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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is author of ‘Black Wave’, distinguished fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics and an FT contributing editor
An uneasy calm descended on the Middle East on Thursday. As clashes subsided on the Lebanon-Israel border, diplomatic efforts to stave off the worst went into overdrive. Hizbollah laid to rest its slain commander Fuad Shukr and Tehran held a funeral procession for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
But a humiliated Iran and a divided Israel look set to take the Middle East further into a dangerous spiral of violence. Red lines have been moving and the rules of engagement changing. There is an additional dangerous layer. Not only were the assassinations, which followed a rocket attack that killed 12 children in the occupied Golan Heights, seen as a general setback for ceasefire negotiations, they are also a severe breach in trust among those negotiating.
Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, wrote on the platform X: “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side,” in reference to Haniyeh.
More ominously, in Lebanon, a newspaper close to Hizbollah accused the US envoy Amos Hochstein of misleading his Lebanese counterparts and held him responsible for the killing of Shukr. Hochstein had been trying for months to reach an agreement that would bring calm to Lebanon’s border with Israel, potentially including a deal that would be independent of a ceasefire in Gaza. The paper warned those who speak to Hochstein in Lebanon to stop doing so.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, could now choose to put the assassinations of Shukr and Haniyeh on his so far empty victory scorecard, placate his rightwing coalition allies, take comfort from the fact the Knesset is on recess until October and show some flexibility in the ceasefire negotiations. On Thursday, Israel also confirmed it had killed Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif in a strike three weeks ago in Gaza, though Hamas refused to confirm it.
“If Netanyahu wants a path to end the fight, he surely has it,” a senior Gulf official told me. “But the question that has been with us since October 8 is: does he want one?”
If he does, he showed no sign of it when he made a televised statement on Wednesday after the two assassinations. Arab officials are worried Netanyahu sees regional escalation as his best chance to stay in power. Tehran has been intent on avoiding such a scenario and, on this alone, has been on the same page as the White House since October.
However, Iran and Hizbollah will now attempt to restore their prestige after a stunning breach of security in both Tehran, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hizbollah bastion. They will want to reassure their allies, proxies and base that the so-called axis of resistance can still provide protection. They’ll also want to inflict pain on Israel, more than they have so far, but not so much that it provokes an Israeli overreaction. Speaking during Shukr’s funeral, Hizbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned it would be Israel’s response that would determine if full-blown war breaks out.
We’ve seen this sordid movie play out before. In April, Israel crossed an Iranian red line by killing senior members of its Revolutionary Guards inside the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Iran retaliated two weeks later by launching hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. The Iranian military action was highly choreographed and telegraphed in advance. Israel was ready to take the hit — its Iron Dome, Centcom and regional co-ordination ensured almost all the missiles were intercepted.
This time retaliation is likely to come on multiple fronts, not just from Iran, and it will be harder to intercept and contain. In April, the Biden administration counselled Israel to restrain its own reaction and take the win. The Israel-Iran enmity, long fought in proxy wars, came out into the open for a brief dramatic moment and retreated back into the shadows.
Just over three months later, here we are again. This choreography of missiles and death is dangerous. These are not war games, but real life. And while Iran and Israel fight it out, settling old scores, instead of working on a way forward, Gaza lies in waste, local health officials have declared a polio epidemic and more Israeli hostages have perished.
It’s time for Joe Biden to get tough with Netanyahu about a hostage deal and the day after the war. That day is now. When this latest instalment of the nightmare series no one subscribed to is over, Biden’s message to Israel should be clear: Take the hit, take the win, take the deal.
