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Israel’s ‘ultimate target’ is Iran, drawing US into ‘direct military confrontation’: Analyst
Mouin Rabbani, non-resident fellow at the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, said the attack on Beirut is the latest Israeli move designed to reshape power in the region, and if possible draw the US into direct confrontation with Iran.
“I think Israel has taken a strategic decision that it wants to fundamentally alter the shape of the Middle East. And a key element of that is crushing Hezbollah and removing it as a significant military factor in the Middle East,” Rabbani told Al Jazeera.
“I think its ultimate target is to weaken Iran and, if possible during the remaining months of the Biden administration, to implicate the United States in a direct military confrontation with it,” Rabbani said.
“That’s why Israel has absolutely no time for diplomacy. That’s why its attacks go well and far beyond anything that could be interpreted within the more narrow objectives that Israel has announced” in terms of its own security, he said.
‘Long arm of Israel’ can reach anywhere in Iran, Netanyahu tells UNGA
The “long arm of Israel” can reach the “tyrants of Tehran” anywhere in Iran and the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday.
‘Everything under pressure’ in Lebanon after another night of attacks
There’s been absolutely no letup in Israeli air strikes. We’ve heard several explosions overnight in the area that I’m in, which is Nabatieh governorate.
We’ve seen explosions in Tyre, which was supposed to be one of the safe places that people could flee to from here, and that’s now under intense bombardment.
The Israeli military has said they’re attacking weapons launchers and Hezbollah’s military buildings in Lebanon, but civilians keep dying. All of the towns, all of the villages, even the little hamlets, are all emptying out. People are just fleeing.
There’s a lot of pressure on emergency services, too. This is a very foresty area, and so you get forest fires. Somebody told me from the civil defence that they’ve been battling three or four or five fires a day.
Thirty-seven hospitals have been shuttered because medical staff are scared that Israel will do what did in Gaza and go after medical infrastructure and bomb hospitals.
Everything is under pressure right now, and whether it gets to breaking point remains to be seen.
US diplomacy a ‘charade’ to conceal direct support for Israel: Analyst
Mouin Rabbani, non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, spoke to Al Jazeera earlier about Israel’s attack on Beirut and the role of the United States.
Rabbani said the claim by US officials that they did not know in advance of Israel’s attack on Beirut was not plausible given its close intelligence ties to Israel.
“What we have here is the United States repeatedly claiming that it had absolutely no idea of the latest developments until it was informed by the Israelis,” Rabbani said.
“This is the same government that spent months warning the world about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And despite its exceptionally close intelligence relationship with Israel, and intelligence sharing and all the rest of it, now claims it had absolutely no clue that any of this was happening.”
Rabbani said current US diplomacy “is an exercise in smoke and mirrors”.
“A diversionary charade to conceal the direct support the United States has been providing Israel throughout the past year,” he said.
