Israel’s escalation of its Gaza war into a wider regional conflagration is wholly intentional. Its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza was never about the release of the hostages or indeed about eliminating Hamas, a prospect even many Israeli officials advised was improbable. Within days of the Hamas attacks, Israeli leaders indicated their ambitions, publicly proclaiming their intention to displace the entire Gaza population, with many ministers discussing resettling the enclave.
Exploiting political and election concerns both internally and in the US, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Yemen and Iran are an extension of this endeavour.
It distracts from Israel’s failure in Gaza while providing a cloak to allow it to commit further atrocities in both Gaza and the West Bank, as already witnessed in recent days. It is also a dangerous gamble to draw the US into a wider war with Iran.
That this has been allowed to happen is an indictment of the utter moral depravity, deviousness and complicity of Israel’s main backer, the US. The one person who can stop this descent into what one dovish US official calls a “nihilistic regional murder spree” is President Joe Biden. When Taoiseach Simon Harris meets him he must demand, on behalf of the Irish people and indeed of all humanity, that his government stops facilitating this barbaric, apocalyptic slaughter.
JIM ROCHE, Dublin 1
