supporter of the president’s policy agenda, so to some extent we will have to wait to find out what Harris’s own views are and how much they might differ from Biden’s. This is definitely the case for the Ukraine War where she has been in absolute lockstep with the president if she talks about it at all. In her remarks at the Munich Security Conference, she echoed the administration’s framing of this as a war between democracy and autocracy:

"No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity; where a country with imperialist ambitions can go unchecked.

"Our response to the Russian invasion is a demonstration of our collective commitment to uphold international rules and norms. Rules and norms which, since the end of World War Two, have provided unprecedented security and prosperity not only for the American people, not only for the people of Europe, but people around the world…

"Again, the United States will continue to strongly support Ukraine. And we will do so for as long as it takes."

Her previous opposition to backing the Saudi coalition in Yemen suggests that she might be more open to curtailing or ending U.S. support for the war in Gaza, but that remains to be seen. Given all of Biden’s political headaches in swing states like Michigan, the war in Gaza is clearly one issue where Harris would stand to benefit by breaking with current administration policy.

Some of the former government officials that resigned in protest over U.S. support for the war in Gaza are cautiously optimistic about Harris. After Biden’s unconditional backing for the war, any alternative is an improvement in their eyes. Josh Paul, the first State Department official to resign in protest, told Politico, “I would say I have cautious and limited optimism — but also a deep sense of relief that the Democratic party will not be nominating for the Presidency of the United States a man who has made us all complicit in so much and such unnecessary harm.”

The vice president reportedly depends heavily on her foreign policy advisers, so it is worth looking more closely at the thinking of her current national security adviser, Philip Gordon, who would presumably serve in that capacity if Harris is elected.

Gordon is a Clinton and Obama administration veteran with a background in working on European and Middle Eastern issues. He was one of the U.S. negotiators responsible for securing the JCPOA. After leaving government, he became one of the deal’s most vocal defenders.

Gordon has demonstrated that he understands the Iranian government better than a lot of his colleagues, and that could be very useful in reviving negotiations with Iran under its new reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian.

Gordon has absorbed some of the important lessons from U.S. foreign policy failures, including the disastrous interventions in the Middle East and North Africa and has written about those lessons at length in his book, “Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East.” The book reviews the history of major U.S. regime change policies of the last 70 years and in each case Gordon shows how the policies ended up leaving both the U.S. and the affected countries worse off.

It is notable that he criticized destructive Obama administration interventions just as sharply as he did the policies of other presidents. Some analysts see Gordon’s role as Harris’s top adviser as an encouraging sign that her foreign policy could be an improvement over Biden’s. Bourse & Bazaar CEO Esfandyar Batmanghelidj commented, “[Gordon] would be a big upgrade on Sullivan, especially when it comes to thoughtful approaches to the US role in the Middle East.”

There probably wouldn’t be many departures from Biden administration foreign policy under Harris. As Biden’s vice president and would-be successor, Harris has strong incentives to continue with his agenda. That said, there are a few reasons to hope that U.S. foreign policy could be smarter and more constructive if Harris takes Gordon’s best advice to heart.