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August 1, 2024 - 7:00am
Before Yasser Arafat was evacuated from besieged Beirut on 30 August 1982, an Israeli sniper had him in his sights but was refused permission to kill him. Arafat was by then a recognised political leader, and thus enjoyed something much stronger than diplomatic immunity: he was protected by the tacit but absolute rule under which no Arab government has ever tried to assassinate any Israeli political leader and vice versa.
But things are different with Hamas. It has never accepted the legitimacy of Jewish rule over any part of Israel, and so its chiefs could never graduate from terrorists to political leaders. Now one of them — Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau and the closest thing it had to a prime minister — has discovered the pitfalls of his status. As he returned to an official guest house in Tehran, having attended Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony for Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian, a very small missile launched by a long-range drone was fired through the window of his suite, destroying it and him, along with a bodyguard.
Exiled in Qatar, Haniyeh could live very safely and in great luxury. That sheikhdom has always accommodated everyone: it pays for Al Jazeera‘s global anti-American propaganda while simultaneously hosting by far the most active US military base in the entire region. It has housed a Mossad office for decades and has steadfastly cooperated with Israel in all manner of ways, at the same time hosting the Hamas leaders.
Haniyeh must also have felt very secure in Tehran, capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran no less. With Arab militias fighting for him from Lebanon to distant Yemen, as well as in Syria and Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei really is the successor of the emperor Cyrus — though Cyrus restored Jewish rule over Jerusalem and Israel that Khamenei wants to end. This evening, Iran’s Supreme Leader ordered a retaliatory strike against the country he blames for Haniyeh’s assassination. Israel, in his words, has “prepared the ground for a harsh punishment for itself”; it is the “duty” of the Islamic Republic to take revenge.
The last time that happened, Israel intercepted hundreds of its ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles with some help from US, British, French and Jordanian air squadrons, as well as missiles launched by US warships in the Eastern Mediterranean. If Khamenei’s Revolutionary Guards try that again to salvage some credibility by “avenging” Haniyeh, there might not be any allies ready in place to intercept drones, though the Israeli air force can do that well enough and only Israel has ballistic missile defences up and running.
But perhaps Iran’s high command — and its allies — have not considered the threat they still face. These days even schoolboys can operate drones, and the 1,400-kilometre distance from Israel to Tehran is no big deal, but the killing of Haniyeh required much more. To carry out the assassination, there had to be exact knowledge of which room he would be in some eight hours before the drone was sent. This could only have come from people watching the Hamas leader very closely during his visit, who had a good view of his room from across the street.
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SubscribeWhat Iranian strike on Israel? The one several weeks ago that did basically nothing? Did he get who bombed who this morning mixed up or something?
The article was probably written in the expectation that something like that would happen. It’s rather like the endless updating of obituaries of celebrities.
Actually that attack hit some of Israel’s most highly protected sites pretty much dead centre on each of them in a manner specifically designed to exhibit their ability without prompting too much of an escalation. That the US, UK & French shot down a load of drones sent up specifically to be shot down whilst lighting-up the Israeli air defence radar networkwas not the main event. They hit several sites with balistic missiles and demonstrated that they can do so again. What will stop them doing so will not be a lack of capability – it will be a judgement of how far they want to play Netanyahu’s game of drawing in the US.
I agree that cheap drones have revolutionised warfare, and can easily overwhelm the old expensive ballistic missile defences.
It would be a mistake to think that the push for direct all out war with Iran originates in Israel. This is a project of the U.S. deep state’s forever war machine. Their “aid money” is what promotes those factions in Israel which foolishly favour direct war with Iran.
Sane Iran policy would recognise the ripening domestic Iranian opposition to a now deeply unpopular corrupt regime, and avoid presenting a threat to the Iranian homeland which would shore up support for the regime (much as Hitler’s 1941 invasion of the USSR shored up Stalin’s regime with a “patriotic war”).
Would that be the same US deep state that recently handed Iran $Bs and is allowing it to develop nuclear weapons?
