Will Israel Start a Regional War? Hamas Leader Killed in Iran, Hezbollah Commander Targeted in Beirut

AMY GOODMAN: Fears of a broader regional war in the Middle East are growing after Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran, where he was visiting for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Iran and Hamas both accused Israel of killing Haniyeh. In a statement, Hamas’s military wing said his assassination was a, quote, “significant and dangerous event that shifts the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions across the entire region,” unquote.

The killing of Haniyeh came less than 24 hours after Israel claimed it had assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, in Beirut, Lebanon. Hezbollah confirmed Shukr had been in the building at the time, but the group has not confirmed his fate. Israel had accused Skukr of being involved in Saturday’s rocket attack that killed 12 Druze children in the occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah has denied involvement. The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israel’s strike in Beirut on Tuesday killed three civilians, including a woman, a girl and a boy, and wounded 74 others.

While Israel quickly confirmed its role in the Beirut attack, the Israeli government has not yet made any official comment on its involvement in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran; however, the Israeli Government Press Office did post a photo of Haniyeh to Facebook with the word “eliminated” over his head. The office later took down the photo.

Speaking in Ramallah, longtime Palestinian politician Dr. Mustafa Barghouti warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to spark a broader war.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: The Israeli crime of assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, will not break the Palestinian resistance or the Palestinian people’s determination to achieve our freedom. But fascists are now dominating the Israeli government, and they are trying to drag the whole region into a total explosion. Netanyahu is a war criminal, and he is trying even to — trying to drag the United States itself into a confrontation with Iran and with the whole region.

AMY GOODMAN: There are protests in a number of cities in the West Bank right now and a general strike called. A funeral for Ismail Haniyeh will be held in Tehran on Thursday. He’ll be buried then in Qatar on Friday.

Haniyeh had served as Hamas’s top political leader since 2017 and briefly served as Palestine’s prime minister after Hamas won elections — that the U.S. supported — in 2006. Haniyeh was born in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City. Over the past 10 months, Israel has killed numerous members of his family, including three of his sons, at least two of his grandchildren, his sister and her family.

Haniyeh had played a central role in the ceasefire-hostage negotiations. Earlier today, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani wrote on X, quote, “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life,” he said.

We’re joined now by three guests. Karim Makdisi is in Beirut, Lebanon. He’s a professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut, co-host of the Makdisi Street podcast. In Tel Aviv, Israel, Gideon Levy is an award-winning Israeli author and journalist, columnist for the newspaper Haaretz and a member of the Haaretz editorial board. And in Boston, we’re joined by Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, a senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. He’s also a nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Karim Makdisi, want to start with you in Beirut. You have this reported assassination of a leading Hezbollah commander that takes place in your city, the capital of Lebanon, Beirut, followed by, within 24 hours, the assassination of Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Can you talk about the significance of this?

KARIM MAKDISI: Yes. Thank you, Amy.

It’s obviously extremely significant, and people here are extremely worried about, you know, this — what everybody’s been talking about, which is this escalation, what seems to be this inexorable escalation towards a much bigger regional war.

And I think it’s fairly clear that there are some on the Israeli side — Netanyahu and his fundamentalist, kind of religious fundamentalist government that’s there — that really are the only people that have this major interest to continue this kind of war rather than to stop it. And the way to stop all of this war is to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, to stop the genocide and to ensure that there could be some kind of at least stability in the region. Only one player, only one side refuses that, and that’s Netanyahu and his government.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Karim Makdisi, for decades now Israel has pursued this policy of assassinating leaders of the Palestinian resistance or other opponents to Israeli policy, yet it has had no impact on changing the fundamental issue still of the rights of the Palestinian people. What is your sense of how this policy of assassinations — what it’s done to any possibilities of further peace talks?

