Trita Parsi
There is little doubt that Israel was behind the audacious assassination of Hamas’ hostage-deal negotiator and political head Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday. By deliberately maximizing Tehran’s embarrassment—Haniyeh was killed only hours after the inauguration of Iran’s new reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian—the Israeli government also maximized the likelihood of Iranian retaliation. That is—at least in the view of a former Deputy Head of the Israeli National Security Council—because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to spark a larger war and drag the U.S. into it.
Though Israel itself would pay a high price in a region-wide war, it would serve Netanyahu’s interests in numerous ways.
Firstly, Haniyeh’s assassination kills the prospect of an imminent ceasefire deal. Netanyahu has consistently opposed a deal that would end the war. The Israeli daily Haaretz revealed that, in prior rounds of negotiations, he strategically leaked sensitive information to the media at crucial moments to sabotage talks. As President Biden told TIME when asked whether Netanyahu was prolonging the war for the sake of his political career, “There is every reason to draw that conclusion.” Netanyahu knows that a hostage deal will collapse his government and end his reign as Prime Minister. It would also likely mean the expedition of his ongoing corruption trial, which may very well land him in jail. Nothing kills these talks more effectively than ending the life of the negotiator on the other side of the table.
Secondly, Haniyeh’s killing may corner a future President Kamala Harris. While the Biden Administration has consistently blamed Hamas for the failure to reach a deal, there are signs Harris could take a different approach to Biden’s near-complete deference to Israel. “As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done,” she said after he visited Washington last week, pinning the blame for the lack of progress at his feet. Her cold body language, her expression of empathy for the suffering of Palestinians, and her willingness to publicly point to Israel’s obfuscation were hard for Netanyahu to miss.
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