Stalin seemed to do ok despite killing hundreds of thousands, starving millions more, and even presiding over a disastrous unreadiness to German invasion in 1941 (the Politburo by then so chicken scared that they couldn’t envisage a Soviet state without him). In modern technological societies popular opposition doesn’t necessarily win. The Allies killed hundreds of thousands of German civilians, whether or not they had ever voted for the NSDAP. Unfortunately the State matters, and you can’t meaningfully just opt out of the one you inhabit, however much you despise its policies. The Iranian opposition hasn’t overthrown the brutal regime in 25 years, and I doubt whether it has any chance of succeeding now.
The author makes it quite clear that he is taking about a future hypothetical strike similar to the last one that they attempted, that might turn out to be more successful (on its own terms) than the last. Such a strike had, apparently and if one trusts Bloomberg’s reportage, been ordered by Iran’s leadership last night.
The fault lies with the sub-editors for a poorly worded header: the title of the piece should have been something like, “A vengeful strike by Iran on Israel could be a disastrous error”.
You’re assuming that Israel is responsible for the death of Haniyeh. It could just as easily be Nasrallah or the Ayatollah himself as a punishment for the unauthorised attack on October 7th. It could also be other actors within Hamas. These guys make the Sopranos look like Amish.
Precisely. No use jumping to conclusions.
We in the West think politics is a rough old trade. In the Middle East (and elsewhere – remember Prigozhin’s untimely demise), it’s a blood sport.
Good point. The anti-Israel bluster from the Ayatollah is a tired cliche at this point. The 3H Club – Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi have been useful Iranian assets but perhaps that view is changing. Russia, Iran and China have been signing big petro deals and arms agreements. Iran has an anti-regime movement to be wary of. Maybe some view Hamas et al as bad for business. Maybe some thought that helping Israel (assuming they launched the strike) would create problems for the regime.
The only other people with this capacity are the US, so it’s either Israel or the US and the US is leaderless so fill in the blank.
These guys make the Sopranos look like Amish.
Excellent
I actually wondered that myself when I first heard of it. It would be a typical trick to try & bolster support for Iran.
So the Israelis continue to do all they can to release their hostages by murdering their oponents negotiators. Could all commentators please now refrain from pretending that Netanyahu and the vast bulk of the Israeli populace give a monkeys about the return of their hostages – they didn’t when they enacted the Hannibal Directive on October 7th and they certainly don’t now.
As for the rest of the relentlessly wrong Professor’s guff this stood out “But things were different with Hamas. The group could never accept the legitimacy of Jewish rule over any part of Israel and its chiefs, and so it could never graduate from terrorists to political leaders.” This may have something to do with the fact that whenever they do move towards accepting Israel, the IDF just murder them (see Ahmed Yassin).
In the Spring Iran sent the Israelis a very clear warning by planting balistic missiles right in the middle of their most highly protected military sites – despite the best efforts of the Israelis, US, French and British with a few billion dollars worth of missiles. We’ll see how they respond now, but it’s clear it’s not just the IDF who can hit precise targets nowadays.
Actually, A LOT of the population of Israel not only want Netanyahu gone but also want a cease fire. Thousands have protested in the streets. The only people who support Netanyahu are the ultra Orthodox Jews.
You. Are. Wrong. A LOT is not a majority. Two states solution will never happen. Either Israel survives or you destroy it. Most Israelis understand this very well.
“The only”…
No. I hold no particular brief for Netanyahu, who has been a poor war leader, but the liberal Left do not represent the majority of Israelis.
Netanyahu and the Israeli Govt can’t really worry about the hostages. Their duty is to look after the country first.
Whether they ARE doing that is a different question.
If Hamas really wanted to have a ceasefire, they should have released ALL the hostages back in November last year. In case you didn’t notice it was Hamas that broke the true which Israel kept extending in an attempt to get the hostages home.
