‘How the West’s Blind and Unconditional Support for Israel is Leading to a Terrifying Regional War’

The Middle East is on the brink of a major regional conflagration that could ultimately lead to a war between the US and Iran as their respective proxies, Israel and Hezbollah, trade fire and battle it out on the Israel-Lebanon border, with other regional proxies already joining in.

The subject of Palestine, Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon and a future Palestinian state were the subject of intense discussion when the UN General Assembly (UNGA) met in New York on Tuesday for its 79^th Session.

There was enormous sympathy for the Palestinians and strong criticism of Israel’s treatment of them by numerous world leaders. US President Joe Biden – in his final UN address – expressed sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and called for a de-escalation in Lebanon.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called for the international community to mobilise for a ceasefire and warned that Lebanon was on the brink as Israel began a third day of strikes against southern Lebanon on Wednesday.

The wide chasm between UN member states’ criticism of Israel and their lack of will and action in holding the country accountable – specifically by its Western allies and the US and UK in particular – for its human rights violations was evident to many critics.

“The policy of the US has been contradictory especially in regard to the gap between rhetoric and practice. Even from the beginning with the war on Gaza the Americans talk on the one hand against escalation, the death toll and destruction but at the same time they keep arming Israel and vetoing decisions of the UN Security Council,” Ofer Cassif, an Israeli member of the Israeli Knesset, told Byline Times.

“Now it appears the same systematic policy of Biden is applying to Lebanon. Had the Americans wanted de-escalation and the bloodshed to stop it would have stopped ages ago,” added Cassif who is also a member of the leftist Hadash party.

I’m terrified we are on the verge of a regional war with a cost I don’t even want to think about for everyone, the Lebanese, the Israelis and the Palestinians. Look at the death toll already

Ofer Cassif, Israeli Knesset member

From Monday to Tuesday afternoon Israel had already carried out over 1,600 attacks on southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, as well as Beirut, with Lebanon’s Health Ministry saying the death toll in Lebanon had alrready risen to 558, including 50 children and 94 women. At least 1,835 people were wounded with 54 hospitals treating the injured. Four paramedics were also killed and 16 wounded, refuting Israel’s claims that it was only targeting Hezbollah members. A further 15 people were killed after Israeli strikes on Wednesday morning.

In retaliation Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets into northern Israel and beyond, most of which were intercepted by Israeli air defences.

The rockets hit a number of Israeli cities and towns in the north as well as several illegal Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, causing damage and forcing thousands of Israelis to flee to bomb shelters, in addition to the estimated 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in the north since the Gaza war began.

Both sides have moved beyond the attritional tit-for-tat warfare that had characterised their exchanges since 7 October 2023 when Hamas launched its attack on Israel.

The US has sent thousands more troops to the area, some of them special forces, in addition to the aircraft carriers and approximate 40,000 already stationed in the Mideast. UK nationals living in Lebanon have been urged to “leave immediately” by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.  

Meanwhile, according to some Israeli media reports 40,000 Arab fighters are moving towards the Israel-Lebanon border waiting to join Hezbollah’s fight against Israel as the Jewish state continues to employ the provocative and troubling Dahiya Doctrine.

Israel has warned that it’s preparing for a very possible ground invasion while Israeli analysts say a third Lebanon-Israel war has already begun.

As the conflagration intensifies criticism of Israel’s conduct is growing – some of it coming from unexpected quarters.

Former CIA director Leon Panetta said Israel’s recent pager attacks which killed and injured dozens of Hezbollah operatives and civilians, when Israel booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies with explosives, were acts of terrorism after the communication devices exploded in hospitals, ambulances, universities and other civilian areas.

Both Volker Turk, the UN’s human rights chief, and the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also stated that the pager attacks were acts of terrorism.

However, despite the growing criticism of Israel’s rights abuses by Western critics the US remains complicit. 

In addition to providing Israel with billions in military aid annually, sending arms shipments to Israel during the Gaza war and military support for an attack on Lebanon, it has also vetoed UN Security Council resolutions that would have led to a Gaza ceasefire, and censured reports from its own state department which stated that Israel had committed rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. 

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken allegedly covered up a report by US agencies of Israel systematically starving Gazan civilians. This report would have proved violation of America’s Leahy Law which prohibits the sale of weapons to countries involved in human rights abuses.

Some of the US administration’s staff also resigned over these abuses and what they allege was a cover up by the administration.

The US criticised the International Court of Justice’s ongoing investigation into possible genocide by Israel in Gaza brought by South Africa. American lawmakers also slammed the International Criminal Court possibly issuing arrest warrants for Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant over possible war crimes.

The Israel lobby organisation AIPAC continues to hold enormous sway on members of congress, paying huge amounts to members who support Israel.

Furthermore, on state levels there have been efforts to silence dissent over Washington’s foreign policy by banning calls for boycotts of Israel. This has included the violent suppression of pro-Palestinian protests on campuses and the dismissal of staff in what critics have said is a new McCarthyism. There has also been the weaponising of anti-semitism.

In the UK, the situation hasn’t been much better. While London did ban some weapons exports to Israel, these were only a small minority of the many more weapons exports. Journalists questioning the narrative of who is and who isn’t a terrorist have also been arrested. The UK also continues to parrot Israel’s version of events in regards to Gaza and the West Bank.

As the situation continues to deteriorate Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party warned that the chances of a regional war were extremely high.

“For Hezbollah, in addition to their sympathy for Palestinians, this is also an existential matter. If the group doesn’t respond to Israel’s attacks and hit back hard it will lose all credibility as a resistance movement,” Barghouti, who is also a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, told Byline Times. 

Israel, with its military superiority, is hoping for a hard and quick campaign in Lebanon to cripple Hezbollah before winter snows the region in. 

But the organisation’s past experience with drawn-out wars of attrition, specifically when it forced Israel to withdraw from its self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon in 2000, and the group’s vow to continue hitting Israel until it stops it’s Gaza onslaught, points to further escalation. 

“The only way to stop the bloodshed in Gaza and to allow the Israelis to go back home to the north is a political solution not a military one,” said Cassif.

“Hezbollah has stated clearly that it got involved because of the massacres in Gaza and will stop as soon as there is a ceasefire. 

“But the Israeli government is not interested in stopping the escalation and the war and neither is it interested in saving the Israeli hostages in Gaza or securing their release. Netanyahu’s political survival is the end goal. 

“It’s in the interests of everybody that there is a Gaza ceasefire and that Israeli forces withdraw,” said Cassif.