Israel’s “War of Redemption”
A Terrorist Rampage “Changing the Face of the Middle East,” Threatening Even Worse
Map: revcom.us
On November 26, 2024, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu (Netan-Nazi) gave a speech celebrating what he called Israel’s yearlong “War of Redemption”—basically a holy a war on Israel’s enemies. He declared, “We are changing the face of the Middle East.” And he promised worse to come “with God’s help...”
What Netan-Nazi calls a seven-front “War of Redemption” includes genocide in Gaza, genocide in the West Bank, massive destruction in Syria and attacks on forces in Iraq. Plus, mass murder of civilians in Lebanon, destroying desperately needed access to food aid in Yemen, and subjecting Iran to nuclear blackmail.
Israel is “changing the face of the Middle East.” Not with any “God’s” help, but enabled and supported by its godfather, the U.S. capitalist-imperialist empire. And for now, at least, Israel’s “War of Redemption” has altered the power dynamics in the Middle East by crippling much of the Iran-centered, Russia- and China-aligned, so-called “Axis of Resistance.”1
Israel’s terrorist crimes in this “war” that you are about to read about are all armed, funded, enabled, and defended by the United States. I’ll get back to why, the implications for humanity, and what to do about it. But first, a survey of what Israel’s war of terror is bringing to humanity in the Middle East.
Ground Zero: Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza
Crater from Israeli airstrike on refugee camp at Al Mawasi, Gaza, September 10, 2024. Photo: AP
The most horrific “front” in Israel’s storm of death, destruction, and terror is Gaza.
Israel seized on the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, to attempt a “final solution” (a term Hitler used to refer to the elimination of the Jewish people in Europe); that is, making it impossible for the Palestinian people to survive as a people in the historic homeland of Palestine—whether through mass murder, exile, imprisonment, even more brutal oppression… or all of the above.
This has taken the form of some of the most horrific crimes in modern human history. In tiny Gaza (141 square miles), the impact of Israel’s U.S.-supplied bombs has been more intense, more destructive per square mile, and more deadly than all of the bombs dropped by the U.S. and Britain on Germany in World War 2. And given Gaza’s tiny size, more deadly and devastating than the nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on two cities in Japan in World War 2.2
Amidst enforced starvation, Israel has now choked off food aid entering Gaza to an all-time low since shortly after October 7, 2023.
The human dimension of this horror is incalculable and impossible to fully absorb. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been driven from their homes, sheltering in tents in the cold, wet Gaza winter. They are constantly being ordered onto forced marches, now out of north Gaza, where they are shot and killed by Israel, or bombed in the “safe zones” they have been marched to. Israel, with U.S. “aid,” has created a land of starving, injured, homeless, sick people. A land of babies who, should they survive, will never know their murdered parents or siblings.
As part of Netan-Nazi’s “War of Redemption,” Israel is rapidly expanding the Netzarim corridor. This militarized base occupies 1/7 of all the land in Gaza. It splits Gaza into two, north and south. It is a launching pad from which Israel can strike anywhere in Gaza. Amir Avivi, a retired brigadier general who is regularly briefed by Israel’s security establishment, told the New York Times that many of the country’s military leaders now believe “withdrawing and separation are no longer options.” Meaning Gaza will be occupied by Jewish settlers and annexed into Israel. Pointing to the Netzarim corridor, he said, “That’s why they’re building all of this… At the end of the day, the facts speak for themselves.” (See sidebar, “December 15 Gaza Update: Israel Massacres Dozens in Two Days.”)
Ground Zero II: Genocidal Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
Israeli airstrike in the West Bank city of Tulkarem October 4, 2024 killed 18 people. Photo: AP
Over the year beginning October 7, 2023, Israeli troops and settlers killed more than 700 Palestinians in a wave of terror and destruction in the West Bank region of Palestine. Palestinian farms, schools, and towns are under siege. Near nightly Israeli military raids create a state of terror in West Bank cities. Ever expanding Jewish “settlements” wall off and isolate Palestinian communities making life unlivable.
The West Bank region of Palestine was seized in war and is illegally occupied by Israel. But in his “Redemption” speech, Netan-Nazi insisted on calling the West Bank “Judea and Samaria.” Imposing Biblical names for regions of historic Palestine literally dehumanizes the Palestinian people. It justifies Israel’s massive influx of “settlers” to encircle, terrorize, kill, and drive out Palestinians.
