Is it Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to drag the US into a war with Iran?

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Updated 02 November 2024
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Is it Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal to drag the US into a war with Iran?

  • Ithaca College Professor Jeff Cohen says Israeli PM is ‘close to succeeding’ in drawing the US into a full-scale conflict with Iran
  • ‘Intentional’ targeting of medical professionals will set healthcare in Gaza and Lebanon ‘way back,’ says Dr. Zaher Sahloul

CHICAGO: A prominent American academic with decades of expertise in Israeli politics believes the year of violence in Gaza and the expansion of the conflict into Lebanon are designed to pull the US into a direct war with Iran.

During a taping of “The Ray Hanania Radio Show” on Thursday, former Ithaca College Professor Jeff Cohen said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intentions have been evident for some time, even suggesting that if Hamas had not attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Netanyahu would have found another pretext to blame Iran, in an effort to draw the US into a broader regional conflict with Israel’s longstanding adversary.

“It’s this one-sidedness that empowers the right wing in Israel. We (the US) are not arming Hamas, we are not arming Iran. We arm Israel. And no matter what they do with those weapons, in violation of US law, they just keep getting more weapons and more ammunition and more bombs to kill innocent civilians,” Cohen said.




In this file photo, an Israeli artillery crew prepares shells at a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The US has been Israel’s primary military backer in the ongoing conflict, with nearly $23 billion spent in support of its war on Gaza and operations against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, according to a report by Brown University’s Watson Institute. When adjusted for inflation, total economic and military aid to Israel since its founding in 1946 rises to $310 billion.

Cohen, who is Jewish, highlighted the deeply entrenched relationship between the US and Israel.

“We have to stop arming Israel. And there needs to be a solution from the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli leadership. There has to be equality on both sides,” Cohen said, adding that “what we’re moving toward” is the opposite of what should be pursued and would eventually lead to the US being dragged into a wider, regional conflict.




Israeli army soldiers sit by a deployed infantry-fighting vehicle (IFV) at a position along the border with Lebanon in northern Israel on October 1, 2024. (AFP)

On Oct. 7, people around the world held vigils and protests to mark first anniversary of a Hamas-led attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. The Palestinian militant group and its allies killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages to then Hamas-controlled Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed so far and most of the 2.3-million-strong population displaced by Israel’s retaliatory attacks, according to Gaza health authorities.

Cohen argued that Netanyahu, who has repeatedly claimed that Iran funded and coordinated the Hamas-led assault of Oct. 7 and Hezbollah’s rocket attacks, has long sought to push the US into a war with Iran.

“He’s very close to succeeding,” he said, noting that Iran is often portrayed as the root of all regional problems.

On Friday, the Biden administration announced fresh sanctions targeting Iran’s energy trade following an attack on Oct. 1 launched by the country against Israel, involving nearly 200 ballistic missiles. It was Iran’s second such attack on Israel this year, after it launched about 300 missiles and drones in April, both conducted in response to killings of high-level Iranian, Hamas and Hezbollah officials thought to have been carried out by Israel.

Cohen, the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, argues that “bias” in the mainstream American media has heavily influenced coverage of the conflict, reinforcing US support for Israel regardless of its military actions, while marginalizing Palestinian voices.




Jeff Chen, retired associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College in New York. (Supplied)

“My main message as someone who worked in mainstream media and taught journalism at college is we have to, as journalists, understand that all lives matter. That Palestinian lives are as important as Israeli lives,” said Cohen, referencing the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza.

“You don’t get that from the US news media. You get it in a lot of other countries that all lives matter including Palestinians. In our country (the US), it’s just Israeli lives. Israeli suffering. Israeli deaths. Israeli hostages.

“There are far more Palestinian detainees who are in many ways ‘hostages.’ They aren’t charged. They’re tortured. They’re abused. There’s thousands and thousands of them, including children.”




The Israeli army has said it has deployed a third troop grouping at division strength to participate in ongoing operations in southern Lebanon. (AFP)

Cohen argued that while violence is often attributed solely to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, with Israeli victims predominantly highlighted by mainstream media, the history of terrorism in the Middle East traces back to Zionist extremists operating before the founding of the State of Israel.

“We have to understand, and any historian of Israel knows, there were Israeli terrorists, before the State of Israel, trying to bring a state into existence. They bombed the King David hotel. They killed civilians. They killed British civilians,” said Cohen, citing Jewish extremist groups from the 1940s led by future Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who opposed Palestinian statehood.

“If you’re an oppressed group and you’re a stateless group, there will be people within your community turning to violence. The only way to prevent that is peace and justice for all sides,” he said.

Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into Israeli cities from Lebanon on Oct. 8 last year in solidarity with Palestinian militant groups, and Hamas, which Israel is still fighting in Gaza, are two members of an alliance of Iran-funded militias that also operate in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza erupted last October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors. Similarly, Iraqi militias vowed since October 7 to support Hamas’s war effort and have launched hundreds of rocket and drone attacks at Israeli cities and US military bases in the region.

Indiscriminate violence against civilians, as well as targeted attacks on media workers and medical professionals, have become a central issue in protests and discussions surrounding the conflict. These groups, often viewed as “intentional targets,” are seen as part of a broader strategy to force civilian displacement in both Gaza and Lebanon.




Dr. Zaher Sahloul, founder of the non-profit MedGlobal. (AFP)

In a separate segment of the “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” Dr. Zaher Sahloul, founder of the non-profit MedGlobal, which provides medical support to civilians caught up in conflicts in the Middle East, South America, and Ukraine, remarked that the number of medical professionals killed and hospitals destroyed by Israeli bombings has reached “unprecedented levels.”

“There are new norms, if we can call it that way, that are now being created, especially in Gaza and now in Lebanon,” said Sahloul. “And we’ve seen that in Syria and a little bit in Ukraine, where you have hospitals, doctors and ambulances targeted intentionally to cause displacement and deprive communities of healthcare.”

According to UN statistics, more than 600 medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and first responders, have been killed in Gaza, while 39 hospitals have been bombed and 97 medics killed in Lebanon over the last two weeks.




A man pushes an injured boy in a wheelchair past the destroyed al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on September 17, 2024. Once the crown jewel of Gaza's proud medical community, the Palestinian territory's main Al-Shifa hospital has become a stark symbol of the utter devastation wrought by the Israel-Hamas war. (AFP)

“You didn’t see these numbers in previous conflicts,” Sahloul said. If Israel is not held to account for violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, he said such war crimes would only persist.

“It looks like it’s becoming the norm. There is no accountability. When there is no accountability, murderers tend to repeat the crime,” he said. “These attacks on healthcare in Gaza and Lebanon are not just collateral damage. They are intentional. And they are causing more harm and, of course, displacement of the population.”

Both Article 9 of the Geneva Convention and the statutes of the International Committee of the Red Cross classify the killing of medical personnel as a war crime. Sahloul argued that Israel’s current operations in Gaza, and similar tactics being employed in Lebanon, exceed what is justified, designed to hasten the displacement of civilians.

Israel has denied deliberately targeting medical facilities, but has accused both Hamas and Hezbollah of commandeering civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and residential buildings to coordinate attacks and store weapons, using their occupants as human shields.




A man looks at destroyed buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, on  Oct. 7, 2024. (AP)

The Israeli military has released photos and videos purporting to show these weapons depots as well as underground tunnels since it launched its military operations last year.

Sahloul, who has led numerous medical missions to conflict zones, pointed out the devastating long-term impact of losing key medical professionals.

“It is not normal. And imagine how long it will take to get a doctor, to become a physician. You know, it takes 30 years of education and then specialization. If you remove a surgeon or a head of department in Gaza or in Lebanon, it’s very difficult to replace them. It takes years and generations to replace these doctors.

“And if you bomb their hospitals and universities, that means this will set healthcare in Gaza and other places way, way back.”




A man standing atop a heavily damaged building views other destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2024 on the first anniversary of the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

He also criticized the mainstream media for its lack of coverage on this aspect of the conflict.

“The media, of course, is not giving justice to this,” he said. “There were bits and pieces, especially at the beginning of the war in Gaza. But after that the media, for some reason, turned away from what’s going on in Gaza. It is inhumane. It is immoral. It’s unethical to ignore this, but for some reason, the media is not paying attention.”

“The Ray Hanania Radio Show” is broadcast every Thursday on the US Arab Radio Network on WNZK AM 690 Radio in Michigan Thursday at 5 PM EST, and again the following Monday at 5 PM. The show is sponsored by Arab News and is available by podcast at ArabNews.com.rayradioshow or at Facebook.com/ArabNews.
 

 


Egypt, Iran foreign ministers discuss rising Middle East tensions to avert regional war

Updated 24 min 24 sec ago
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Egypt, Iran foreign ministers discuss rising Middle East tensions to avert regional war

CAIRO: Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty has reiterated to his Iranian counterpart on Monday the urgency of de-escalating Middle East tensions to avert a regional war. 
During a phone call, Abdelatty discussed with Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi Egypt’s concerns of allowing the region to descend  into a full-scale regional war amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
Araghchi has met with Cairo officials last month in what was considered the first visit by a top Iranian official to the North African nation in around a decade.

The visit focused on efforts to deescalate Israel’s conflicts against Gaza and Lebanon.