KARIM MAKDISI: Yeah, I think, on the one hand, it’s very clear that these assassinations have been successful. I mean, in operational terms, these are very, very important people. But on the kind of larger level, this is a political momentum. There is a people that wants its liberation, that wants its self-determination and — in Palestine anyway — and that will continue to do so even as various top leaders are assassinated. When one is assassinated, we’ve seen over the many decades where Israeli assassinations of kind of top-level Palestinian leaders, they’re replaced, and more so, and they become more and more effective over time. And that’s because they represent a people that wants its liberation, that wants its self-determination.

And in the case of Lebanon, it’s a similar thing. There’s an occupation. There has been a very long history of Israeli aggression and attacks and invasions and occupations in Lebanon. And Hezbollah and other resistance forces were created as a result of all these occupations and invasions. So, assassinating is extremely harmful, for sure, on operational levels, but when it comes to the larger struggles, it’s not going to stop this momentum towards a kind of continuing the struggle against Israel, for sure.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I’d like to bring in Gideon Levy, the Israeli journalist, too. If you could comment on the current situation, these latest assassinations by Israel?

GIDEON LEVY: Yes. Domestically, I mean, Israelis like these kind of operations, and therefore, those operations are taking place. Here we are again, the James Bonds of the Middle East, knowing the color of the underwears of each terrorist in Tehran or in Damascus.

But by the end of the day, I think most of the Israelis understand — I hope they do understand — that this lead us nowhere. Tonight, after those two assassinations, it’s very clear that the chances for a ceasefire and for a deal and for saving the hostages is almost finished. Nobody is going to negotiate with Israel when Israel is killing, murdering the negotiators. It’s the most basic thing.

And above all, history had to teach us by now that all the assassinations that Israel committed — and I stress it, all of them — did not contribute anything, neither to the security of Israel nor to any kind of chances for peace. We had one after the other, assassinating, you know, the most horrible leaders, and they always told us so much blood on their hands. And then came their replacement with much more blood on his hands.

AMY GOODMAN: Gideon Levy, do you agree with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti in Ramallah that Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is simply trying to continue and expand the war because when it ends, he’s out?

GIDEON LEVY: Absolutely. But I give him more credit than this. I think it’s not his only consideration. No doubt that this is a major consideration, because the facts on the ground prove it. He, until now, did anything possible to sabotage any kind of chance for a ceasefire. But by the end of the day, knowing Netanyahu for many years, this man never believed in any kind of deals with the Arabs. He doesn’t believe in any kind of negotiation and any kind of peace with them, and even not with Hamas over a ceasefire and releasing hostages. So, by the end of the day, it’s a combination of ideology, quite a dangerous and dark one, and personal motivation, sure.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring in Rami Khouri, who’s in Boston, a Palestinian journalist. The attack that occurred, which Israel claims was done by Hezbollah, on the Golan Heights of the Druze children that were killed there — very little attention is focused on the Golan Heights. Could you talk about the relationship there between the population on the Golan Heights and the Israeli authorities? Because Netanyahu and others who went there did not exactly receive a warm welcome from those who they claim they were trying to defend.

RAMI KHOURI: Well, nobody who occupies another people is ever going to get a warm welcome anywhere. The Druze are a minority that are prevalent — they originated in the mountains of Lebanon, and you find Druze communities in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine. The Druze on the Golan Heights are Syrian citizens. When Israel occupied the Golan in ’67, then annexed it in, I think, 1981, a few Druze took Israeli citizenship. Many Druze left, went back into Syria, unoccupied Syria. And many stayed there but did not take Israeli citizenship. So it’s a mixed combination. The Druze in Israel have been assimilated pretty much into Israel since 1948, and they serve in the Border Police and the things like that, the armed forces sometimes. So, it’s a community that is very much part of the Arab world but has a different religion and ethnicity in a way.

But this is typical of the Arab region, a very pluralistic region, which, of course, Zionism in 1917 convinced the British to create a super ethnic Jewish supernationalist apartheid state, which has now become a zombie killing machine all over, all over the region, and the world doesn’t quite know what to do with it. The Druze are simply the latest victims of this monster that has been unleashed.

