Questions that must be asked

Why, in the midst of critical negotiations to implement President Biden’s plan for a ceasefire in Gaza, release of Israelis held captive by Hamas and many Palestinians held by Israel, and movement toward a negotiated permanent end to the conflict, would Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu decide to assassinate the chief Hamas negotiator? And why, while the US says it was working to deescalate tensions with Lebanon’s Hizbollah, would Israel choose escalation by assassinating Hizbollah’s number two?

We know the answers to both questions: Benjamin Netanyahu is not interested in peace. He does not want a negotiated deal to release hostages and end the war on Gaza, nor to deescalate the conflict there or in the north with Hizbollah. And he most certainly does not want a “two-state solution”, granting the Palestinian people independence in their own sovereign state.

Netanyahu does want two things that are perversely connected. Above all, he desperately wants to remain in office, because should he lose his post as prime minister, the prosecution of corruption charges against him will continue in full force. As the charges are so serious and the evidence so clear, he will likely be convicted and humiliated. This is not speculation, it is widely discussed in Israel, and when President Biden was asked recently, “Is Netanyahu prolonging the war for political reasons?” he responded, “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

The second reason is that Netanyahu wants the war to continue and even be accelerated. His remarks before Congress and a recent address to the Israeli public made this clear. He seeks “total victory”, defined as more than the military defeat of Israel’s enemies. Without acknowledging any Israeli culpability, he charged Palestinians with creating a hate-filled culture requiring massive deradicalisation in the post-war period, with the outcome of Palestinians accepting Jewish hegemony in Eretz Israel and understanding their place as a conquered, subordinate people.

This messianic Zionist vision which has long driven Netanyahu he now sees as possible, but only if Israel’s enemies, Iran and its surrogates, are brought to heel and if Israel can involve the US in their regional conquest.

Netanyahu’s worldview raises several additional questions that must be considered. Knowing that Netanyahu never accepted the Biden plan’s terms, why has the President continued to call it “Israel’s plan” and placed the burden on Hamas to accept it? Knowing that Netanyahu’s unwilling to make any peace agreement for fear of losing his other extremist coalition partners (who’ve threatened to abandon his government for accepting any terms leading to peace), why do we continue to dance around that fact? Why hasn’t the administration condemned the assassinations in Beirut and Iran knowing they’ll surely sabotage the negotiators’ efforts? Why, knowing Netanyahu has no intention of completing a deal to release those held captive, do we continue to allow him to exploit their families’ pain, pretending that negotiations are close to completion when they aren’t? And why, knowing Netanyahu’s extremist coalition partners’ demands and actions are wreaking havoc in the West Bank and Jerusalem, terrorising Palestinians, annexing land, building settlements and erasing the possibility of Palestinian self-determination, has our response been so passive and tolerant?

Let us be clear: Hamas and Hizbollah are not good actors.  The former was born of the brutal and sustained Israeli occupation Palestinian land, nurtured by Israel to create division in the Palestinian ranks, and fueled by Israel’s ruthless decades-long strangulation of Gaza’s population. The latter was born of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and its corrupt sectarian system that denied the Shia community adequate representation. It was fuelled by Israel’s decades-long occupation of Lebanon’s south and massive devastation of the country’s infrastructure in 2006. Both have certainly engaged in condemnable actions. But to criticise only them, while absolving Israel of its far greater crimes, is hypocritical at best.

If the US were serious about ending conflict in the region, instead of turning a blind eye to Israel’s behaviors deliberately designed to provoke more war, we need to get serious about holding Israel accountable. This leads to one final question: Why, when we continue to massively supply Israel with weapons and block all efforts to sanction their deplorable behaviors, do we expect that anything will change?

The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute