Assassination of Haniyeh and the ‘Samson Option’

Consistent with its patented contempt of the international rule of law, Israel continues business as usual. Though it is accused of carrying out genocide in Gaza and the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, there is no sign indicating that Israel will slow down its genocidal and suicidal mission.

In a belligerent attempt to sabotage any diplomatic efforts that could’ve made ceasefire and hostage exchange possible, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh—Hamas’ political leader and chief diplomatic negotiator—in Tehran where he was attending the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president. This not only affirmed Israel’s disinterest in peace negotiation and hostage exchange, but it also affirmed its appetite for a direct war with Iran and Lebanon since it assassinated Fuad Shukr—Hezbollah’s second ranking commander—in Lebanon only a day earlier.

“We will get revenge,” affirmed Hassan Nasrallah in his speech on Thursday. “Between us are the days and the battlefields,” he added. Within hours after his speech, barrage of missiles and rockets have been falling on Israel on a daily bases, and that is just a prelude to the coming revenge.

No Stranger to Martyrdom

Haniyeh was a cause-driven man. He dedicated his life for the liberation of Palestine. Over the years, 60 members of his immediate family, including children and grandchildren, were killed by Israel. He was a pragmatist who, back in 2006, led Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary election against Fatah, a more powerful, more funded, and more experienced political party led by Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas won by a landslide– 76 out of the 132 seats compare to Fatah’s 43.

“Don’t be afraid,” reassured Haniye the West that was bloated with Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian disinformation. “Hamas is a Palestinian movement, it is an aware and mature movement, one which is politically open in the Palestinian arena, and to its Arab and Islamic hinterland, and similarly open to the international arena,” he told to the BBC.

Israel and the US immediately dismissed Hamas’ victory and asserted they would not deal with Hamas without first recognizing Israel. Haniyeh’s position was clear: we would not accept any precondition to peace and we will never recognize an occupation force that never identified its state borders. What followed were periodical deadly attacks that Israel calls mowing-the-grass, unenviable spot in the US terrorism list, and betrayal by Fatah that killed the formation of a coalition government.

Now that Haniyeh is assassinated, Hamas leadership unanimously elected Yahya Sinwar. The message to Netanyahu and company is clear: we are ready to play hardball.

Enabling Genocide

Israel is determined to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians in order to establish an exclusively Jewish state that is above all laws. Thanks to its lobby’s unprecedented dominance in the American political system that was at a full display during Netanyahu’s address of the joint session of the Congress on July 24 where he was indulged with dozens of standing ovations and animated cheers. He told these mostly credulous, corrupt, and Israel-first congressional body that “a war on Israel is a war on America” and that Iran—not Israel—is the biggest threat facing the world today. “It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization,” he said. Here is the diabolical irony: Netanyahu was neither talking about Israel’s on-going genocide against the Palestinian people nor was he talking about the Israeli extremist mobs, including Knesset members, that stormed 2 military camps to free soldiers charged on torturing and gang raping Palestinian prisoners with baton and other means.

Now that the veil has been removed, many people around the globe have witnessed the evil nature of Zionism and how the Israeli forces sadistically rejoice their relentless mass slaughter and deliberate killings of children, people of conscience—especially the younger generations—have been inspired to scrutinize the old narrative.

Israeli snipers routinely target children for joy-killing. “We cannot remain silent about what we saw,” said the 45 American doctors and nurses who volunteered in Gaza in an open letter to President Joe Biden. After seeing too many cases of children killed by snipers, Dr. Mark Perlmutter who is a Jewish American orthopedic and president of the World Surgical Association confirmed to CNN that some kids were deliberately targeted. “No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake,” he attested.

Method of the Madness

Israel is so desperate for optics that would give the impression that they are as strong as ever and that they are winning the war for domestic consumption. Ten months of ethnic cleansing campaign that killed more than 35,000 people, mostly children and women, and destroyed more than 90 percent of the building in Gaza did not lead to the achievement of its stated objectives. Hamas is not ‘wiped out’, hostages are not freed, and a pro-Israel governing body is not installed to take over Gaza.

So far, Israel dropped 75,000 tons of bombs on Gaza. Each ton being 2,000 pounds, we are talking about 150,000,000 pounds of explosives- a level of evil that humanity has never witnessed before. Still the bombings continue being dropped on refugee camps, schools, mosques, and hospitals.

Since the start of the War on Gaza, the Israeli media by and large kept the average Israeli in the dark when it comes to the IDF’s loss of fighters and military equipment in Gaza. Far-right fueled jingoism compelled the Israeli media—save papers such as Haaretz—to abandon anything that remotely resembles objective or ethical journalism. Debunked disinformation such as Hamas beheading babies and committing mass rape are still being recycled. According to the internationally reputable journalist Gideon Levy, the average Israeli is denied any field coverage from Gaza that reveals the apocalyptic destruction, slaughter of children and civilian suffering, lack of food and medicine. They are only told stories of heroism attributed to their own soldiers. Levy urges every Israeli to introspectively ask oneself: Am I better off today or ten months ago?

Nuclear Cliffhanger

Ever since 1979 when U.S surveillance satellite detected “a double flash of light in the Indian Ocean midway between Africa and Antarctica” that was later accepted as detonation of a nuclear weapon, Israel adopted a nuclear ambiguity policy. According to the CIA, France assisted Israel in acquiring nuclear technology.

As a deterrent and a psychological tactic, Israel has been indulging in leaking certain information ascertaining its nuclear capability as well as a component of its nuclear doctrine known as “the Samson Option.” The name is inspired by the legendary biblical warrior and judge with extraordinary strength who drew his strength from his long hair.

Ironically, the Samson Option invokes a murder-suicide tactic. After being captured by the Philistines and being tied to the pillars of the temple, Samson killed himself and his enemies by collapsing the pillars of the temple in which they all stood. So the message is: if Israel is ever defeated by conventional military means, it will resort to using nuclear weapon knowing very well that it cannot survive its consequences. The entire region must be annihilated if the Israel project is destroyed.

Though the military aspect of the Samson Option has been written about by many for the past several decades, the economic aspect—the financial system—which is often used by Zionist economic elites to blackmail the wealthy Western states that are the direct beneficiaries of the financial markets and banking systems is seldom written about and is never seriously scrutinized.

Against that background, it should not be too difficult to understand the blind loyalty that US lends Israel. In a nutshell, the US foreign policy is a hostage to economic blackmail. US leadership and policy-makers have been enabling Israel at the expense of the US’ strategic interest in the Middle East and in the rising global south.

Awakening the Dormant Giant

After a long period of fragmentation and nearly a quarter of a century of total devastation of many Muslim countries, majority of Sunnis and Shi’is, Wahabis and Sufis, secularist and faithful, intellectuals and religious scholars, politicians and social media influencers have found equilibrium of conscience that is inspired by the genocide in Gaza. The world has witnessed the salatul janazah (funeral prayer) on Haniyeh’s body led by Imam Ali Khamenei—the Supreme Leader of Iran and the symbolic leader of the worldwide Shia—not to mention the millions that filled streets of Tehran to honor their Sunni brother in faith.

More and more people and countries are coming to the realization that Zionism is too radioactive to be affiliated with. It is a morally caustic failed ideology, yet the US is determined to defend Netanyahu and the genocide regime as they recklessly lead humanity into Armageddon.

[Photo by khamenei.ir, via Wikimedia Commons]

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.