And really, the lessons, I think, of the last few days, but certainly the last nine months and more, if you look at Gaza and the West Bank, the whole nature of Israel, the process of Zionism has to now be contained and defined. And this has to be done by the world. Like the world created Israel in the 1947 U.N. General Assembly resolution, only the world can step in and contain and define Zionism, allowing the Palestinians to have their right to self-determination, which, even now, the American leadership speaks of self-determination, two states. They say these things, but they keep giving Israel the arms. So, this is a very complex balance between global support for Israel and giving Israel carte blanche to destroy international law, destroy U.N. resolutions, all the norms of civilization. And this has been going on for years and years, and it’s getting much worse. And this week is an example of two more dimensions of this.

AMY GOODMAN: As Netanyahu spoke in the Golan Heights, a crowd of Druze protesters gathered, chanting “Bibi is a murderer,” holding up signs calling the Israeli leader a war criminal.

FAHED SAFAD: [translated] He is an unwelcome person in our place. He is a liar and corrupt. He is coming to use the bodies of our children to be on TV. We will not allow this to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Gideon Levy, you were there on Sunday. If you can further elaborate on what Rami is saying? Talk about how people felt at the time. Now, Hezbollah is saying they think it’s an anti-missile projectile of Israel that came down on the soccer field, on the children, and killed 12 people. But explain what people are saying, the Druze population on the ground.

GIDEON LEVY: You see, I’ve been there, Amy, really few hours after it happened. And the main sentiment was of shock. People were really shocked. It’s a small village, and everyone is attached to everyone, and they all felt that it was their own children being killed. Not only this, they all rushed to the football field, to the soccer field, and they all saw the bodies, which couldn’t be identified. So, the whole village was in turmoil when I was there.

Few young people that I talked with asked for revenge, but said that they don’t want innocent people to be killed. Others were courageous enough to say, “Don’t take revenge. It will not help us. It will not return our children to us. And please don’t do anything,” which is very rare to hear in Israel, in Jewish Israel. Usually after attacks over Jewish Israel, the overall sentiment is of taking revenge. In Majdal Shams, it was quite divided. Very impressive people, I must say. The young people are very impressive. Part of them went through an Israelization process. They don’t serve in the army like the other Jews in Israel. But I could feel — I wasn’t there for a few years — I could feel that the young generation is getting much more Israeli than their parents, and they were so asking for more and more Israeli citizenship, because they realize that that’s their key for good life.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask Karim Makdisi in Beirut — so, Israel did then attack a building in Beirut. If you can give us the details of what happened? And talk about the Hezbollah commander who they say they killed, though we’re just reporting that. We don’t actually know. It has been said that he was in that building, and many people were killed there.

KARIM MAKDISI: Yes. This was last night in the evening, when people were having dinner or people were outside in the streets and, you know, just moving around, and there were some drone attacks by the Israelis. They hit — it’s an extremely — you know, Beirut is a very, very dense city. In the suburb, the Dahiyeh, or the suburbs of Beirut, where these guys were located, is an extremely, exceptionally kind of dense civilian population.

So, these missiles or these drones hit this residential building. And if you see pictures of it, you see that it’s been mostly destroyed. So, there is — I think, last I checked, there were maybe between 70 and 80 that were wounded. There have been four that are dead, including two children that they took from the rubble, Hassan and Amira Fadlallah, who were caught, who were found embracing each other under the rubble and had died in this case.

And this has created an incredibly difficult moment for people there and for people in Beirut and across Lebanon. And at the other hand, it’s also something which is very familiar. The Israelis have been attacking Beirut, have been attacking Lebanon for decades, and since before I was born. There’s just been nonstop invasions, attacks. So, these kinds of things are not new in the kind of bloodlust and the history of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.

