By Yossi Schwartz, ISL the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 24.11.2021
There is no doubt that Netanyahu is corrupted, that his wife is mentally unbalanced and his son Yair is a fascist. Yet as we warned, the politics of a government led by Lapid, Gantz, Sa’ar, or Bennett will not be politically different. We were surprised of course by the fact that Bennett, with only six members of parliament, became the Prime Minister. As to our estimation of the new government, we were not wrong. A Zionist government cannot but reflect the nature of Israel: a settler colonialist’s state that with the massive support it got from imperialist states has become an imperialist state itself and the front line of imperialism in the region. A government that will do everything it can to annex most of the West Bank as part of an apartheid state and will attack Iran no matter what. At the same time, its policies are the anti-working class which is easy for them as the Jewish workers are not a threat to the capitalist class as they are prisoners of the Zionist racist ideology and their relative privileges comparing to the Palestinian workers.
To rationalize the support of the USA to the Zionist crimes it is necessary for the American ruling class to pretend that a two-state solution is still viable and to claim that Israel is not an apartheid state as long as it has not to annexed officially the West –Bank. However, Bennett’s government is not concerned with the image of the USA politicians of the Democratic party and has announced that Israel is in the process of constructing thousands of settlement houses in an area near Jerusalem to cut it from the West Bank. A step that will kill what has remained of the illusion that Israel will accept a mini-Palestinian state in the lands Israel occupied in 1967.
The possibility that the American workers, the poor, and the lower middle class will see the real nature of Israel as an apartheid state is worrying some American bourgeois politicians of the Democratic party.
“Over two dozen Democratic members of Congress sent a letter Monday to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to pressure Israel against the construction of thousands of settlement homes in an area near Jerusalem they said is vital for a viable future Palestinian state.” [i]
Blinken may say a few words criticizing Israel but these will be as usual empty words as the USA will send Israel more weapons and defend it politically and diplomatically.
Bennett’s government is also sabotaging the USA’s attempt to revive the nuclear deal with Iran.
“Prime Minister Naphtali Bennett has signaled a readiness to step up Israel’s confrontation with Iran, reiterating on Tuesday, his country would not be bound by any new Iranian nuclear deal with world powers. We face complicated times. There may be disputes with the best of our friends,” he told a televised conference hosted by Reichman University. In any event, even if there is a return to a deal, Israel is of course not a party to the deal and Israel is not obligated by the deal.” [ii]
To focus on the growing conflict with imperialist-Stalinist China the American imperialists need a deal with Iran and would like to stop Israel’s provocative actions against Iran.
“US officials have requested that Israel refrain from carrying out more attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities as negotiations in Vienna are due to start on November 29, The New York Times reported:
“ US officials have warned Israel that its attacks against the Iranian nuclear program are counterproductive and have enabled Tehran to rebuild an even more efficient enrichment system, the New York Times reported Sunday.” [iii]
This however does not change Bennett’s determination to attack Iran, a war that may ignite the entire Middle East and beyond. “Top Israeli officials on Tuesday called on world powers to take action against Iran, ahead of the scheduled resumption of nuclear talks in Vienna later this month, while warning that Jerusalem was prepared to act alone, if necessary, against the Islamic Republic“. [iv]
Not only has this but he blamed Netanyahu for not acting against Iran:
“Israel “fell asleep” after the signing of the JCPOA nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, Prime Minister Naphtali Bennett said Tuesday morning at Reichman University in Herzliya, in a swipe at his predecessor. “The mistake we made after the first nuclear deal in 2015 will not repeat itself,” said Bennett. “With all the noise beforehand, from the moment the deal was signed, it affected us like a sleeping pill. Israel simply fell asleep on duty. We occupied ourselves with other things. “We will learn from this mistake,” he pledged. “We will maintain our freedom of action.” [v]
Bennett, like Netanyahu, is a liar. In 2018 it was reported that Mossad stole nuclear secrets from a secure warehouse in Tehran in January 2018. According to reports, the agents came in a truck semi-trailer at midnight, cut into dozens of safes with high-intensity torches, and carted out 50,000 pages and 163 compact discs of memos, videos, and plans. In January 2017, the Israeli Air Force began flying almost daily attack missions against Iranian targets in Syria, dropping about 2,000 bombs in 2018 alone. Israeli airstrikes targeted Iran-backed militias in Iraq during 2019. In other words, except going to a full-fledged war, Netanyahu after 2015 carried out many provocations against Iran including the stealing of the allegedly secret documents in 2018.
So why is Bennett lying? Is he turning to the sentiments of the right-wing settlers in Israel and the supporters of Trump that may be the next president to solicit their support for a war against Iran? This government is upset with Biden’s administration and its message that the administration doesn’t want Israel to do anything that might interfere with the diplomatic plans of the United States or the nuclear schemes of Iran and stopped both its efforts at sabotaging Tehran’s program and threatening to take major military action. It is possible that Bennett thinks that the Biden’s administration is deserting its allies in the Middle East. So much for a “different government” than the previous one.
Since the US does not want to be involved in a war against Iran, the actions of Israel with other Arab regimes may “only” be the bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities and the murder of Iranian scientists, but such actions may lead to a major war. Israel may begin the war, but it is possible that Iran and its allies that encircle the Zionist state may finish it. Israel unlike Iran has a very powerful air force, but Iran and its allies have thousands of missiles and rockets. More importantly, while Iran can suffer many casualties Israel cannot. Such a war will cause destruction and a high level of death for both sides which may bring closer to the end of Israel. The Zionists are dreaming of another 1967 but Israel has not been able to win against Hezbollah or Hamas, which are weaker than Iran.