The Biden-Harris administration armed, funded, and enabled Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, while pretending to acknowledge the existence of the Palestinian people. With the incoming Trump fascist regime, any pretending that the Palestinian people even exist is being dispensed with!3
Israel’s Assault on Syria Even Before the Fall of Assad
Lebanese refugees cross into Syria on foot, through a crater caused by Israeli airstrikes, November 9, 2024. Photo: AP
On December 8, the hated regime of Syria’s brutal ruler Bashar al-Assad was driven from power by the Sunni Islamic fundamentalist group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, along with the Syrian National Army (SNA) backed by Turkey. With the fall of the Assad regime, people are rushing to his notorious torture-chamber prisons to search for loved ones entombed in them. Assad’s regime was aligned with Iran and Russia. Syria is now being fought over by rival imperialist and regional powers who sponsored various armed groups as part of their struggle to dominate the Middle East. (See The Reactionary Regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad Is Overthrown—What Is Happening in Syria? Why? Where Do the Interests of the People Lie?)
For years before the fall of Assad, Israel has been bombing Syria, killing hundreds of people, and creating terror among displaced refugees going in and out of Syria. In October 2024, the UN’s senior mediator in the region warned that Israel’s attacks were creating “a military, humanitarian and economic storm breaking on an already devastated Syria [with] dangerous and unpredictable consequences.” (boldface added)
A Reign of Terror in Lebanon
Searching for victims in rubble from an Israeli airstrike on central Beirut, Lebanon, November 23, 2024. Photo: AP/Hassan Ammar
Netan-Nazi’s “Redemption” speech included a major declaration that even with a ceasefire, Israel had a right to continue to attack targets in Lebanon (Israel’s Lebanon Killing Spree Continues Under So-Called “Ceasefire”). And he warned that Israel could resume even more deadly and destructive attacks.4
Israel and its backer, the Biden-Harris administration, insist Israel is carrying out focused attacks on Hezbollah fighters who are aligned with Iran. But a major target of Israel’s bombing are civilians. In the “Redemption” speech, Netan-Nazi specifically touted that “we have brought down dozens of terror hi-rises [read: civilian-inhabited high-rise apartment buildings] in Beirut's Dahieh [a crowded residential area on the outskirts of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut]. The ground in Beirut is shaking.”
A National Public Radio report described the result of that terrorist Israeli bombing: “As we enter Dahieh, we find a ghost city. Everything that makes a place home is gone. The children are gone. The barista at the fancy cafe on the ground floor of the hotel with the glass chandelier is gone. The corner store lady is gone. The shawarma guy is gone…. It's all broken concrete and mangled metal.”
Iran: Blackmailing a Regional Rival
Iran being targetted by Israeli missiles, October 25, 2024. Photo: Screengrab from VOA news
Israel’s crippling of Iran-aligned forces in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere has made Iran more vulnerable to attacks from Israel.
In his “War of Redemption” speech, Netan-Nazi declared, “I am determined to do anything needed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That threat has always been my top priority and is even more so today, when you hear Iran's leaders state over and over again their intention to obtain nuclear weapons.”
Israel has an arsenal of at least 200 nuclear weapons, all aimed at Iran. Even if Iran could build a few nuclear weapons, Israel could obliterate the whole country of Iran in response to any attempt to use them.5 But if Iran was able to build even a few nuclear weapons, it would have some capacity to deter an Israeli nuclear attack by showing it could launch a counterattack.
There is nothing good about any country having nuclear weapons. They should be banned worldwide, forever!6 But Netan-Nazi is determined to do anything to preserve Israel’s ability to hit Iran with a nuclear first strike without fearing any kind of nuclear response by Iran.
Netan-Nazi described the target of Israel’s most recent attack on Iran as being Iran’s air defense system. He didn’t say offensive weapons system, he said air defense system. Meaning that Iran is now vulnerable to unchallenged Israeli bomb and missile attacks. That intensifies what was already an extreme imbalance of forces. It basically means Israel can attack anyone, anything, anywhere in Iran, holding the entire population hostage.
From Iraq to Yemen
Fire and smoke from an Israeli air strike in the port city of Hodeidah, Yemen, September 29, 2024. Photo: AP
Iraq and the Port of Hodeida in Yemen are 1,700 miles apart. Neither one borders Israel. Neither one is home to forces with the capacity to launch meaningful attacks on Israel. But they have both been targets of Netan-Nazis’ “War of Redemption”—or, as Israel’s supporters insist on calling global terror carried out by Israel, “Israel defending itself.”