But what is different now is the response, that I would say that since the 2006 war, there has been a kind of deterrence that had been established, where, prior to that, if the Israelis decided they want to take out a building, they want to kill people, they want to do things, they would do this with total impunity, with, of course, American support and total impunity, and nothing really could be done. Since 2006 war, and increasingly and particularly as Hezbollah became more and more powerful and recruited more people and trained more people, became more professional, with much better equipment, etc., the deterrence that was established means at the moment that if the Israelis — this is according to Hezbollah and according to Hassan Nasrallah — if the Israelis attack Beirut, there will have to be some kind of response.

I just want to make one point from — you know, that was previously discussed. The idea of Majdal Shams in the Golan, I want to reiterate that this was not Israel, and this was occupied Syrian territory. The Druze are there. All the Druze that were killed did not have Israeli citizenship, as far as I know. So, the Israeli kind of claim to say they wanted self-defense or use international law, all of this was total mumbo-jumbo. It’s a totally illegal and immoral attack. And we know — we know for sure that Netanyahu, as you said in the clip before this, that, you know, they were basically hounded out when they came to the funeral. When they came to check in, they were told to leave and told not to take any kind of revenge. We know that Netanyahu and his government do not care about children. So, these kind of fake tears about the children, the Druze children in Majdal Shams, which is an incredible tragedy, is total nonsense. This was an excuse.

It’s extremely important to remember that Netanyahu was in the U.S. There was that grotesque event at the Congress, where people were giving him standing ovations in this talk, and which he was doing inside the U.S. Congress, which was broadcast across the world, which really weakens U.S. standing and shows the kind of relationship between Netanyahu, the Israelis and the Americans. This is something which Hezbollah, which people in Lebanon, which people in the region all observed very carefully, the way in which Netanyahu was in America, was given these standing ovations, was — effectively, as far as people are concerned here, were given the green light to attack not just Lebanon, but also Iraq and Iran. Surely, the Americans knew about this.

So, this idea of a Biden administration, which has been very pro-genocide, as far as the vast majority of the world and certainly this region are concerned, has been complicit in the genocide against Palestinians. They have been complicit in protecting the Israelis at all costs at the international level, at every possible corner, you know, for prosecution against the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, all of these — at the U.N. Security Council, all of the avenues the U.S. has been helping Israel and providing weapons at a daily basis whenever — without which the Israelis simply could not prosecute any of these kinds of wars. So, it’s really important to try to understand what is the U.S. role.

The U.S. could stop this in an instant. The U.S. could have forced Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire. All this business of Antony Blinken and others, who are extremely complicit in the genocide in Palestine, where they came, and the American mediators were briefing — even in Lebanon, just before the attack, they were briefing that Beirut — you know, the Israelis won’t attack Beirut. It’ll be a kind of symbolic attack. So, clearly, these kind of briefings were part of a misinformation campaign that was being launched to try to take people by surprise. The U.S. can stop this. The U.S. has the tools to do so, to compel Netanyahu.

And the way to do this is to do an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, to stop the genocide and to try to stop this movement, this inexorable movement, to a regional war. And I think this is what people here are extremely concerned about. We’ve lived through wars. We’ve grown up in these wars. This is the first time the Israelis are experiencing this kind of — these kinds of attacks and this kind of displacement. And this will get much worse for the Israelis, as well.

So, let us hope that the Americans are able to rein back Netanyahu, rather than give him these standing ovations to a war criminal, to somebody who is presiding over an apartheid genocidal state, and somebody who has a personal interest, as your guest was saying, a personal interest to prolong the war, to drag America in, at a time when President Biden is both extremely supportive and at the same time he seems to have lost the reign. I mean, the American government now seems to be missing in action. And this is extremely dangerous, and Netanyahu is trying to take advantage of this.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to follow up on that, Karim. You mentioned the Biden administration’s role right now. The Biden administration’s envoy, Amos Hochstein, has visited Beirut several times. Could you explain who he is and what his role has been in the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon?

KARIM MAKDISI: Yeah, sure. So, Amos Hochstein, in fact, is an Israeli citizen. He’s an Israeli American, very close to Biden, and his adviser on energy issues and other kinds of issues. And he was — you know, he mediated between Lebanon and — you know, various Lebanese and the Israelis when it came to the maritime boundary. There was an agreement that was signed last year, and that was fairly successful, frankly. And he’s one of these people that kind of operates behind the scenes and doesn’t make big declarations, which is good for a mediator. But he is an Israeli.

