Lack of Coherent U.S. Government and Policy Emboldens Netanyahu, Risks Wider War
Aug. 2—Sources connected to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence are blaming the dysfunctional U.S. government and its lack of coherent policy which has allowed the “Butcher of Gaza,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to unleash a wave of assassinations against Palestinian leaders: Hamas’ top political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who had steered Hamas negotiations toward a ceasefire/hostage deal and an end to Bibi’s murderous rampage in Gaza; Mohammed Dief, the head of Hamas’ military wing; and Faud Shukr, a military commander of Hezbollah.
“For months now, there hasn’t been a week that we haven’t been told from home and abroad to end the war,” Netanyahu said July 31 in a recorded address to Israeli citizens the evening after Haniyeh’s assassination. “I didn’t give in to those voices then—and I won’t give in to them today either.”
Sources say that Bibi went to the U.S. last week, and found a completely dysfunctional government, with its President, “Sleepy Joe" Biden, virtually stripped of all political power due to his perceived mental incapacities, and his selected replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, a nasty bitch, who is weak, and has little or no control over policies.
“The U.S. government,” said a source, “is run by a collection of fools who cannot agree on policy and could not stand up to Bibi. This meant he was free to do as he pleased, because all the U.S. government could muster was to wave a finger and say, ‘don’t be a bad boy now,’ which more or less has been the response to the murder on foreign soil of Shukr and Haniyeh. That, and to say the U.S. had nothing to do with it. But the whole world should know that the impotence of the United States has everything to do with it."
As if to validate that source’s point, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said July 31 that the U.S. was not involved in nor even made aware of the intention to assassinate Haniyeh. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it assigns to the U.S. the “responsibility” for Haniyeh’s assassination because of its support for Israel and Israel’s “right to respond appropriately against this aggressive action against its sovereignty.”
Haniyeh, targeted as part of month’s long operation that intelligence sources say involved planting a remote bomb in a guest house that Israeli and U.S. intelligence knew would be a place where Hamas and perhaps other Palestinian leaders would stay, was the chief architect of a new strategy for Hamas that would have involved laying down their arms and supporting the creation of a Palestinian state.
Other sources say Haniyeh was opposed to the launching of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that slaughtered 1,200 Israeli and other mostly civilian nationals, took 240 of them hostage, and provided Netanyahu with the excuse to launch his genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Sources report that Haniyeh had frequently consulted, sometimes through emissaries, with America’s most able diplomat, CIA Director William Burns, to try to outflank Netanyahu’s efforts to sabotage talks for a ceasefire/hostage deal.
Hamas’ military wing said Haniyeh’s killing on July 31 in Tehran after attending the inauguration ceremony for Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, would “take the battle to new dimensions” and have major repercussions. Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Haya said that “Hamas, Iran, and Lebanon will not let the assassination pass quietly.”
“Assassinations don’t impact Hamas. Hamas fighters have commanders of their own, and they will continue to fight until Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders tell them that there is a deal,” a Gazan source close to Hamas told Reuters.
Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian said “The Islamic Republic of Iran will defend its territorial integrity, honor, pride, and reputation … and will make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act.”
Iran’s Vice President, Mohammad Reza Aref, taking a somewhat different approach, said that Iran has no intention of escalating conflict in Southwest Asia.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, who supervised the house where Haniyeh was murdered, issued a statement saying that “the killing of Haniyeh will be met with a harsh and painful response,” while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that avenging Haniyeh’s assassination is “Tehran’s duty” because it occurred in the Iranian capital.
Meanwhile, the real architect of the Oct. 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar, who opposes a two-state solution and has previously announced that he would welcome a million or more Palestinian martyrs, remains at large, somewhere, presumably, in Gaza, where the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) can never seem to find him.Sources have said that for some years, Bibi, who effectively made Hamas a power in Gaza, has been working through his co-evil twin Sinwar. This has led to widespread speculation that Sinwar is at least a Bibi asset, if not a paid Israeli agent.
