Standing alongside Donald Trump in Florida a week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu was vague on the latest prospect of a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
“I hope we are going to have a deal. Time will tell,” the Israeli prime minister said, two days after his controversial address to a joint session of the US Congress.
Throughout his three-day visit to the US, Netanyahu was careful to avoid making any commitment to the deal Biden unveiled on 31 May. While the US insisted publicly that the onus was on Hamas to accept the plan, the administration knew it also needed to pin down Netanyahu personally over his reluctance to commit to a permanent ceasefire.
Yet, according to US reports, it now appears that at the very time Netanyahu was publicly speculating about a deal, a remote-controlled bomb had already been smuggled into a guesthouse in Tehran, awaiting its intended target: Ismail Haniyeh, the senior Hamas leader who was assassinated on Wednesday night.
Absurd. If the United States can tolerate civilian murder on a mass scale, then why would she balk at a couple executive terrorists getting whacked?
Please stop trying to convince me that these are more Israeli war crimes when this is one of the few things she’s done that are legitimate security actions. And on the chain of escalation, a couple assassinations is a measured response compared to a ground invasion of Lebanon.
As far as loyalty, Israel has burned her patrons in the past and more than once, But the United States isn’t exactly loyal herself. And it would be foolish for either country to consider the domestic politics of the other when making security decisions.