The Israel-Iran confrontation

The Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, and the resultant retaliatory attack by Iran on Israel have no doubt raisedthe stakes in the Middle East war involving Israel and Hamas. It is important however that the parties, their allies and the United Nations do not allow immediate advantage to becloud the highly unpleasant consequences possible in the event of failure of restraint and further escalation.

Since October 7, 2023 when the militant wing of Hamas attacked Israeli settlements killing an estimated 1200 people with hostages to boot, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has unleashed a genocidal war on Gazans killing an estimated 54,000 Palestinians including children and women.

However, things got to a climax on April 1, 2024 when Israel attacked the Iranian Consulate in Damascus. In that attack, 16 persons, including two Iranian Generals, Mohammed Reza Zahediand Mohammed Hadi Haji Rahimi were killed. This incident upped the stakes in the Middle East crisis currently hallmarked by the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Iran vowed revenge and put the world on edge due to a foreseeable escalation of the tension in the region.

Expectedly, on 13 April, Iran fired a barrage of missiles, a mix of armed drones, 110 ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles into Israeli territory. Israeli Western backers, namely, American, French, and British claimed they shot down 99 per cent of the Iranian missiles. Nevertheless, defence experts and Iranians said that over a dozen missiles struck heavily-protected Israeli airfields and air defence installations.

Iran based its retaliatory action on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter which states: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” Israel had rationalized its action on the claims that “the ones attacked were engaged in terrorism against Israel.”

However, the Iranian response became the butt of solidarity for Israel. Its Western allies under the banner of G7 “unequivocally condemn in the strongest terms, Iran’s direct and unprecedented attack against Israel” in a classic case of duplicity. These countries had looked the other way when Israel attacked Iran’s diplomatic assets in Syria.  In what appeared a tit-for-tat action, Israel launched a counter-attack last week Friday on military assets in the Iranian city of Isfahan though Tehran had played down the incident and said it had no plans for retaliation.

Observers have noted, however, that despite fears of a region-wide war, both Iran and Israel in the reciprocity of responses were wary of escalation. The messages from both sides could be summed up as follows: Tehran’s response defined new red lines in its conflict with Israel that could warrant a confrontation. For Israel, the messaging in the counter-strike on Isfahan was an affirmation of its capacity to break Iranian defence lines.  Scot Ritter, a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer, has pointed out the greater implication of the Iranian missile attack on Israel. As he puts it, ‘The “Missiles of April” represent a sea-change moment in Middle Eastern geopolitics — the establishment of Iranian deterrence that impacts both Israel and the United States’.

The Middle East has been a melting pot of geopolitics. The insertion of the state of Israel in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration 1917 has pitched the Arabs against the Israelis between 1948 and to date. The Declaration was made in the course of World War I by the British Government supporting the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then under the suzerainty of the Ottomans with consideration for the political rights of the Palestinian Arabs.

Resolution 181, the resolution passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947 called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states and placed a global seal on the Jewish home state, which was greeted by violence that resulted in the wars of 1948, 1967, 1973 and several other wars on the West Bank and Gaza. The two-state solution had been compacted but has yet to be implemented. This framework for resolving the conflict was a product of the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreement in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords, the basis of which the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established.

The problem has endured because of the unalloyed support of Israel by Western powers that see Israel as a geopolitical ally in the Middle East due to their national interests. The Middle East has been part of the United States’ grand area plan that engrossed the US strategic control of the resources of the region. The partisan role of the Western powers in the conflict is to be understood in this context. But the kernel of the matter is that the current crisis in the region nears a tipping point that could engulf, not only the region but the world. Unfortunately, Western duplicity could lead to this outcome.

The Security Council which ought to exercise control over this matter, especially the ongoing massacre in Gaza, has reduced the veto of the permanent members of the Security Council to a routine play object in ways that are inclining the UN towards the fate that befell the League of Nations.

The time has come for geopolitics to give way to global peace and security; national interests to international interests. The rule of anarchy should not be encouraged. The call for a humanitarian cease-fire should be enforced to halt the genocide in Gaza that is offensive to international public psyche and is at the heart of the current global tension. The need to resolve the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution should be pursued with vigour.