It is well known that Israel has agents within the Hamas leadership. Nearly a year before Oct. 7, 2023, those agents had provided the Israelis with full plans for the attack, even the locations where the border was to be penetrated and how that was to be done, only to have Netanyahu ignore this, using as his cover that might absolve him of responsibility for the most disastrous decision ever made by an Israeli Prime Minister, the arrogant and stupid analysis of “specialists” who claimed that Hamas was incapable of executing such an elaborate and complicated plan.
“The reality is that Oct. 7 served Bibi’s messianic goal of drowning Palestine in blood, making impossible the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state,” said another source. “That this also served the equally bloodthirsty aims of Sinwar should not be overlooked. So, now explain to me how the murder of Haniyeh, who worked for peace, the return of the hostages, and for Hamas to lay down its weapons, serves the interests of Israel? Just like Oct. 7 did! In the case of the United States, the still unexplained 9/11 attacks in 2001 served the interests of those who wanted to launch wars.”
Meanwhile, the IDF confirmed Aug. 1 that they had also killed Hamas “terrorist operations chief,” the head of Hamas’ military wing, Muhammad Deif, in a targeted strike last month in southern Gaza.
“Now, this is interesting,” said the source. “This guy is a player, but he is not anywhere near as important to these operations as Yahya Sinwar. Deif will have played a role in Oct. 7, but if you want to look for the one in charge, really, that is Sinwar, who they never seem to find. Now, for their American audience this guy Dief is called by the Israelis 'the bin Laden of Gaza,' in an attempt to link him, in the memories of stupid brainwashed people, to the guy who was tagged as responsible for 9/11, when in fact that operation was organized and funded by the Saudis, and had collaboration from the NATO assets in the U.S. military-intelligence complex. Defense Minister [Yoav] Gallant is being trotted out to explain all this and other targeted assassinations to have the narrative come from someone else’s mouth than Bibi. I guess they want Gallant to earn his pending indictment from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity."
As for the killing of Faud Shukr July 30 in the Haret Hreik suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, the IDF’s post claimed that it was he who was responsible for the missile that killed 12 children a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for that attack, and even U.S. intelligence sources say that if Hezbollah fired the missile, it was not likely targeted at an Arab-speaking village and aimed at civilians.
While some civilians have been killed by Hezbollah rockets and drones in the past, the targets have always been military in nature. In addition, some intelligence sources say that the missile could have been launched by the Israelis, perhaps some of the crazy, settler militias which are being armed through covert means, by the lunatic members of Bibi’s coalition, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“I would need more proof than has been provided that Hezbollah deliberately targeted a Druze village,” said a source. “I have been told that Hezbollah, while responding to Shukr’s murder, was going to show restraint and things might have calmed down. Now, the assassination of Haniyeh on Iranian soil complicates the hell out of things and could quickly propel the situation toward a regional war, that Iran does not desire nor see in its interests. Will this blow up the hostage deal? Talks are still continuing, but the Arab mediators can’t see a result.”
“We may be on the verge of another escalation in the war, one that could lead to a larger regional conflict,” wrote the respected commentator Amos Harel in Haaretz July 31. “Iran will find it hard not to retaliate for an assassination on its soil. Until now, however, it seemed both Iran and Hezbollah sought to contain the conflict with Israel and prevent it from turning into an all-out war…. Haniyeh’s death is expected to have a negative impact on talks for a hostage deal, which have all but hit an impasse since Israel toughened its stance.”
“The strikes on Haniyeh and Shukr are not a game-changer,” said Yossi Melman, also writing in Haaretz. “In the past, Israel used targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists or Iranian nuclear scientists as a last resort and as part of a wider strategy. Assassinations were meant to serve meaningful diplomatic aims. But since the beginning of the war, it seems that the doctrine of targeted killing has become an end in itself…. The two killings will only make Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran more stubborn and determined.”
“This has all unraveled just as Bibi has wanted, because of the weakness of the U.S. on all fronts,” the source said. “The Administration, which is Biden’s in name only. The two-faced nasty bitch Harris. A Trump, who was played like a fiddle by Bibi. The Congress, some of whose members showed disdain for Netanyahu, in gestures and words, but which lacks the numbers with guts enough to cancel weapons sales to Israel. All of them are weak as water, and Bibi walks all over them. And drives the world toward wider war.”
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