So, the idea was that he was supposed to be continuing his mediation to try to, very importantly, during this, over the past several months, one of the main aims, to try to deescalate. I mean, they did not want a regional war. The U.S. at least had — you know, keep proclaiming it does not want the expansion of the war. The U.S. very much supports the genocide in Gaza, but it’s against having a kind of larger regional war. Hochstein was its emissary, and the messages came through: Let’s deescalate. Let’s try to pull back to the kind of U.N. resolutions, 1701, which kind of ended the war in 2006. You know, have Hezbollah kind of — you know, at least its armed presence, at least the visible presence, kind of be withdrawn from there, and the Israelis will stop the overflights — this kind of thing.

But the central part, which is simply not workable, was that he was trying to delink Lebanon, or, let’s say, the Israeli northern front, Lebanon’s southern front, with Gaza. So, the idea was to say, “Let’s deescalate here, while whatever goes on in Gaza is separate.” That is not workable. It’s something which Hezbollah has said from October 8th that this is not acceptable, that they will — the front will continue to be open until a permanent — what’s called a permanent ceasefire is reached in Gaza and the genocide ends. Until that moment, there will not be an end to the war here. The U.S. government knows this very well. So, the emissary, Hochstein, as I said, who’s an Israeli, has a lot of contacts here, is fairly well regarded in general. But at the same time, it’s very clear that his mission was to try to delink Lebanon from Gaza. And that’s something that’s impossible, both in terms of the historical context, in terms of the political context and the fact that Hezbollah is not in the position where it will take — where it will just kind of go away and not achieve its own political objectives for nothing. You know?

So, the idea of a deterrence, that happened after 2006, is very much here. The idea that the Israelis will be able to dictate the settlement across the border between the Lebanese and the Israelis is absolutely not workable. The idea that Hezbollah will somehow disappear or disarm or — you know, all this stuff is totally unimaginable, outside of a ceasefire in Gaza and outside of a larger kind of just settlement where the Palestinians receive their liberation and their self-determination. The rest is not going to happen.

And the worry, of course, if I can add one more point, is that there’s this larger axis, you know, what’s called this Axis of Resistance, which Hezbollah and Lebanon is at the center of it, along with Iran, along with the Houthis in Yemen, and in Iraq and in Syria. There are all these different forces that have been kind of operating as a support front for Hamas and for Islamic Jihad in Gaza. And so you’ve got this — for the first time, this larger regional dimension which is engaged militarily, as you know, from Yemen to Lebanon. This now is at a balance.

The question is if the Israelis do what I think Netanyahu wants to do, which is to draw Lebanon into a much larger war and draw Hezbollah into a much larger war, that would draw the Iranians in, which is why they assassinated Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, in full view. This is something clearly to try to provoke an Iranian response, which they’ve already said they’re going to have to respond. Lebanon, Hezbollah, there has to be a response. Netanyahu and his religious fundamentalists in government would like such a response to draw the United States in. Everybody can see this, and everybody can see that this is heading towards a regional war.

And this is why I find it and many people here find it incredible that the U.S. administration, that the U.S. government is unable to stop this slide to war. So, with or without a mediator in Lebanon, the mediation is done behind the scenes, but it is entirely useless and won’t have any teeth, absent a ceasefire in Gaza. This is the way it is.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to bring in, if I can, Gideon Levy on this whole issue of the larger significance of the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. And also, in Iran — the attack occurred in Iran — what could potentially be the Iranian response?

GIDEON LEVY: Nobody can tell, but the signs are very, very worrying. It was an irresponsible act by Israel, no doubt, because Israel cannot guarantee what will be the Iranian reaction. This time, it involves Iran. Don’t forget that Iran feels responsible for Haniyeh, because he was a frequent guest in Tehran. And he was quite appreciated there. And as such, killing him on Iranian soil has a special meaning for Iran.

