Is Israel provoking a regional war in the Middle East?

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

This moment might be the closest the world has been to a regional war in the Middle East since October 7. What has been a devastating conflict between Israel and Hamas for 10 months now could expand and pull the U.S. in even more. Two killings this week threatened to further escalate tensions in the region. Hamas blamed Israel for the assassination of its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, just after Iran's new president was sworn in. And just hours earlier, an Israeli airstrike killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr near Beirut. These events raise the question, why would Israel do this now during sensitive hostage negotiations with Hamas? It's a question that Alon Pinkas has been thinking about. He was a policy adviser to former Israeli foreign ministers and was an Israeli diplomat. Alon Pinkas joins us now from Tel Aviv. Welcome.

ALON PINKAS: Thank you, Ailsa. Good to be with you.

CHANG: Good to have you. You wrote a column yesterday in Haaretz, an Israeli publication, that not only were the killings of Hamas and Hezbollah's leaders warranted and justified - those are your words - but that these men, quote, "deserve to be eliminated more than once if that were possible" - end quote.

PINKAS: Right.

CHANG: You're saying this despite the fact that these killings are likely to escalate an already devastating war in the Middle East. Why are you saying this?

PINKAS: Well, I say this on a moral and ethical basis. I then went on to ask whether it was smart, and the answer is no, it wasn't. Their assassinations were warranted given their involvement in terrorism. By the way, Fuad Shukr, the Hezbollah guy, is wanted by the U.S. government. So my point was no one should have any moral or ethical qualms about this. The only question that needs to be asked is whether or not this is smart policy. And my answer is not really.

CHANG: Right. Let's talk about that 'cause Israel - they have not taken official responsibility for Haniyeh's killing, which is Israel's usual position when these kinds of things happen. But what do you make of the timing of Haniyeh's killing in the middle of hostage negotiations, instead of having done this months ago near the start...

PINKAS: Yeah.

CHANG: ...Of the conflict in Gaza?

PINKAS: Well, I'm happy you raised this because we have to distinguish between the two assassinations. The one in Beirut, Fuad Shukr - that's part of the game. That's part of the implicit, almost invisible, but nonetheless existent red lines. Hezbollah fired a rocket that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights, so killing him as an act of reprisal was legitimate. What you raised is far more important, and that is the timing, and by the way, the location...

CHANG: Right.

PINKAS: ...Of the assassination...

CHANG: Iranian soil, the capital and during the inauguration of Iran's new...

PINKAS: Exactly.

CHANG: ...President.

PINKAS: Exactly - the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, who's the head of the so-called political wing of Hamas - and so that raises a few questions. Was the timing and the location purposeful, or was it a miscalculation on Israel's part? My conclusion is that it was deliberate, that Israel wanted and still does want to provoke Iran. The prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu, is not at all interested in a hostage deal, and proof of that was given in some leaks that were divulged after his phone conversation with President Biden yesterday, in which reportedly President Biden said, enough with the escalation, the only important thing right now is a hostage deal. So I think that was deliberate.

CHANG: If we assume Israel was responsible for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, what do you make of the timing of killing Haniyeh now, 10 months into this conflict in Gaza...

PINKAS: Well...

CHANG: ...Instead of near the beginning?

PINKAS: ...Israel had more than one opportunity to do this, which raises the question - if you, Israel, think that targeted killings are the policy of choice, then why did you not do this 10 months ago, nine months ago and instead invaded Gaza and decimated entire neighborhoods? The answer is that this was done out of, you know, vengeance and settling an account, which I'm not dismissing, by the way. But rarely in history in general, and very rarely in the Middle East, do these assassinations change the parameters of the conflict or change the dynamics of a situation.

CHANG: Well, what's the likelihood of the U.S. being pulled into this regional conflict, into a war with Iran and its proxies?

PINKAS: The U.S. has a vested interest in not being dragged, and the Iranians have an equally vested interest in not getting the Americans involved because Iran, as everyone knows, is a nuclear threshold state. And if they do involve the U.S. in a war, and that could be a result of unintentional escalation - for example, an attack on Israel triggers another attack by Israel on Iran that then leads the Houthis in Yemen to fire missiles, one of which, for the sake of conversation, hits an American naval vessel. Before you know it, the Americans are attacking Iran. That is something both the U.S. wants to avoid - one of those forever wars in the Middle East - and that is not something the Iranians would want at this point. But the nature of the beast called escalation is that you think you know how it would unfold, but you don't really.

CHANG: A grim picture. Alon Pinkas, a former diplomat in Israel, and now a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Thank you very much for joining us.

PINKAS: Thank you, Ailsa.

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