On October 15, two American officials told the Associated Press that they “believed” the White House had gotten assurances from Israel that it would not strike Iran’s oil or nuclear facilities when it launched its eventual retaliation for the October 1 missile barrage that Iran had fired at Israel.
The officials’ cautious tone reflected their lack of confidence in Israel’s verbal agreements. Nothing was in writing, and Israel had made no public declaration about limiting its options regarding Iranian targets. Given Israel’s long history of defying and deceiving its credulous benefactor, it’s remarkable that it’s taken this long for Washington to display this kind of caution with Israel’s promises.
The world has also remained skeptical, as concern has continued over the potential targets Israel might choose. But the length of time that has already passed suggests that Israel is deliberating more than has been usual over the past year about where and how it should hit Iran. The leak of documents related to an Israeli attack on Iran may also have delayed Israel’s plans.
A report on Tuesday from veteran Israeli journalist Ben Caspit may shed some light on why the Israelis may be serious about avoiding Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, and, as one might expect, it is because they expect to gain a significant advantage in not doing so.
According to Caspit’s report, the United States has agreed to a generous package on top of all of its other lavish gifts to persuade Israel to avoid oil and nuclear sites that could so easily lead to a regional war. According to Caspit’s sources, “the compensation includes lifting the U.S. suspension of certain arms and ammunition shipments to Israel and accelerating their supply, as well as supplying heavy engineering equipment such as D9 bulldozers. The package also includes increased U.S. attacks on Houthi weapons depots and other strategic targets in Yemen… The Pentagon is said to be considering enhanced operational cooperation and deployment of a second THAAD anti-missile battery in Israel, in addition to the one deployed in recent days to enhance Israel’s anti-missile defenses.”
The meaning of the gifts
Some clarifications are needed here. First, the Biden administration is not withholding any arms from Israel. It paused one shipment of heavy bombs when it was trying to get Israel to slow its devastation of Rafah earlier this year, but it has long since released that pause. What it has done is put arms shipments to Israel through a normal process rather than the fast track those shipments had been on. This is what the U.S. is proposing to reverse.
The bulldozers should alarm everyone. Why, one might ask, would more of the infamous D9 bulldozers be a particular enticement to Israel at this time?
The bulldozers should alarm everyone. Clearing out Palestinian towns, villages, and cities is a far greater task now than it was in 1967, and American heavy engineering equipment would be very helpful in doing it.
We’ve seen plenty of bulldozers in action recently in both Gaza and the West Bank. But in Gaza and southern Lebanon, most demolitions are being carried out by explosives, whether wired on the ground or dropped from the air.
However, Israel might need an infusion of heavy equipment, not to destroy buildings, but to flatten whole areas and then remove the rubble. One way or another, someone will have to move mountains of destroyed buildings in Gaza. It’s the only way to build new buildings where these stood.
We can be confident that Israel is not going to use U.S.-supplied bulldozers to clear the way for rebuilding the homes of the survivors of the Gaza genocide.
It’s difficult to miss the timing of the recent gathering of Israeli settlers on the Gaza border, declaring their intention to settle Gaza, and to do so much more aggressively than they did from 1967 to 2005. Clearing out Palestinian towns, villages, and cities is a far greater task now than it was in 1967, and American heavy engineering equipment would be very helpful in doing it.
Meanwhile, American assurances regarding Yemen are key for Israel to establish the kind of enhanced regional dominance it has been striving to create in recent months. It isn’t a simple matter for Israel to reach across long distances, going over Arab countries, to reach places like Iran and Yemen. A much more robust naval presence than Israel could muster is needed.
Fast-tracking weapons, an increase in American activity in the Red Sea, and still more protection for Israel from retaliation cannot but embolden Israel.
This is where American help is crucial. Israel can do some of the damage by itself, but even there, having American support increases its capabilities. If the United States commits to hitting Yemen, it frees Israel from long-distance retaliation in that direction and allows it to concentrate its plans eastward toward Iran. Caspit suggests that the strike on Yemen last week might have been a demonstration of the U.S. living up to its agreement.