If Iran will not react, which I totally don’t believe, but if they will not react, their position as heading this whole group of countries and organizations fighting for Palestine will totally be questioned and doubted, because here you are. Until now, you only used your proxies. But now when there is an attack on your own soil, you keep passive. I can’t believe this will happen.

And obviously, anyone who goes for such an operation and does not take into account the risks — and the risks are enormous — is irresponsible. And therefore, those hours will be very crucial maybe in the coming days. But I cannot see that this will end up in any good way. The only question is: How big will the catastrophe be?

AMY GOODMAN: We just have one minute. We’re ending with Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, joining us from Boston. The significance of Ismail Haniyeh, his assassination, and what you feel, being in Boston yourself, should be response of the Biden administration? Already Antony Blinken has said we had no foreknowledge of this. Netanyahu had just left the United States. After going to the U.S. Congress joint session speech, he went down and met with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, came back and led the assassination, at least they claim, of the commander, Hezbollah leader in Beirut, and now Ismail Haniyeh. His meaning to Palestinians?

RAMI KHOURI: Ismail Haniyeh’s meaning is that he has been a high official in Hamas really since 2006, when Hamas won the democratic elections in Palestine, which the U.S., by the way, was, you know, happy to help take place. But when Hamas won, the U.S. and Israel immediately sanctioned the Palestinians. So, Haniyeh’s importance has been there a long time, near or at the top of Hamas’s political leadership. The military leadership is a separate unit, but they obviously coordinate here and there.

He is important also because he has been sort of on the pragmatic side of the political leadership. He wrote to President Bush in 2006, right after he became prime minister of Palestine, and at one point unified Palestine with Fatah and Hamas together in the government. And he said to Bush, “Look, you’re a big democracy. We’re a democratic country with our elections. We should be talking to each other.” And he said that Hamas supports a long-term truce with Israel, in other words, ending the state of armed conflict, trying to negotiate a permanent resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian or the Arabist-Zionist confrontation, that’s gone on for a hundred years now. So, he represents that side of Hamas. And Hamas has made six or seven such overtures in the last 15 years, all of which have been ignored by Israel and the United States.

So, killing Haniyeh really is a sign from the Israelis that they’re not interested in negotiating the ceasefire, the hostage release or prisoner exchanges. They just want to assert Zionist Jewish supremacy in all of Palestine and control the powers around the region. This is the great challenge now to the world, to rein in Israel, to create a situation where people put some meat onto the bones of the, what Americans and the Europeans and everybody are talking about, a two-state solution, two-state solution, self-determination. Those words are meaningless unless they have some muscle behind them. And this remains missing.

Kamala Harris must be in the most uncomfortable position in the world, because she has tried, with verbal messages, to express a more reasonable approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to rein in the Israeli excesses militarily and the genocide, and to humanize the Palestinians and their suffering, saying this has to end, and talking of self-determination and two states. But she can’t do any of that as vice president. So, she has to wait ’til she’s nominated, after August 20. And once she is then the official candidate of the Democratic Party, if she’s serious, she then will have an opportunity to show if she’s going to actually do something. And this is something that’s critical, because it may cost her the election. There are large numbers, millions of Americans, progressive Americans, Arab Muslim Americans, Jewish progressive Americans, all kinds of people, labor unions, who want the U.S. support for the Israeli genocide to stop.

AMY GOODMAN: Rami, we’re going to have to leave it there, but, of course, we’re going to continue to cover this issue, in our next segment, talk about Kamala Harris. Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at American University of Beirut, nonresident senior fellow at Arab Center Washington; Karim Makdisi, speaking to us from Beirut, a professor at the American University of Beirut; and Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist and Haaretz columnist, speaking to us from Tel Aviv, thank you all so much.

Coming up, law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum. She’s in Nashville. We’ll talk about Kamala Harris’s historic campaign, racist Republican attacks against her and much more. Back in 20 seconds.