Historically, Israel has been wanting to draw the US into a war with its archrival Iran, the sponsor of proxy terrorist militant groups like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza strip within Israel.

Recently. the democrat US President Joe Biden’s administration has been dispatching top aides to the Middle East with a critical objective: Prevent a full-blown war from erupting between Israel and the Iranian backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the context of the current on-going Israel-Hamas war.

As per a January 9, 2024 NY Times report, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, appeared to claim responsibility in a television interview late Monday for the killing of the senior Hezbollah commander, whom the group identified as Wissam Hassan al-Tawil, in Hezbollah’s Radwan unit in southern Lebanon.”

This killing of a senior Hezbollah commander was preceded by an earlier event when the senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a targeted assassination in Beirut, Lebanon by Israel.

These incidents mark a significant escalation, as it breaches established red lines and rules of engagement by expanding the war to Beirut in Lebanon outside of Gaza in Israel. In the recent past, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah cautioned Israel against engaging in assassinations on Lebanese soil.

Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats are faced with traumatized frightened Israelis being led by Prime Minister Netanyahu who has a Trump-like need to stay in power and an internal impulse to resort to violence as the only way to show strength when dealing with enemies. If it weren’t for the war, he and his extreme right coalition partners would have been given the boot. At the end of 2022, extreme right politicians managed to squeak out a win, to where they were able reinstate the ousted criminally indicted Mr. Netanyahu as their leader. But their popularity tanked because of their 2023 failed unpopular coup against Israel’s judiciary and their colossal failure in preventing the Oct 7th Hamas attack on Israelis despite having ample, accurate detailed, timely intelligence data from their allies and from within.

But while Israelis are very angry at Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing governing partners’ failure to protect them, they are also very supportive of Israel’s high intensity war tactics being exerted in Gaza against Hamas for the past 3 months. There’s a voluntary concerted effort to ensure that Israelis are sheltered from viewing TV images/ news of what’s happening in Gaza.

Israelis’ traumatic visceral emotional hostility towards Hamas, the Iranian backed militant/ terrorist governing body of Gazan Palestinians for their October 7, 2023 surprise brutal massacre conducted against Israelis where 1,200 were killed and 240 were taken away as hostages to Gaza, is understandable. Israelis have been terrorized and paralyzed by the angst of never feeling safe. And the prime minister with his right-wing ministers is taking full advantage of their vulnerability.”

In short, as long as the Israeli prime minister is conducting a war, he gets to stay in power while avoiding the possibility of jail time. He’s in a situation where he has nothing to lose by choosing to act according to his beliefs which has never included an acceptance of a two-state solution. Leaders in the U.S. and the Israeli Arab neighboring countries are well aware of all of these contradicting dynamics including the reality that Prime Minister Netanyahu has no compunctions about politically benefiting if the war escalates and/ or lasts as long as possible, especially since his actions are aligned with his belief system.

Then how do US officials navigate successfully through the below described quagmire of political intrigue, a trademark of Israel? How does the U.S. move Israel to act in their own long-term interests which includes minimizing Gazan civilian deaths; improving conditions for displaced Palestinians; and planning for a postwar outcome that provides dignity to both Israelis and Palestinians, by laying the groundwork for a Palestinian state not governed by Hamas, especially when these U.S. proposals are counter to what the Israel prime minister wants.

To add to the Israeli drama, cabinet meetings between Israel’s extreme right governing coalition members and more centrist actors have become free for all events This past week, some right-wingers blew-up when questions were raised over how to handle investigations into the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, SOONER vs later— including the Israeli military’s failure to foresee it, and how to prosecute the war from now on.

A timely investigation is a crucial step to break the mindset of the Israeli public towards supporting the scorched earth war tactics being practiced in Gaza under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu. If they knew that the October 7, 2023 brutal massacre by Hamas was totally preventable and that their leader is lying when he vehemently denies being in receipt of ample, timely, accurate, detailed intelligence data from allies and from within, most would undergo an attitude adjustment.

