We can't let Israel drag us into WW3

Iran sent hundreds of missiles and drones towards Israel late last night, in retaliation for Israel bombing their embassy in Syria on April 1st, violating international law and killing seven Iranians. It’s unclear how many of these actually reached Israel, as U.S. and UK jets scrambled to intercept them, and the Iron Dome and other Israeli defenses took many out of the air, but the initial answer appears to be very few. As the dust settles this information could change, but as of this morning there are no reported deaths in Israel. But, Netanyahu is still beating his chest and raising concern of Israel escalating further and deliberately trying to bring the U.S. and other allies into a wider conflict. Biden and America as a whole should do everything possible to de-escalate, right now.

Countless people have been warning the Biden administration about this exact scenario, some as early as last October. Others, in sources ranging from CNN to PBS to the American left writ large, have been echoing this warning ever since. Netanyahu, in the absence of any clear strategy to defeat Hamas, has a strong incentive to both distract from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and draw the U.S. and the West as a whole into a conflict that’s easier for politicians to rationalize to their constituencies – war with Iran. It was Israel that catalyzed the current violence by bombing Iran’s embassy, coincidentally the same day they murdered World Central Kitchen aid workers, and it is now Israel that is saber rattling and indicating they want to strike back at Iran.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

In addition to the international incentives that Netanyahu has when it comes to dragging the West into yet another war in the Middle East, he also has huge domestic incentives to further escalate this war. Israelis are protesting, demanding his resignation, and he’s likely to face criminal charges if he falls out of power. But Israel does not want to enter all-out conflict with Iran alone. So this is a crucial moment for the U.S., the EU, and all Western nations to make the choice not to support Netanyahu. This crucial decision could cause his domestic power to crumble, but even if it doesn’t Israel is far less likely to escalate further if left to face the consequences of its actions alone in an infinitely weaker position. The flow of Western bombs, small arms, and money is crucial to both its relentless genocide in Gaza and its ability to combat Iran and Hezbollah and other enemies. And we should cut off that flow.

Americans should be pushing to cut funding and arms to Israel, now. It’s both a moral imperative to stop arming a nation that refuses to halt its genocide of Palestinians even while facing the threat of retaliation from Iran, and a political and moral imperative to not get involved in a larger war deliberately provoked by a fascist prime minister who doesn’t care about the lives of Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Iranians, or anyone else other than himself. All of us should be making it clear to every national elected official that we unequivocally reject further involvement with Israel or with any escalation in the Middle East.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

While we can’t be certain about the decision making process that led Israel to bomb Iran’s embassy, we do know that U.S. support for Israel was decidedly faltering just last week, just two days ago even, after the IDF’s murder of World Central Kitchen aid workers in particular. In the past 24 hours, and at this very moment, there are a number of politicians in both parties trying to paint fighting Iran alongside Israel as a different beast than support for the continued genocide in Gaza. But both involve supporting Israeli violence in the region, and the conflict with Iran has emerged in part from the U.S. failure to do everything in its power to halt the Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in its path.

Thankfully, there is a significant glimmer of hope that the White House will not respond to Iran’s retaliation by leaping into violence and further escalation. According to CNN, an official with knowledge of Biden’s most recent phone call with Netanyahu says the President told his Israeli counterpart that America “will not participate in offensive operations against Iran.” And that is exactly the approach we should take. In an official statement Biden has also said that he will, “convene my fellow G7 leaders to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.” We, people across America and the world, should urgently push our leaders to move forward using diplomacy to bring peace, both between Iran and Israel and in Gaza. We cannot just take politicians at their word and hang back, we need to pro-actively push for peace and make ourselves heard.

It’s time for the U.S. to let Israel face the consequences of its deliberately provocative and illegal actions alone. We should not spend billions and get involved in another war to defend a rogue and genocidal apartheid state. We should have cut Israel off some time ago, instead of feeding its killing machine with weaponry and money. And the liberal establishment that rightly has been pushing to condition or cut aid to Israel for the last two weeks should not be swayed by an Iranian escalation that was deliberately provoked by Netanyahu. The underlying conditions, both of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and of the fascist and rogue nature of the Israeli regime, have not changed. Some will seek to bang the drums of war and exaggerate Iran’s response, but whether or not you see Iran’s response as proportionate the truth is that Israel deliberately struck their embassy and murdered seven of their citizens. And as of this morning Israel is reporting zero deaths from the Iranian attack. They are reporting some damage to one military base, and injuries to one civilian. It’s impossible to know if that’s the whole picture, but that is all that has been relayed thus far. At the same time, Iran has released a statement via their delegation to the U.N. which says that “The matter can be deemed concluded.”

So now we are at a pivotal moment. It’s vital to the lives of millions of people that Biden live up to his word and not take us down a path of war. Congress must embrace an approach that works toward peace as well. Last week much of the U.S. liberal establishment began to pivot towards pushing for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Members of Congress began to demand conditions on aid. The discourse shifted towards clearly stating that Israel has gone too far. Powerful Democratic aligned non-profits released statements about the need to condition aid to Israel. This pivot was a long time coming, too long, and still remains too slow, but it’s crucial to not shift away from the direction this powerful block started to move in. And this escalation, rather than changing our direction, should make it clear to all of us that cutting off Israel and working towards peace is more important than ever. Israel is a threat to the security of the entire region, and to the United States as it tries to draw us into yet another war. The genocide in Gaza should have been enough, but for those holdouts who could not or would not see that slaughter for what it was, it should now be clearer than ever that severing ties with a rogue nation which is currently spawning more and more violence is crucial. No war with Iran. No more support for Israel. This moment demands that we act decisively for peace.