April 14—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s scheme to start a regional war with Iran so he could cling to power and derail moves to stop his genocidal slaughter in Gaza appears to have failed, thanks in part to a limited and precise intervention on the part of the U.S. to help Israel shoot down nearly all of the 300 drones and missiles launched yesterday by the Islamic Republic and its surrogates in Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria.
Intelligence sources say that without the U.S. deployment that involved U.S. naval vessels and aircraft, many of the missiles and drones might have gotten through Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defense system, with the possibility of damage and casualties. As it was, reported damage is insignificant, with few casualties and no deaths. The U.S deployment also involved providing Israel with critical telemetry information on the incoming missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.
An enraged Bibi was threatening retaliation against Iran, but is said to have encountered stiff resistance from the leadership of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The latter was furious last week, sources report, when Netanyahu ordered a precision missile attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, resulted in the killing of Iranian military personnel, including a high ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard, which, in turn, led to the expected Iranian retaliation yesterday.
“The IDF is fed up with Bibi using them as his toy in his various moves against the Palestinians, including in what many high ranking officials see as senseless slaughter in Gaza,” said a source with many contacts in Israel. “It was one thing to go after Hamas, but that is not what Gaza is about. Bibi is a 'blood and soil' racist and wants to kill as many Palestinians as possible, and to keep the millions of overseas Palestinians from returning. He was not fighting Hamas, but a two-state solution, which he will never support.”
This and other sources said that the attack on Damascus came as Netanyahu was coming under pressure to accept a negotiated ceasefire in Gaza, and an end to his bloody crusade against the Palestinians, which has seen Israel’s fall from grace in the view of most of the world, and which threatens a rupture with its principle ally and arms supplier, the United States.
“The idea was to stir the pot, create the condition for a regional war with Iran and provoke Hezbollah to strike out and give Bibi an excuse to give the West Bank the ‘Gaza’ treatment, while restoring support for all this from the U.S.,” said the source. “Sound’s crazy? Well it is, and people in Israel and the White House saw through this.”
President Sleepy Joe Biden is now fully awake to these dangers, being briefed regularly by his most able diplomat, Director of Central Intelligence William Burns. Biden reportedly wants nothing to do with any war with Iran, and he had Burns transmit through backchannels (including to the Russians) to the Iranians that the U.S. had nothing to do with and did not support Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Iran was urged to take into consideration the regional situation, and was assured that the U.S. is engaging in an all-out effort to end the slaughter in Gaza, and to put a two-state solution back on the agenda. “Burns knows, and so does Biden, that none of this is possible as long as Bibi stays in power,” the source continued. “Bibi must go, and Biden is saying as much.”
The source pointed to the April 10 interview that Biden gave to Univision where he said that Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza were doing great harm to the Israeli state and were unacceptable. No American President has ever delivered such a stinging public rebuke to a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. In private phone conversations, Biden has gone even further, demanding that Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire and seek an end to the Gaza slaughter immediately or he (Biden) would block military aid to Israel, a step that was unthinkable from this White House even a few weeks ago.
Sources report that Biden, under advice from Burns and military commanders, authorized, and deployed the plan to put U.S. forces in position to help intercept the expected Iranian missile and drone strike on Israel, which took place yesterday. Some reportedly have speculated that Bibi was even considering “letting some of the missiles and drones get through the Israeli defenses, in order to build support for a new crusade against Iran. It is now fairly widely believed that Netanyahu created the conditions that allowed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack to “succeed,” in order to have a pretext to launch his “Final Solution” for Palestinians in Gaza.
Last night Biden phoned Netanyahu near the end of the extremely effective defense against the drones and missiles, ostensibly to congratulate him. While declaring the battle a “great victory” for Israel, Biden warned Netanyahu against further escalation, stating that the United States would not be involved and would not support any Israel counter attack. The message was clear: “The U.S. is not going to go to war with Iran, and will not back you, if you do.”
If his Iran gambit fails, as it appears that it has, the tyrant Netanyahu’s time in power could quickly draw to an end, and it may be his handling of the Hamas hostage situation that finally delivers the coup d’grace.
According to two frustrated members of Israel’s negotiating team, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his circle have created an atmosphere of “cold indifference” to the fate of the hostages held by Hamas, and Netanyahu himself has sabotaged the negotiations for any release, up to now. With their voices disguised, and names withheld, the two testified April 11 on Israel’s Channel 12 TV investigative show Uvda. The host, Ilana Dayan, said that each of them had come forward, independently, to expose the situation.
Witness One said: “There is a massive gap between the narratives they are trying to create in the public eye and the actions in reality…. Since December, definitely since January, it has become clear to everyone that we are not negotiating…. I can’t say that without Netanyahu there would have been a deal, but I can say that without Netanyahu, the chances of making a deal would be better…. It happens again and again, we get a mandate during the day, and then the prime minister makes phone calls at night. He says, ‘Don’t say this, don’t approve that.’ This is how he gets around the heads of the negotiation team as well as the war cabinet.”
Witness Two said that they are forced to make impossible demands of Hamas. They gave the example of last month’s demand for a list of living hostages: “It was a ridiculous demand. We already had the list on our own. Why should we get it from Hamas?” What the approach instigated was to make a demand that could not move matters forward, and instead had a good possibility of moving matters backward.
Witness Two added: “When I realized that the state is not doing everything it can, I broke down. I cannot say for sure who will be alive by the time there is a deal or what will be left of them. What I can say is that whatever deal is made … could have been made two months ago. Time is not running out. It ran out.”
This latter assessment is shared by U.S. intelligence, which leaked that the CIA believes that most of the hostages thought to still be held by Hamas are dead, with the largest number of them being killed by IDF bombardment. It is now thought that only around 60 or fewer are still alive. Israeli intelligence sources dispute this estimate, but have been ordered to do that by Netanyahu. Privately, they are said to agree with the U.S. assessment.
Meanwhile, talks on a ceasefire continue in Cairo, with Burns trying to push through a deal, before Bibi can play his last card: An order for an all-out assault on the last standing Gazan city, Rafah.
“The question is whether someone or some group of people move to demand Bibi’s resignation,” said a source. “It has to happen. It should have happened already. His handling of the hostage tragedy could be the trigger. As long as he is there, as long as he has his crazies in his cabinet and in the settlers, there is always the potential for disaster. The problem is that Israel lacks a leader with stature. Bibi is the big guy because everyone else is so small.
“Peace will not come just because he were gone. The major roadblock of peace would be removed, but then we would still have to deal with the neo-cons in the U.S. who promote confrontation everywhere. That’s where we can use things like the Schiller Institute’s Oasis Plan—to provide a roadmap for peace through region-wide cooperative economic development. Without something like that, there is no way to actually create a viable Palestinian state.”
