{"id":15381,"date":"2012-11-15T17:25:14","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T22:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=15381"},"modified":"2012-11-15T17:25:14","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T22:25:14","slug":"is-israel-escalating-war-on-gaza-to-foil-us-iran-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/11\/is-israel-escalating-war-on-gaza-to-foil-us-iran-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Israel Escalating War on Gaza to Foil US-Iran Deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Ahmed Jabari, recent target of IDF assassination<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by John Glaser<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0flare up of violence between Israel and Gaza<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0looks like its about to escalate, with an Israeli airstrike today killing a Hamas commander and Israeli military leadership talking openly about the possibility of an expanded war on Gaza, possibly including a ground invasion.<\/span><\/p>\n

This escalation occurs just days after widespread reports about newly reelected Obama mulling a grand bargain with Iran over its disputed nuclear program.\u00a0Barbara Slavin\u00a0and\u00a0Laura Rozen at Al-Monitor\u00a0reported<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0on Monday that US officials told them Washington was considering offering a \u201cmore for more\u201d deal with Iran, based on the fuel swap deal from Obama\u2019s first term.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what does Israel\u2019s impending war on defenseless Gaza have to do with Iran diplomacy? Here\u2019s\u00a0a tweet<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0from the\u00a0Tehran bureau chief for the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0Thomas Erdbrink:<\/span><\/p>\n

Forget ANY\u00a0#Iran<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span>-US talks if conflict in Gaza escalates<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And\u00a0here<\/span><\/a><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

#Iran<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0leaders can never be seen as talking to US, while its “eternal” ally Israel assassinates Iran’s ideological allies<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect this point was not lost on the Israeli leadership, either. So, is Netanyahu knowingly escalating military tensions in order to avoid a successful diplomatic overture? I\u2019m speculating, but it isn\u2019t far fetched. We know from extensive reporting, mainly in Israeli media, that in 2010 \u2013 just as President Obama requested a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank with the aim of resuming peace talks \u2013 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00a0tried to provoke Iran into a war with Israel<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0that would eventually drag in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

It reminds me of what former CIA Middle East analyst Paul Pillar\u00a0referred to this week as<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u201cNetanyahu\u2019s tension-stoking brinksmanship: to divert attention from continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and inaction on the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\u201d \u201c[T]he Iran issue,\u201d Pillar has\u00a0previously written<\/span><\/a><\/span>, provides a \u201cdistraction\u201d from international \u201cattention to the Palestinians\u2019 lack of popular sovereignty.\u201d Now the situation seems reversed: Israel is escalating war with Gaza to maintain deadlock with their favorite scapegoat, Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel, lest we forget,\u00a0instigated<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0this resumption of missile exchanges last week when two Palestinian civilians were shot and killed and Israeli tanks intruded into Gaza, prompting Gaza militants to respond by targeting Israeli soldiers, which then gave Israel an excuse to unleash successive airstrikes. And Israel had numerous chances to pacify the situation, considering Hamas publicly\u00a0offered to establish a total ceasefire<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and Egypt\u00a0appeared about to broker a truce<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0between the two. Israel has intentionally inched towards escalation from the beginning. Are we to believe this isn\u2019t strategic?<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by John Glaser The\u00a0flare up of violence between Israel and Gaza\u00a0looks like its about to escalate, with an Israeli airstrike today killing a Hamas commander..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,21,97,119],"tags":[228,197,226,199,200,204,211],"class_list":["post-15381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-international","category-us-news","category-war","tag-colonialism","tag-imperialism","tag-imperialist-war","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-zionism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ahmed_jabari_profile_hamas_15381_55a0b.jpg?fit=360%2C240&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}