The January 5, 2024 Times of Israel report via MSN, “Amid political uproar, IDF says probe of army’s failures is crucial for future fighting” by Emanuel Fabian and Jacob Magid, describes this fight:

“IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari insisted that an “operational investigation” into the military’s failures on October 7 was essential to its fighting in the Gaza Strip, as well as preparing itself for other fronts. He stressed that the probe was not a substitute for any external investigations.”

“The comments came against the backdrop of a security cabinet meeting Thursday night that ended in a loud and angry dustup between ministers and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi as right-wing lawmakers denounced his plans for the army to probe its mistakes surrounding the October 7 Hamas invasion.”

“The row continued through to Friday, with war cabinet minister Benny Gantz warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to choose between unity or playing politics, and the ruling Likud party hitting back at Gantz, defending the conduct of the right-wing ministers.”

The war’s popularity with Israelis is detailed in the November 10, 2023 Time’s article by Anna Gordon, “What Israelis Think of the War With Hamas: Polls:”

Excerpts:

Pew opinion polls just released from Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University’s Peace Index indicate that Israeli attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more hawkish than at any point in recent memory.

“Both surveys were conducted in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre and the resulting war with Hamas and sampled approximately 600 people each. The polls are part of a series conducted several times per year and attempt to be representative of the various factions of Israeli society, including Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent.”

“Despite thousands of protesters gathering in Tel Aviv to demand the release of the hostages held by Hamas, only 10% of Israeli Jews in the Israel Democracy Institute poll said they would support a pause in fighting in order to exchange hostages. Meanwhile, 44.3%, the plurality of Israeli Jews, said they want the government to negotiate for the hostages immediately without pausing the fighting.”

“Poll results were also hawkish when it came to the use of force in Gaza: 57.5% of Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza, 36.6% said the IDF was using an appropriate amount of firepower, while just 1.8% said they believed the IDF was using too much fire power.”

Remember the U.S. response to the 9/11 terrorist attack. It ended up being an unmitigated disaster where the U.S. waged wars to unseat rulers in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, wreaking chaos and destruction in the process. The consequences were far from what the Iraqi War architects, like John Bolton, Dick Cheney, and other U.S. conservative right leaders, had predicted. American power and prestige on the international stage ended up being seriously diminished, U.S. judgment based on intelligence gathering was made suspect, etc.

And the fallout for the peoples in the Middle East whose countries disintegrated into civil war, has been catastrophic.

Other costs are described in a May 15, 2023 Washington Post report by Miriam Berger, “Post-9/11 wars have contributed to some 4.5 million deaths, report suggests:

“Excerpts:

“More than 7,000 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with more than 8,000 contractors, according to Brown’s Costs of War project. But the vast majority of those killed in the fighting were locals: more than 177,000 uniformed Afghans, Pakistanis and Iraqis and Syrian allies had died as of 2019, according to the Costs of War project, alongside a vast count of opposing combatants and a disputed civilian toll.”

“Since 2010, a team of 50 scholars, legal experts, human rights practitioners and physicians participating in the Costs of War project have kept their own calculations. According to their latest assessment, more than 906,000 people, including 387,000 civilians, died directly from post-9/11 wars. Another 38 million people have been displaced or made refugees. The U.S. federal government, meanwhile, has spent over $8 trillion on these wars, the research suggests.”

(To date, Israel hasn’t been listening to counsel from U.S. officials as they recount all the mistakes that were made by the U.S. decision to go to war in the middle east, post the 9/11 attack.) “Given the U.S. dismal track record, one might think no policy maker, politician, or leader, even in Israel would advocate attacking any government in the greater Middle East without answering a simple question: What happens after the bombing starts?”

“Most of the Israeli right-wing power players’ commentary advocating war with Iran fail this test.”

See: Only outside pressure can stop Israel’s war crimes/ The Guardian