No other than former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said that the US 2018 withdrawal from the agreement was a disaster. “The US is stuttering today,” Pardo continued, noting aggressive moves by China and Russia against their neighbors, “and Iran sees this in the context of Taiwan and Belarus. The Iranians see this and are rubbing their hands together. Pardo also warned that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program would be far more complicated than the IAF’s successful attacks on Iraq’s and Syria’s reactors. “If it is not possible to close this business like we did in Operation Opera [against Iraq’s nuclear program in 1981], then we’d better think twice,” he said” [vi]
Iran in our opinion has the right to develop nuclear weapons in a world where the US and Israel according to the foreign press possess such weapons. Nevertheless, it is not sure that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. If it wanted to develop weapons of mass destruction, it had done so during the Iraq-Iran war of 8 years in response to the weapons of mass destruction provided by the USA that Iraq used.
“Before the fall of the Shah in 1979, Israel was involved in a multibillion-dollar project to modify advanced, surface-to-surface missiles for sale to Iran, according to documents said to have been left in Teheran by Israeli diplomats The Israelis told the Iranians that the missiles could be fitted with nuclear warheads” [vii]
It would not be difficult to get nuclear warheads from North Korea years ago. The West, from time to time, predicts that Iran is on the verge of making a nuclear weapon, but these predictions have been proven false.
In January 2011, Israel’s intelligence agency declared that Iran would be able to produce a nuclear weapon by 2015. “Israel believes Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear bomb before 2015 and a top Israeli official has counseled against pre-emptive military strikes, intelligence assessments published on Friday said ” [viii]
As we know this was a false claim. The nuclear program of Iran was launched in 1953, with the help of the US as part of the ‘Atoms for Peace Program’ that continued until the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. After 1979, the Iranian government suspended elements of the program, and later restored them.
“On 21 October 2003, both the Iranian government and the foreign ministers of the EU-3(Britain, France and Germany) issued a joint statement known as the Tehran Declaration, wherein Iran agreed to cooperate with the IAEA, by signing and implementing an Additional Protocol as a voluntary confidence building measure and suspending its enrichment and reprocessing activities During the course of the negotiations. The EU-3, agreed to recognize Iran’s nuclear rights, and to discuss ways in which Iran could provide ‘satisfactory assurances’ regarding its nuclear power program. On 11 April 2006, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had successfully enriched uranium. Iran’s first Nuclear Power Plant, Bushehr I Reactor, was inaugurated on 12 September 2011. The UNSC passed several consecutive resolutions against Iran without any proof from IAEA corroborating Iran’s pursuance of a nuclear weapons program. Not a party to the NPT (Non proliferation treaty), Israel is believed to possess the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal. Iran’s positions on Palestine and Lebanon have caused the hostility of Israel. Israeli officials have claimed that Iran’s nuclear program is an ‘existential threat’ to Israel, and Israeli leaders assert that ‘all options are kept open’ in dealing with Tehran. The threat has been compared to the holocaust. In June 2008, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister said, ‘if Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it.” [ix]
So, are the threats of Israel hot balloons? Possibly, but we do not think so. The tone of the threats is different, Israel conducted a lengthy military drill last month, and the new budget includes a large sum for a war. If Bennett’s government is perceived as weak against Iran, the Likud may return to power.
“Israelis for the most part do not see him as a leader but rather as a hired manager, perhaps even a temporary one, a type of stand-in for a real prime minister. Bennett has not yet reached the pinnacle from which Netanyahu governed for the past 12 years and 11 other premiers did before him. He is yet to be perceived as a national leader. The hate campaign against him on social media, mounted by Netanyahu acolytes, continues to impact public opinion. They call him “a con man” and “a charlatan,” and accuse him of stealing the premiership from voters and blackmailing his Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid in order to topple Netanyahu. To shake this monkey of hate off his shoulder, Bennett needs something else to help him climb to the top. This component has yet to emerge. The question is what will come first — his step up or a disaster that destabilizes the coalition and ends Naftali Bennett’s dreams far sooner than planned.” [x]
Israel would attack Iran nuclear facilities even if it was sure that Iran will use nuclear energy only for economic reasons. Why? because it wants to prevent Iran from advancing its technology and economy to keep its superiority in the region.
Israel, hands off Iran!
Down with the Zionist apartheid state!
For a Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.timesofisrael.com/dozens-of-us-lawmakers-urge-blinken-to-prevent-settlements-in-sensitive-e1-area/
[ii] https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjnstiuoy?prof=3082.ENews-1.Home%20nfrontation
[iii] https://www.timesofisrael.com/nyt-us-warns-israel-attacks-on-iran-nuclear-program-are-counterproductive/
[iv] https://www.timesofisrael.com/visiting-idf-exercise-bennett-and-gantz-say-israel-ready-to-act-against-iran/
[v] https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-israel-fell-asleep-after-2015-nuclear-deal-wont-be-bound-by-new-pact/
[vi] https://www.timesofisrael.com/there-was-no-strategic-debate-on-iran-under-netanyahu-ex-idf-intel-chief/
[vii] https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/01/world/documents-detail-israeli-missile-deal-with-the-shah.html
[viii] https://www.reuters.com/article/cnews-us-iran-nuclear-israel-idCATRE70612X20110107
[ix] Israeli minister threatens Iran’, BBC News, 6 June 2008
[x] Ben Caspit 100 days in, Bennett’s government challenged on Iran, Gaza https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/09/100-days-bennetts-government-challenged-iran-gaza