Iran responds

Published in the October 3rd edition of The Herald and in The National.

Tonight, Iran sent 200 ballistic missiles into Israel. News outlets reported: “Iran attacks Israel” - including Al Jazeera, which Israel has banned from reporting from inside the country. A more accurate headline would read: “Iran responds to repeated Israeli aggressions,” or to use the mainstream media’s mantra whenever Israel is attacked, “Iran has a right to self-defence.”

Here’s why.

• On April 1, Israel attacked Iran, a sovereign state, when it bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing seven people including a top Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander and his deputy.

• At the end of July, Israel killed chief Hamas negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, a guest of the Iranian government, while he was attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, proving that Israel is not remotely serious about a ceasefire in Gaza.

• Two weeks ago, Israel detonated thousands of electronic pagers and walkie talkies used by civilians in Beirut, killing hundreds and maiming thousands, including medical personnel, civil servants and children. This was a terrifying violation of international law. Not only did Israel launch an indiscriminate attack on civilians, a war crime, it violated the Geneva convention which prohibits the use of booby-traps disguised as harmless portable objects such as electronic devices.

• Last week, Israel dropped 86 2,000-pound US-supplied bunker buster bombs on an entire block in the densely populated Dahieh suburb in the south of Beirut, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and hundreds of civilians.

In response to these repeated provocations, Iran targeted missiles at military and intelligence sites like the hangars housing Israeli F-35 and F-15 fighter jets used to kill Nasrallah. Unlike Israel, it did not target apartment buildings, schools or hospitals. If it had, Israeli citizens have the luxury of retreating to bomb shelters, something the Palestinians in Gaza don’t.

A child could work out who the aggressor is. Speaking of children, Israel is behaving like a psychotic toddler. Rather than restraining its mad child, its doting and equally psychotic parent, the US, encourages its deranged and murderous behaviour.

The US claims that it doesn’t want the conflict to escalate into a wider regional war. If that were true, it would immediately stop sending weapons and money to Israel. Without US support, Israel couldn’t execute its genocide in Gaza, terrorise Palestinians in the West Bank or incinerate apartment buildings in Beirut. But America’s psychotic child has claimed it must ‘escalate to de-escalate,’ showing that it’s impervious to reason.

The flow of weapons and money to Israel will continue unabated because the Israel lobby completely owns the US government. Netanyahu’s revolting July address to Congress where he received 58 standing ovations and his incendiary tirade last week to the UN General Assembly show that he’s confident of unconditional American backing, no matter how deranged Israel’s actions are.

It doesn’t seem to matter that the world’s highest court has ruled that Israel is committing a genocide and that its decades-long occupation of Palestinian land is illegal. Because apart from South Africa, the Houthis, Hezbollah and now Iran, no one is standing up for the Palestinians and against Israel’s bellicosity and systematic extermination of an entire people.