ANOTHER PUSH FOR WAR AGAINST IRAN

It has got to the point that the only way the US is likely to go to war against Iran – albeit reluctantly – is if Israel attacks Iran first. Any hope by the Zionists and their supporters of the US making a pre-emptive strike against Iran have long gone.

The Israeli-Palestinian stand-off has reached a stalemate as far as talks are concerned. The Israelis are never going to allow a Palestinian state to exist and the Palestinians are never going to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. It was all very inevitable. As a result, the Palestinians have adopted a new strategy of building an alliance with Hamas and seeking membership of a number of international conventions as a step toward recognition as a nation by the international community. These are moves that tend to marginalise and even delegitimize Israel especially if Israel takes steps to counter these moves. The Palestinians have also adopted a strategy of not resorting to violence to counter Israeli aggression and expansionism into the West Bank. In short, the table seems to have turned against Israel and, as Israel’s aggression against Palestinians has become exposed, so world opinion has swung against the Zionist cause.

Israel has painted itself into a corner. It has tried to provoke war against the Palestinians in the Gaza by randomly shooting unarmed civilians. A few rockets have been fired into Israel in futile retaliation but nowhere near enough to provide Israel with an excuse to launch a full on attack and occupation. In the West Bank the Israelis have threatened more settlement building. But the Palestinians generally have not reacted with the kind of violence the Israelis needed to justify harsher measures. The new strategies are frustrating the Israeli right-wing. As a result the Israelis are once again looking to Iran to provide a casus belli for a war that will provide them with an opportunity to realise the Zionist dream of a Greater Israel.

Elliott Abrams writing, in the neoconservative Weekly Standard magazine, reiterates Israel’s position. He tells how once again Netanyahu threatens action against Iran. Abrams says that, while Netanyahu has made this threat many times before, this time he has support from senior Israeli security chiefs who in the past have been hesitant in attacking Iran.

As the tide turns against Israel, so Netanyahu will become increasingly desperate to do something turn things around. A war against Iran based on what Israel sees as Iran’s intransigence over its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ might well become Netanyahu’s final option pinning all his hopes on the US coming to his aid to prevent Iranian retaliation.

It will be a bad move for the Middle East, for the world and not least for Israel.