In Iraq, Iranian-aligned militias claimed to have launched dozens of drone attacks on Israel and Israeli-occupied territory in Syria in September and October of 2024. According to pro-U.S. sources, almost none of these attacks have inflicted verified damage, injuries, or fatalities in Israel. However, these forces in Iraq are aligned with Iran, and they continue to pose a headache for Israel. Netan-Nazi ominously vowed in his “Redemption” rant to take on “many challenges ahead” in Iraq. In November and December of 2024, analysts were writing that “Iraq could be the Middle East’s next battleground.”
In Yemen, the Houthis, an Iran-sponsored Islamist force, control much of the country including the Port of Hodeida on the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. A large and strategic percentage of global commerce travels through that strait. The Houthis have declared that they will prevent shipments to Israel through the waters off Yemen until Israel’s "siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted and the aggression on Lebanon stops." The Houthis have attempted to enforce this, with some success, through missile attacks on ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.
If you sit atop a world of exploitation and oppression that depends on that shipping lane, you can’t have that. The U.S. and allies have hit back with devastating strikes on Houthi missile launching sites. But Netan-Nazi boasted that Israel wasn’t worried about constraining attacks on Yemen to military targets. He bragged that Israel “attacked the Houthis' Port of Hodeida forcibly, which the international coalition had not done.”
According to the UN, in 2023, tens of millions of people in Yemen were at risk of hunger and disease and 14 million of its 34 million people were “in acute need of assistance.” (See We Challenge You to Learn About Yemen.) Israel’s attack on the Port of Hodeida caused major damage to the port through which aid reaches this famine-wracked country. It also knocked out electrical power and destroyed fuel depots, imposing dark and freezing cold on millions of civilians.
A System of “Unquantifiable” Death, Destruction, Disease, and Trauma
Starving people of all ages wait in food line because of famine in Afghanistan. Photo: UN
Israel’s U.S.-backed, massive and sweeping “War of Redemption” is not the first time that an imperialist power has attempted to “remake the Middle East.” Only hours after jets hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists carried out terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned to an aide and told him to begin drawing up plans for war. His instructions: “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related [to the attacks] and not.”
That U.S. so-called “war on terror” was a war of terror. Within weeks, it began with an invasion of Afghanistan followed by a massive invasion of Iraq in 2003. Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, this war of terror aimed to “sweep up” anti-U.S. Islamist forces in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran. It led to an incalculable storm of death and destruction that continues to reverberate to this day. A report by Brown University's Watson Institute estimates the price paid by humanity was 4.5 million deaths, disease, trauma, poverty, and environmental devastation. And, in all its dimensions, the resulting suffering is “unquantifiable.”7
And, ironically, after all the terrible suffering it inflicted on the world, the so-called “War on Terror” actually weakened the U.S. position in the Middle East and worldwide. With all the crowing now by Netanyahu, where this will all end up can't be foretold.
I will leave the concluding word to Bob Avakian, the architect of the new communism, the most important political leader on the planet, and someone who has deeply studied the Middle East. This is an excerpt from his social media message @BobAvakianOffical REVOLUTION #99: While denouncing “terrorists,” the rulers of this country openly support terrorism.
Terrorism involves the deliberate killing of innocent people, which is something all decent people should strongly oppose.
Well, by this definition—by any reasonable definition—Israel is a rogue terrorist state, which claims for itself the right to defy international law, even to the point of committing genocide, as it is doing in Palestine.
And the fact is that Israel could not so easily, and repeatedly, carry out massive crimes against humanity and war crimes, if it weren’t fully backed by the U.S. As I put it plainly in message number 7:
Here is the entire ruling class of the U.S., and all its major politicians, both Democrat and Republican, fully supporting an apartheid state, Israel, carrying out the genocidal slaughter of Palestinians in front of the whole world.
And, as that message also makes clear, Biden—and basically the entire government and ruling class of the U.S., definitely including Kamala Harris—is supporting Israel in carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, before the whole world,
not because of “the power of the Jewish lobby”—or because of some ignorant, ridiculous and outrageous notion that “Jews are controlling everything.” It is because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.
Now this support for Israel in carrying out wanton slaughter has been extended to involve Lebanon and other countries and people in the Middle East—including Iran. This is heightening the danger of a wider and even more destructive war.
And let there be no doubt or confusion about this: The responsibility for the serious escalation of military conflict in the Middle East, and whatever results from this, lies with Israel—and the U.S government, which continues to fully back Israel.
What more do you need to know, to say this whole damn system’s got to go?!
December 15 Gaza Update: Israel Massacres Dozens in Two Days
Palestinians mourn victims of Israeli air strike on Nuseirat Camp, December 12, 2024 AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana
Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues to escalate, hard as that is to even imagine, and confront. The real death toll there is over 100,000. Israel’s latest massacres are pounding a population starved, sick, exhausted, forced on death marches to “safe zones” where they are shot at, bombed, and killed.
