THE protracted asymmetrical warfare between Israeli defence forces and Palestinian Hamas has been causing immense insecurity in the entire region since October 2023. The Biden Administration seems serious about the ceasefire due to the presidential elections in the United States in November 2024, but Prime Minister Netanyahu and his religiously radicalized allies in the Israeli Parliament are striving for unconditional victory for their political survival. Washington’s dual approach—rhetorically supporting the ceasefire and simultaneously providing gigantic military assistance to Israel—has stimulated hysterical Netanyahu brutality, which has converted the entire region into a tinderbox waiting to ignite. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s radicalized cabinet members seem against the restoration of peace between Israel and Hamas. They are employing every tactic to prolong the war. Recently, Israel’s hardline Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, repeated a call for Jews to be allowed to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. He said, “The policy allows prayers on the Temple Mount; there is equal law between Jews and Muslims – I would build a synagogue there.” The building of a synagogue is against the Israeli law. For decades, non-Muslim prayer at the mosque compound has been banned. Indeed, the announcement to build a synagogue is an attempt to ensure hardliners’ support for the Netanyahu government.
The United States’ Western and regional allies have been trapped in a complex situation: attempting to convince Tel Aviv to a ceasefire without terminating its military assistance. Recently, they sponsored the peace talks, which concluded without any substantial outcome. The talks aimed to secure an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank and ensure unrestricted humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Americans and their allies’ decades of strategy to pursue their geopolitical interests under the pretext of safeguarding and promoting international law, human rights, and freedom have been completely exposed. They have failed to protect the genocide of innocent Palestinians during the last ten months. Consequently, the unrestrained, blood-strained Israeli campaign killed over 40500 Palestinians in Gaza and has also exposed the limits of the International Rule of Law in the realpolitik of contemporary geopolitics. On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, the United Nations top legal organ, decided(the Court voted 16-1) in favour of humanity and international law, but practically impotent to halt the butchering of Palestinians by Israel Defense Force. Israel continues to act with impunity due to its Western backers.
Netanyahu and his frenetic cohorts are determined to escalate the Gaza war horizontally and vertically. They are convinced that the spread of the conflict to the entire Middle East automatically dragged the United States and Western powers into the war, entailing the establishment of Israeli hegemony in West Asia. Therefore, Israel committed criminal assassinations and violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran and Lebanon. On July 31, 2024, Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran announced to take revenge for the killing of its state guest at the occasion of the newly elected President Masoud Pezeshk’s inauguration ceremony. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our house and made us bereaved. It also prepared the ground for a harsh punishment for itself.” Iran’s retaliatory action is awaited. The assassination of Fouad Shukr of Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon, on July 31, 2024, has caused it-for-tat strikes, driving closer to a new full-blown conflict between the Hezbollah militia and Israel. On August 25, Hezbollah launched over 300 rockets at the Glilot base of the 8200 intelligence unit near Tel Aviv and four targets in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel also did mammoth pre-emptive airstrikes to neutralize Hezbollah’s striking assets at the pre-launch positions to minimize the damage. Nevertheless, tensions are simmering dangerously, potentially exploding into another all-out war.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombing completely ruined the Palestinian homeland and displaced millions in Gaza and the West Bank. Despite the colossal IDF brutalities, the Hamas fighter’s resilience to struggle to liberate their people from the Israeli yoke remains intact. This commitment to the cause has exposed the limits of the Israeli superior weaponry, intelligence gathering, and operational reach and also terrorized Israeli society. The general public in Israel is experiencing the heat of Hamas and its like-minded groups (axis of resistance) conventional, low-tech, coordinated and multi-front attacks from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. To conclude, the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians testifies that the United States and its allies prefer their geostrategic interests instead of protecting human rights and preventing the genocide of innocent Palestinians. Instead of levying an arms embargo on Israel and questioning and stopping the hysterical Netanyahu brutality, the US sanctioned his license to kill innocent people by the military build-up and aircraft carrier strike group deployment to the Mediterranean to coagulate Israeli deterrence.
—The writer is Prof at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University.