Ah, one of those new (or old) right wing anti Semites. Good old reasonable Hamas – of course we don’t need to take their foundational charter seriously, any more than we should have “Mein Kampf” or Lenin’s political philosophy. They probably don’t want to kill ALL Jews, but the most certainly do want to reduce those few who might remain under their rule in Palestine to dhimmi status.
Bollocks to that! Arab Muslims have millions of square miles and two of their most holy cities under their complete control. In fact they controlled the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem from 1948 (after having expelled rather a lot of Jews!), which was only blown by the fact that Jordan decided foolishly to join the Six Days War. Indeed even the Muslim Holy places in Jerusalem still remain under their religious control.
It is kind of difficult to imagine that the Jews would have any privileges whatsoever to access their holy places were the Islamists were in control.
History has demonstrated proven any that the Jews both need and – through a mixture of good luck and canny politics – the ability to acquire their own state. They might have had a smaller one had he not been for constant rejectionism by some force or another on the Arab Muslim side.
I do not privilege you Jews above every other group although they do have a unique history. The Kurds also ‘deserve’ a state of their own by almost any national and moral measure, but alas, political circumstances are very unlikely to furnish them one.
Perhaps the Professor, with all his military experience and knowledge, could explain why the Israelis can assassinate a target hundreds of miles away with ‘a very small missile’ flying through a window, yet tell us they absolutely, positively must use 2,000lb bombs on refugee camps to do the same in territories they border. I’d be fascinated to hear his big-brained reply – also from anyone else around here too.
Because that is the way that wars must be fought against an enemy that regards hiding behind its own citizens as a legitimate battle tactic. Is that very difficult to understand, or are you just grandstanding for the Guardian readers here?
That an enemy is hiding behind civilians is precisely why a civilised state would have used the more precisely targeted option. That’s why Secret Servicemen (in the news recently following the Trump shooting) aren’t routinely armed with rocket launchers and clusterbombs.
It might work with single individuals. But not with Hamas as a whole, hiding between the civilian population and in tunnels underneath houses and hospitals. Do you think, that Hamas is dressed like an opposing football team, so the Israelis can identify the enemy?
A number of the IDF’s most depraved attacks have been explicitly excused by naming particular individuals. The point still stands with Hamas as a whole – the IDF has the means to target them much more accurately than currently they are doing. This devastation is doing very little to affect the tunnels too by the way – but those could have been more directly targetted themselves with mining equipment rather than carpet bombing the entire surface above.
How do you actually know this? How do you know the intricacies of finding the whereabouts of Hamas in a densely populated Gaza? Why not just admit , like the rest of us, you don’t know?
Once a tunnel is more than 10m below ground level it is fairly immune from most bombs. A hand greade exploding in rooom can kill people. When an explosion occurs at ground level most of the shock wae goes up in the air. This is why B Wallis invented Bouncing , Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs which explode at depth. The energy from the explosion progresses through the ground as shock wave and destroys the foundations of the building.
Grand Slam (bomb) – Wikipedia
Or because the real reason for the mass bombings is to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible to occupy the Gaza Strip and ‘win’.
Perish the thought.
If genocide was in Israel’s mind, it could have wiped them out easily enough many years ago. Israel keeps hoping they will make peace!
This conspiracy theory is so prevalent, but fails the most basic logic tests.
Obviously, given the munitions mismatch, if genocide was the Israelis’ aim, the war would’ve been over by October 14th. Again, if they wanted to kill as many Gazans as possible, communicating areas they plan to target and giving people time to leave would seem a bit counterproductive.
Tunnels.
And now Israeli brown-shirts, not content with storming prisons and police stations, do so (again) to the Al-Aqsa mosque. They’re relentless in their desire to set the region aflame.
Unlike Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis and Iran itself?
The thing to remember is that Netanyahu needs Israel to remain in a sufficient state of conflict to remain in office and out of court on bribery charges. In normal circumstances, I would not expect Israel to kill someone of Haniyeh’s status in Tehran (whatever about in Gaza) but Netanyahu will do anything to avoid facing the court in Jerusalem.