Two Iran Guards killed in helicopter crash in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 04 November 2024
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Two Iran Guards killed in helicopter crash in province bordering Pakistan

  • “Ultra-light gyroplane” met accident while conducting combat operations in Sistan-Baluchestan
  • Province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and Baloch rebels

TEHRAN: An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and pilot were killed in a helicopter crash during an anti-terror operation in the country’s restive southeast, state media reported on Monday.

The “ultra-light gyroplane” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “had an accident while conducting combat operations” in a border area, IRNA news agency said.

It said the crash happened in Sirkan, a city in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and identified the dead as General Hamid Mazandarani, the commander of the Nineveh Brigade of Golestan province, and Hamed Jandaghi, a pilot of the IRGC ground forces.

Iran’s armed forces have been mounting an operation in the region since October 26, when 10 police officers were killed in an attack claimed by Sunni Muslim militants.

They have killed several militants and arrested others during the operation, according to Iranian media outlets.

Sistan-Baluchistan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is one of the most impoverished provinces in the Islamic republic.

It is home to a large number of the Baloch minority, an ethnic group spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who practice Sunni Islam in contrast to the country’s predominantly Shiite population.

The province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and rebels from the Baloch minority, radical Sunni groups and drug traffickers.

Helicopter accidents are a rare sight in Iran, but former president Ebrahim Raisi was killed when his helicopter crashed into a mountainside in May, triggering snap elections in the country.

The ultra-conservative president was accompanied by then foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other people who were all killed.


Jordan, UN aid body discusses urgent needs in Palestinian refugee camps

Updated 04 November 2024
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Jordan, UN aid body discusses urgent needs in Palestinian refugee camps

  • Israel’s actions against UN workers condemned by Jordan, other officials

AMMAN: Jordan’s Department of Palestinian Affairs and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East held talks on Sunday to address the growing needs and challenges of the displaced and vulnerable in camps across the country.

During the meeting, Department of Palestinian Affairs Director-General Rafiq Khirfan condemned what he described as a “systematic campaign and political assassination” aimed at weakening UNRWA’s role, according to reports.

He pointed to Tel Aviv’s recent actions, including a decision by the Israeli Knesset to restrict UNRWA activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, such as East Jerusalem, and to withdraw diplomatic privileges from its staff.

Khirfan said the measures were a violation of international law and an attempt to undermine UNRWA’s mission of supporting Palestinian refugees, advocating for their right to return, and compensation.

Despite these challenges, Khirfan underscored Jordan’s continued commitment to backing UNRWA at regional and international levels, recognizing the agency’s critical role in providing services and stability for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA’s Jordan Affairs Director Olaf Becker thanked Amman for the ongoing support of the agency’s work in the refugee camps.


Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon strike

Updated 41 min 59 sec ago
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Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon strike

  • Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an air strike
  • Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed

BEIRUT: The Israeli military said on Monday it had killed a top Hezbollah commander it accused of overseeing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an air strike, the military said, without specifying when he was killed.
Rida “was responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF (military) troops and oversaw the terrorist activities of Hezbollah operatives in the area,” the military said in a statement.
Israel has continued to pound Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the war between the two sides broke out in late September.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed on Monday, the latest attack in more than a month of war.
Hezbollah fighters launched a “big rocket salvo” at the city, the group said in a statement.

In recent weeks, Israel has killed several of the movement’s militant commanders and top leaders, including former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The war began after nearly a year of cross-border skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, with the Lebanese group firing rockets into northern Israel almost daily in support of its ally in Gaza, Hamas.
Israel is fighting its deadliest war in Gaza against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year.


Iran executes Jewish Iranian man in murder case: NGO

Updated 04 November 2024
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Iran executes Jewish Iranian man in murder case: NGO

  • Arvin Ghahremani was hanged in prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight
  • Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared

PARIS: Iran on Monday executed a member of the country’s Jewish minority who had been convicted of murder, an NGO said, at a time of rising tensions with Israel.
Arvin Ghahremani was hanged in prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight, said the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.
“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”
“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Islamic republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.
The once sizeable Jewish community in Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran has dwindled since the 1979 Islamic Revolution but remains the largest in the Middle East outside Israel.
While Jewish Iranians were executed in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the execution of a Jewish Iranian is unprecedented in recent years.
Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared.
His family urged the victim’s relatives to accept blood money under Iran’s Islamic law of retribution (qesas), which permits this alternative.
The Mizan Online website of the Iranian judiciary confirmed Ghahremani’s execution, saying the victim’s family had “refused to give consent” to such a deal.
Iran and Israel have traded unprecedented air attacks this year following the outbreak of Israel’s wars with armed groups backed by the Islamic republic in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.