In just two days last week, Israel carried out increasingly egregious, overtly murderous attacks.
The French AFP news service reported that Israeli air strikes on December 12 killed at least 58 people, including guards securing aid trucks. Seven guards were killed in an Israeli strike in Rafah, in southern Gaza. Another attack left five guards dead in nearby Khan Yunis. Dozens of people, most of them children, were wounded in the two strikes.
The aid trucks were bringing flour to warehouses run by the UN relief agency, UNRWA. Israel has outlawed UNRWA within its borders and continually attacked UNRWA aid distribution and staff Gaza. In a one-sided Israeli onslaught on Gaza after October 7, 2023, 254 UNRWA team members have been killed.
On December 13, an Israeli strike on desperate refugees seeking safety in what was a post office in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp killed at least 33 people. Many were part of the same family. "They have killed the hope and optimism," said Suheil Mattar, whose grandchildren and daughter-in-law were killed. Israel claimed the massacre was aimed at a single member of the Islamic Jihad organization.
The ongoing horrific Israeli military assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza intensified with heavy ground and aerial bombardment overnight on December 12 and into December 13. The assault has brought “catastrophic” damage to the desperately needed hospital, according to the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Saifya. The scale and ferocity of the attacks blew off doors and windows on one side of the hospital, according to Dr. Abu Saifya, who told CNN that water tanks “were blown away from the intensity of the explosion.” On the morning of December 13, witnesses speaking to CNN by phone as the hospital shook from Israeli attacks said four doctors had been killed by the assault. And on the morning of the 13th, Dr. Abu Saifya told CNN “We were shocked to see hundreds of bodies and wounded individuals in the streets surrounding the hospital.”
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FOOTNOTES:
1. This “Axis of Resistance” is a grouping of Iran-aligned anti-U.S. reactionary Islamist forces including Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. Associated with this mix was the brutal regime of now-deposed Assad in Syria. And this “War of Redemption” has hit hard at what Netan-Nazi called the “head of the octopus—Iran.”
Iran and its aligned forces oppose and pose challenges for Israel. But these forces in no way are aimed at emancipating the Palestinian people (including women) or anyone else, anywhere else. Even with that, it is important to understand that there is no “equivalence” between the scale of Israel’s crimes and the much smaller scale if just as real oppression and misery imposed by woman-hating, Dark Ages Islamic fundamentalists in and aligned with Iran. [back]
2. See Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say (AP); and Israel hits Gaza Strip with the equivalent of two nuclear bombs (Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor). [back]
3. See Bob Avakian’s social media message REVOLUTION #110: Trump and Netanyahu—Nazi Madmen on a Mission of Destruction. [back]
4. Netan-Nazi declared, “I hear the claim that if we enter into a ceasefire, we will not be able to attack and will not be able to renew the war. I remind you, that is exactly what they said when we had a ceasefire in Gaza to release the hostages. They said we wouldn't go back to fighting, but we did.” And, “I know there are people who don't believe we will do that [resume killing and destruction in Lebanon]. But many also didn't believe we would enter Gaza on the ground, and we did. They didn't believe we would go into Shifa and Khan Younis, and we did. They didn't believe we would go into Rafah and the Philadelphi corridor, in the face of all the international pressure. Not only did we go in, we attacked, and then some. Many didn't believe that we would attack in Lebanon, and we did that too. We attacked with force and sophistication that surprised the whole world. So after all that, maybe we should start believing?” [back]
5. In a leaked 2015 email, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powel wrote that the “Iranians can’t use one [a nuclear weapon] if they finally make one… The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200 [nuclear weapons], all targeted on Tehran[!], and we [the U.S.] have thousands.” [back]
6. WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM from the revcoms includes the following: “The new socialist government [in North American, that will replace the current system] will not develop or use nuclear weapons and will take concrete steps and wage determined struggle to abolish nuclear weapons everywhere, with the ultimate goal of finally abolishing wars among human beings, with the abolition of the capitalist-imperialist system, and all systems and relations of exploitation and oppression, which are the basis for wars.” [back]
7. See How Death Outlives War: The Reverberating Impact of the Post-9/11 Wars on Human Health. The report estimates that between 906,000 and 937,000 people have been killed as a direct result of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. In addition, as many as 3.6 million people have died indirectly from war-related problems such as economic collapse, food insecurity, destruction of public health facilities, environmental contamination, and recurring violence. [back]