If Caspit is also correct about a second THAAD battery potentially being deployed to Israel, the package as a whole means a significant upgrade to Israeli impunity. Fast-tracking weapons, an increase in American activity in the Red Sea, and still more protection for Israel from retaliation cannot but embolden the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu even further.
The escape clause for Israel
The concerns grow even deeper when we consider the likely chain of events going forward.
Israel is going to hit Iran. This seems inevitable. If there was any possibility of dissuading Israel from this course, it was surely eliminated by the drone attack on Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea.
An unnamed Israeli security source told Caspit that they were expecting the United States to prevent Iran from continuing the tit-for-tat strikes. “They will have to make it clear to Iran in a persuasive and creative way, to break the cycle of reactions so that an all-out war does not break out,” he said of the Americans.
That will prove very difficult. Over the summer, the U.S. was able to convince Iran to forestall its retaliation for the Israeli assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran by convincing the Iranians that there was a chance for a ceasefire in Gaza. That proved not to be the case, and it is not likely to be an effective argument this time.
Also, Iran was just transitioning to its new government, one which hoped to find some opening for diplomacy with the West, making the Islamic Republic more amenable to forgoing its retaliation, even though its inaction was drawing criticism from its allies across the region.
But hardliners in Iran are increasing their pressure on President Masoud Pezeshkian, and, more broadly, Iran is quickly losing credibility in its effort to present itself to the Muslim world as the revolutionary leader standing up to American and Israeli aggression.
Put plainly, Iran cannot afford to allow an Israeli attack to go unanswered, especially if that attack causes significant loss of life or damage. Those in Israel who are hoping that Washington can repeat its successful restraint of Iran over the summer are likely to be disappointed.
Israelis who hold such hopes do not include Benjamin Netanyahu and certainly don’t include the more radically right-wing members of his government. In the face of another Iranian missile volley, Netanyahu is very likely to claim that the agreement on restraint he made with the U.S. is null and void. And, given his track record of acquiescence, Biden is likely to support that view publicly.
Iran will probably respond to Israel’s attack by stepping up the force of its own attack. That might mean more missiles, fired without warning, and intended to do more damage than the one at the beginning of October. While we can expect that such an attack will still target military sites, as the previous two have, there is always the possibility of unintended hits on civilian targets. And, even if the attack hits only its intended targets, Israel will certainly ignore the fact that Iran targeted military sites and respond with disproportionate force.
Can this be avoided?
As has been the case for a year, this dangerous situation can be stopped, but it will not be stopped by Israel. The United States has had it within its power all along to end all of this, by simply cutting the flow of arms to Israel.
Advocates for Palestinian rights and freedom have called for a permanent end to arming Israel, as both American and international law, as well as good sense and morality, dictate should happen. But even a temporary halt, conditioned on Israel completely ending its aggression in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and against Iran would be sufficient to stop the current march to war.
Instead of taking these obvious steps to turn the region away from genocide and a war, the Biden administration is once again drowning Israel in taxpayer-funded gifts.
It’s clear that an end to this confrontation is what Palestinians, Lebanon, and Iran all want. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced on Thursday that Lebanon was prepared to station 8,000 Lebanese army troops in southern Lebanon if a ceasefire is reached. That would mean that Israel would get what it had been demanding: that Hezbollah be moved 30 kilometers north of the Litani River.
Israel, as we would expect, is insisting that any ceasefire permit it to act in Lebanon whenever it deems necessary, an obvious non-starter. But here again, Israel can only be this obstinate because of the mindless and unconditional support of the Biden administration.
Instead of taking these obvious steps to turn the region away from genocide and a war that could have tragic reverberations around the world, the Biden administration is once again drowning Israel in taxpayer-funded gifts. It is continuing to increase Israel’s military strength and impunity and pushing the region into a war no one but Netanyahu and his ilk want.