Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh another cowardly act of US-backed Zionist terrorism

By Iqbal Jassat 

If terrorism is to be defined as accurately and precisely as possible, look no further than the horrific conduct of the rogue, genocidal, settler-colonial Israeli regime.

Since its imposition as an illegitimate entity upon the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages - following barbaric ethnic cleansing - the Nakba became a symbol of Zionist terrorism. 

In contradiction to the theatrics at the US Congress of Polish immigrant Benzion Mileikowsky who refers to himself as Benjamin Netanyahu to try and bluff his way through his European racist origin as a white settler in occupied Palestine, terrorism is synonymous with Zionism. 

Israeli terrorism has formed a part of a long and sustained effort to forcefully displace and exterminate Palestinians on their own land and elsewhere across the region as well as in Europe. 

Its cross-border terrorism has caused death and destruction beyond Palestine and across the Muslim world, particularly in Syria, Libya, Egypt and Lebanon. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran as well. The Zionist regime has struck many key figures inside Iran in the past, including the assassination of the country’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020. 

Targeted killings, extrajudicial executions, bombings and missile strikes, form part of the Israeli regime’s arsenal of death, courtesy of the funds, arms and intelligence provided by the United States. 

It is crucial to note that neither the US nor European and despotic Arab allies of the racist Zionist regime can claim to be absolved of the terrorism practiced by the regime.

Israel assassinated Hamas’s founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, in Gaza in 2004. It has since targeted the most senior figures in the movement in foreign capitals, including the failed Mossad assassination of Ismail Haniyeh’s predecessor Khaled Mashaal in Amman, Jordan in 1997.

The extra-judicial assassination of Hamas politburo leader Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday literally hours after the bombing in southern Beirut, which resulted in the martyrdom of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, is the most recent demonstration of the impunity of Israeli terrorism. 

Was it unprecedented? Not at all. 

Seven months ago Hamas leader Saleh Al-Arouri was targeted in an extra-judicial assassination in Beirut. Over the years, Zionism's pariah regime has brutally executed a huge number of resistance figures, including Hezbollah leader Abbas Mousawi in a strike on his convoy in southern Lebanon.

From the merciless assassinations of Sheikh Yassin to Abdul Aziz Rantisi and now Haniyeh, the pattern is clear: the spree of killings forms part of a long and ongoing effort to displace and exterminate leadership of the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement. 

As in the case of the revered Haniyeh, his assassination was in direct breach of the territorial integrity of the sovereign state - the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

The lessons of apartheid South Africa's failure to subdue the liberation movements have clearly not been heeded by its erstwhile partner in crime, miles away. 

After every murder of its leaders, Hamas has come out more powerful, more determined, better equipped and more enraged at this structural injustice. 

Political pundits and analysts remind us that in the American tradition of assassinating their own leaders - Trump just survived one - the US hand is always somewhere in this history of aiding and abetting a regime now also characterized by the ICJ as an apartheid entity. 

Also evident is that apartheid Israel is on the path of self-destruction as it blindly pursues the unraveling of the Zionist project in the occupied Palestinian territories. 

At the core of the implosion is none other than the Polish immigrant heading a coterie of extreme right-wing terrorists in Tel Aviv, with the support of Western powers. 

Though they arrogantly display a sense of pride by using sophisticated satellite tracking, a system that far exceeds the "Stasi" methods of intrusive surveillance, it is truly fascist.

Only totalitarian regimes such as apartheid Israel do this. 

According to an analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Israel has been responsible for 17,081 incidents of air/drone raids, shelling/missile attacks, remote explosives and property destruction in eight countries since October 7, including the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Iran and Iraq.

"A majority of these attacks were on the Palestinian territory, specifically the Gaza Strip, with 10,389 incidents accounting for more than 60 percent of the total offensives,” it said.

"There were at least 6,544 incidents of Israeli attacks on Lebanon (38 percent), followed by Syria with 144 such incidents recorded."

Despite such overwhelming evidence of Israel’s serial violations of international law, it is shocking though that at the recent UN Security Council meeting to condemn the assassination of Haniyeh, the US and UK blamed Iran for "destabilizing the region". 

The UN Security Council convened an emergency session at the request of Iran, which was supported by Russia, Algeria and China.

Speaking at the session, Chinese envoy Fu Cong said China strongly condemns the assassination of Haniyeh. Calling the incident “a blatant attempt to sabotage peace efforts,” Cong stressed that China is “deeply worried about an exacerbation of the upheaval in the region that this incident may trigger.”

“We are on the precipice of catastrophe,” said Algeria's envoy to the UN, Amar Bendjama, adding that Israel's attack was "an act of terror" that violated international law and the sovereignty of Iran.

As most of the world recoils in anger and disgust at Israel’s acts of terrorism, Palestine is reassured that its just cause will not be forsaken. 

No matter the pain and suffering, Palestinians will not roll over but remain committed to gaining their freedom, knowing that the Zionist project has entered its decomposition phase as the murderous apartheid regime did before it. 

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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