{"id":271259,"date":"2024-08-12T12:01:47","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T11:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=271259"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:38:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:38:33","slug":"the-criminal-assassination-of-ismail-haniyeh-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/08\/the-criminal-assassination-of-ismail-haniyeh-in-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"The Criminal Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

9 Aug 2024 – This post originated in a series of responses to a journalist from the Turkish publication<\/em> TRT World. My replies here are derived from there but took on a different life of their own.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What does Hamas chief Haniyeh\u2019s assassination in Iran\u00a0mean for the wider conflict?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It appears that none of the countries directly involved in the conflict with Israel\u2013Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Yemen\u2013seek a wider war in the Middle East. Only Israel, and its leader, Bibi Netanyahu seem to approach such a prospect favorably. This cycle of provocative acts followed by retaliations almost all initiated by Israel have their own escalating momentum that is difficult to control, and at some point, might merges with a deadly commitment to securing a wider victorious outcome.<\/p>\n

There is much speculation that Netanyahu has his private motivations centering on his personal survival and the related likelihood that his coalition government would soon collapse after the Gaza war recedes from view. He was also associated with obsessively pushing a vendetta against Iran, especially recently as a useful distraction from the Gaza campaign that failed to achieve its main explicit objective of destroying Hamas and promoting the Greater Israel Project of territorial expansion.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the recent cycles of tit-for-tat provocative acts almost exclusively initiated by Israel have an escalating momentum that is difficult to control, and at some point, merges with a commitment to securing a victorious outcome through sustained warfare.<\/p>\n

Ismail Haniyeh\u2019s July 31 assassination while attending the inauguration of the new president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, was a step in the direction of regional war. It was further aggravated because of the location, the occasion, Haniyeh\u2019s reputation as a \u2018moderate\u2019 in the Hamas leadership circle. And even further by taking account of his current role as the chief negotiator in the search for a ceasefire, prisoner exchange, and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei immediately threatened a response that will be perceived as a \u2018harsh punishment\u2019 by political actors. The religious leader added that Iran is \u2018duty-bound\u2019 to inflict a response that \u2018avenges\u2019 the assassination. Iran\u2019s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian offered his strong condemnation of the killing of Haniyeh: \u201cWe will make the occupying terrorist regime [of Israel] regret its action.\u201d<\/p>\n

This assassination may also be seen as Israel\u2019s reaction to Iran and Hamas in the aftermath of the Unity Deal between Hamas and Fatah facilitated by the mediation efforts of China. The agreement signed in Beijing on July 23 by 14 Palestinian factions including Hamas and Fatah agreed on the composition of an \u2018interim national reconciliation government,\u2019 and seems to be the most serious effort to achieve Palestinian unity since Hamas emerged after the 1967 War. Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA), made a meaningful gesture of his own that is being interpreted as an affirmation of the newfound unity of Palestinian resistance by joining in the condemnation of Israel for carrying out the assassination of Haniyeh. This seems significant as the PA has long been the bitter adversary of Hamas.<\/p>\n

The Biden presidency seems intent on managing these tensions in such a way that avoids a general war in the region while not alienating Israel and its supporters in the West. It also purports to play its customary intermediary role in relation to Israel\/Palestine conflict by putting forth a three-stage ceasefire, hostage\/prisoner exchange, and Israeli Gaza withdrawal. It is odd that the Palestinians would accept such a diplomatic process, given the depth of US complicity in lending crucial support to the genocidal assault during the last ten months directed at the entire population of Gaza.<\/p>\n

Even Iran despite its seeming commitment to revenging Haniyeh\u2019s death while on a state visit to a high profile public event in Iran seems searching for a response that is viewed as retaliatory but as signaling its intent to avoid a war with Israel.<\/p>\n

There are many actors involved with a wide range of disclosed and disguised motivations, making predictions hazardous. If a wider war\u00a0 does occur, it will almost certainly be undertaken at Israel\u2019s initiative, quite possibly reflecting Netanyahu\u2019s personal animus. If Iran succeeds in inflicting heavy symbolic or substantive damage in executing its retaliatory attack, Israel might treat magnify the event as a suitable pretext for launching a wider war that I believe it would come to regret. Among other consequences, it may induce Iran to cross the nuclear weapons threshold, assuming this has not happened already. Given the security prerogatives of sovereign states, it would not seem unreasonable for Iran to seek a nuclear deterrent, given the threats and provocations over the years. Such a move would deeply challenge Israel and US-led anti-proliferation geopolitics, being a blow struck against the imperfect regional nonproliferation regime in the Middle East. So long as an aggressive Israel possesses and develops its own nuclear weaponry, without any pretense of accountability, the security situation highlights the double standards embedded in the Biden\/Blinken \u2018rules governed world.\u2019<\/p>\n

