The message of systematic assassination… and its consequences – Abdullah Sanawi

The return of systematic assassinations is more than just a settlement of old and new scores.

It was playing with fire on the edge of an abyss in an area that was almost entirely engulfed in flames.

The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas movement’s political bureau, and a day after the assassination of Fouad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most prominent military leader, has led to widespread fears that Hezbollah is about to collapse and a devastating regional war is about to break out.

Because of the symbolism of his stance, Haniyeh’s assassination in Iran’s capital presents a challenge that will be difficult to overcome without a similar response, or Tehran’s regional prestige will suffer.

The attack, which took place on the first day of office for reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, appeared aimed at thwarting his electoral gamble to improve relations with the West.

On the scene, it was posted inside a Revolutionary Guard building, as if it were another message challenging security measures and questioning its infiltration.

From another perspective, the assassination of Shukur, for example, which took place in Beirut, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of the capital, violated all the red lines in the rules of engagement and posed a challenge to its deterrence capabilities.

These two consecutive events foreshadowed the return of a systematic assassination campaign that reached its peak at the turn of the century with attacks on Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and, after him, Hamas’s most powerful figures, Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi and Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi. Many other political and military leaders were involved in the Palestinian National Action, the most dangerous of which was the poisoning of Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The return of systematic assassinations has opened the way for the emergence of anti-return and Palestinian organizations that resort to the option of physical assassination, as was common in the 1970s.

Unlike Haniyeh, Shukur is not well-known in public life despite his high position in the party’s military and political decision-making core.

Retaliation for the killing of 12 Druze children in Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights was used to launch a raid on the southern suburbs, targeting its most prominent military leaders, whom Washington blamed for the 1983 attack on US Marines based in Beirut.

It is noteworthy that Israel has refused any international investigation into the truth of the Majdal Shams incident and has made massive political investments to incite conflict between Druze Arabs and other Arabs, as well as among the Druze themselves.

The conflict over the Druze in the Golan Heights ended in failure, with the families of the children killed extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expelled from the funeral and refusing any shots with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze socialist leader, played a decisive role in neutralizing targeted incitement.

He issued strict instructions to accept any refugees from the Shia-dominated south and Druze-dominated mountainous areas if pressure from a possible large-scale Israeli military operation forced them to do so.

Two huge paradoxes emerged at the scene, the first being that the far right was talking about the Druze in the Golan Heights being Israeli citizens, while most of them do not hold Israeli citizenship and consider themselves to be Syrian rather than Arabs elsewhere. Moreover, under international law, the Golan Heights themselves are occupied Syrian territory!

Secondly, despite the magnitude of the Majdal Shams catastrophe, it cannot be measured by the number of martyrs and injured in the Gaza Strip and the war crimes and genocide committed by the Israeli army against the people of the Gaza Strip.

In the aftermath of the two consecutive assassinations, many response options emerged, some of which discussed coordinated action that would have the loud and impactful effect of returning the deterrence equation between Israel and Iran to the state it emerged in April of last year.

Every strike has a reaction, and every action within a boundary has a reaction within other boundaries.

That is what will happen, one way or another, but it is not yet clear what the nature and limits of that response will be, whether it will be brutal, like the severity of the two assassinations, or symbolic, as many American and European circles have called it, with urgency.

After Haniyeh’s assassination, it is difficult to see any foreseeable resumption of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel in Cairo and Doha.

The assassination of the first Palestinian political official during the negotiations could not be justified unless it was intended to undermine the gamble of ending the Gaza war through a prisoner and hostage exchange agreement.

This is exactly what Netanyahu wants, as it concerns his political future and his demands to prolong and expand the war until he achieves what he calls “absolute victory.”

With Shuk’s assassination, the chances of pacifying Israel’s northern front and returning the thousands of families to the settlements they were forced to leave are slim.

Netanyahu gained from the two assassinations a gain in confirmation of his political position amid Israeli public opinion severely shaken after the events of October 7, 2023, but from any strategic calculation, this gain is fragile and its impact cannot be controlled.

The two assassinations could lead to a restoration of the reputation of Israeli intelligence, which has been thoroughly damaged, but an incomplete and questionable reputation given the role played by the United States in providing detailed information and the use of modern technology despite Washington’s repeated denials of any connection to or prior knowledge of Haniyeh’s assassination.

This denial is a fear that these responses will lead to a regional war that it does not want and would harm its interests, rather than an acknowledgement of the facts.

The US government sought to pre-empt the course of a potential confrontation by achieving its goals in two assassinations…one to confirm an opportunity to stop the Gaza war and complete the exchange agreement…and the other to warn of the consequences and repercussions of a possible regional war.

In this context, the assassination of Shukur and Haniyeh followed an attack on a military base by far-right demonstrators supported by ministers in the Netanyahu government, in a move akin to a coup against the centrality of the army in the state structure, according to a striking statement by opposition leader Yair Lapid.

The purpose of the attack was to prevent the trial of soldiers who had committed horrific crimes amounting to indecent assault and rape against a Palestinian prisoner.

The aim is to propose the creation of a legal state to investigate the horrors widely exposed by international human rights organizations, rather than to hold real trials. However, the Israeli far right seeks to maintain its power and influence, and there will be no prosecutions for those who kill or torture Palestinians.

What seems dangerous in these incursions is the loss of prestige for the Israeli military itself.

Perhaps this was another reason for carrying out two assassinations simultaneously to restore lost prestige.

On reflection, widespread regional war scenarios are more likely than ever.

The dilemma of US policy is that it provides Israel with the necessary political and strategic cover to violate all international legal rules without deterrence and warns the other side not to get sucked into a regional war without regard for its interests and prestige.

This is a factor in a regional explosion, the precursors of which already exist.