ARE ISRAELI ACTIONS IN THE GAZA DESIGNED TO PROVOKE WAR WITH IRAN?

Since the recent failure of the Israelis and the US to provoke war with the Iranians by attacking Lebanon, Israel has had to think again about how they and the Americans can provoke or at least find some excuse for them to justify an attack on Iran before the US midterm elections in order to revive Bush’s rapidly diminishing chances of actually retaining control of Congress. Now, it seems, the right-wing Israel Zionist government thinks it may have come up with an answer.

The Israeli right-wing Zionist propaganda website Debkafile has recently claimed that the Hamas Interior Minister, Said Siyam, had met with his Iranian counterpart, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, in Tehran where arrangements were made, so Debkafile reports, “…to transform Hamas’ military wing, the Ezz e-Din al Qassam, into a crack operational arm of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and Gaza into a second Lebanon.”[1] As if to compound this story a recent report in the UK Telegraph states that Hamas is threatening to break the ceasefire it has with the Israelis if the Israelis continue their attacks in the Gaza.[2] Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post adds fuel to the fire by reporting that, “Hamas is smuggling advanced weaponry including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles into the Gaza Strip, changing the tactical military picture there, the head of the IDF intelligence directorate's research department told the cabinet on Sunday.”[3]

One need not have too many guesses as to where these weapons are coming from. The finger of blame is being firmly pointed either directly or by inference at Iran.

Already the level of Israeli activity in the Gaza is being drastically raised with some 22 Palestinians, many of them civilians, having been killed in recent days as Israeli aircraft launched missile attacks on Palestinians suspected as being militants. All it would take now is for Hamas to react with some new weapon, real or imagined by Israel’s propaganda machine, for the Israelis to accuse Iran as being directly involved in Palestinian ‘terrorism’ for Israel and the US to justify an attack on Iran.


ENDNOTES
[1] Special Military Report, ‘Tehran Arms Hamas for a Double-Barreled War Option and Gaza as Second Lebanon’, Debkafile.com, 13 October 2006. Available online: http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1219 Accessed 16 October 2006.
[2] Tim Butcher, ‘Hamas threatens to break ceasefire after Israeli air strikes’, UK Telegraph, 16 October 2006. Available online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/16/wmid16.xml Accessed 16 October 2006.
[3] Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz, ‘IDF: Military picture in Gaza changing’, The Jerusalem Post, 15 October 2006. Available online: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1159193447059&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Accessed 16 October 2006.