How will Iran respond to this?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My earlier answer tentatively predicts a proportionate retaliation that may be treated by Israel as sufficiently \u2018disproportionate\u2019 to induce a further escalatory cycle. Although Iran has shown that it does not seek a wider war, it also seems poised to take risks to avoid being seen as weak by both adversaries and allies\u2014the latter being demeaned by being called \u2018proxies\u2019 in the Washington and European official statements and media.<\/p>\n

Although the world and particularly Iran, assumed that Israel was responsible for Haniyeh\u2019s assassination, Israel failed to claim responsibility for several days. \u00a0Before doing so, Israel had been widely accused by Iran, and assumed responsible for this sovereignty-violating assassination. Israel\u2019s official silence rather than offering an evidence-based denial strengthened the dominant impression that Israel was the culprit.<\/p>\n

Also passed almost without prominent noticed was the almost simultaneous assassination of\u00a0 Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah military commander and close associate of accused by Israel of planning a deadly attack on a Druze town of Majjid-Shams in the Israel occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children playing on a soccer field. Hezbollah denies responsibility for the attack, and it seems that whoever was responsible for the attack misfired as the missile hit a site unassociated with Israel.<\/p>\n

The Gaza\/Hamas Angle<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a notable statement, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, indirectly accused Israel of assassinating Haniyeh in a post published on social media. Al Thani observed, \u201cHow can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?\u201d referring to Haniyeh as one of the main mediators in the cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas. And further, \u201cPeace needs serious partners and a global stance against the disregard for human life.\u201d Israel has failed to respond to such an allegation, although it seems to have backed a rumor that Iran might itself have carried out or at least facilitated this assassination.<\/p>\n

The US has been the pioneer in relying on assassination as a major instrument of covert warfare during the Cold Year, generally under the auspices of the CIA. During the Carter presidency Senate hearings were held (\u2018Church Hearings\u2019), leading to the issuance of Executive Order 11. 905 in 1977 prohibiting political assassinations. This Executive Order was later somewhat relaxed during the Reagan Presidency in the 1980s. There seems to be agreement that the ceasefire proposals that looked quite promising in the days before Haniyeh\u2019s assassination now are indefinite hold given the leadership to the supposedly hardline Yahya Sinwar.<\/p>\n

Israel has a long record of assassinations in Iran, including of high profile nuclear scientists (e.g. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh) and a much revered military commanded and diplomat. Qasem Solemani, in January 2020, the last days of the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

Political assassinations carried out on the territory of a foreign country in the form of an official undertaking of a government is a violation of international law, an act of aggression, and a violation of fundamental human rights standards.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. He directed the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly served as director the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. His book,\u00a0<\/em>(Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance\u00a0(2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. His most recent books are\u00a0<\/em>Power Shift\u00a0(2016);\u00a0<\/em>Revisiting the Vietnam War\u00a0(2017);\u00a0<\/em>On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament\u00a0(2019); and\u00a0<\/em>On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative, ed. with Victor Faessel & Michael Curtin (2019).\u00a0He\u00a0is the author or coauthor of other books, including\u00a0<\/em>Religion and Humane Global Governance\u00a0(2001),\u00a0<\/em>Explorations at the Edge of Time\u00a0(1993),\u00a0<\/em>Revolutionaries and Functionaries\u00a0(1988),\u00a0<\/em>The Promise of World Order\u00a0(1988),\u00a0<\/em>Indefensible Weapons (with Robert Jay Lifton, 1983),\u00a0<\/em>A Study of Future Worlds\u00a0(1975), and\u00a0<\/em>This Endangered Planet\u00a0(1972).\u00a0His memoir,\u00a0<\/em>Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim\u00a0was published in March 2021 and received an award from Global Policy Institute at Loyala Marymount University as \u2018the best book of 2021.<\/strong>\u2019 He has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 richardfalk.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the<\/em><\/strong> BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS campaign<\/em><\/strong><\/span> to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Aug 2024 – None of the countries involved in the conflict with Israel\u2013-Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Yemen\u2013-seek a wider war. Only Israel approaches this prospect favorably. This cycle of provocative acts and retaliations initiated by Israel have their own escalating momentum that is difficult to control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":152454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[87,865,1029,742,88,767,427,1759],"class_list":["post-271259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-hamas","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-targeted-assassination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271261,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271259\/revisions\/271261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}