Bombs fell in the war-torn Middle East at Final Call press time, even as an on-again, off-again April 7 “ceasefire” in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran entered its fourth month.
With distrust rising among warring parties and fractures appearing in President Donald Trump’s grip on Republican legislators, the war could explode into all-out battle again, particularly due to Israel’s attacks and expansion into Lebanon.
Iran has said continued attacks into Lebanon is a red line to peace talks.
Such attacks moved President Trump to launch an expletive-laced scolding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a June 1 conversation.
“You’re f***ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me,” axios.com reported based on conversations with its sources familiar with the tense conversation. “I’m saving your a**. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
The goal of Israel’s attacks in Lebanon “is to destroy even the slightest possibility for the ongoing diplomatic processes to lead to improvements in the situation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement,” adding, “We can’t consider the U.S. and the Zionist regime as two separate agents.”
Critics are further concerned that legislation before the U.S. Congress could deepen U.S.-Israel cooperation on weapons technology, research and production.
The United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative appears in Section 224 of the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual U.S. defense policy bill, Al Jazeera news reported.
Passage would join America and Israel even more than they already are in technology, critics warn, noting Israel’s “iron dome” technology.
Paying $3.8 billion a year in taxpayer dollars for Israel’s defense has become very unpopular, said Phyllis Bennis, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. The funding is based on a memorandum of understanding (MO) and the prospect of negotiating another MO that lasts 10-20 years “was not looking very hopeful,” she said.
So, some members of Congress decided to include it in the NDAA, she said.
“They won’t get direct military aide. Instead, they would get a partnership of production of weapons that would make the U.S. even more complicit in Israeli war crimes,” Ms. Bennis said.
President Trump, by many accounts, was persuaded to attack Iran by Prime Minister Natanyahu, who advised that Iran would surrender within days of a U.S.-Israel joint attack. Ms. Bennis disagrees.
Trump was a war-making president already, she said, adding, now, there are significant differences between the two leaders.
“Netanyahu’s goal from the beginning is to maintain a war against Iran until he can claim that the Iranian regime has been completely defeated. … Without that, he is nothing. Now that puts him in direct contradiction with Trump, who just wants to get out from under this war. He’s bored with it, as he says himself,” Ms. Bennis explained.
The ultimate pressure point to bring Prime Minister Netanyahu in line may be to threaten to stop arming Israel, she concluded.
Pressure from criminal charges Mr. Netanyahu faces once he’s no longer prime minister and criticism from Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir may give the prime minister fuel to persist in war.
“You said that a strong prime minister tells the President of the United States ‘yes’ when possible, and ‘no’ when necessary. Now is the time to say to our friend, President Trump, ‘no,’” Mr. Gvir wrote on his Telegram channel, according to newarab.com, a London-based English language news site.
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, spoke of America’s current predicament in chapter 69 of His phenomenal book “Fall of America.”
“With nations rejecting peace offers and nations laughing and making mock of you forever seeking peace and friendship—as it is written, ‘Peace is desired more than fine gold!’ …
“We did not know that we would see such a Goliath—such a giant—falling. Goliath! who has defied the nations of the earth to come out and fight with them, as Goliath did before Israel. Now, nations make mock of the great giant of the earth, America.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, during Saviours’ Day 2024, warned President Trump of being pulled into a war due to Mr. Netanyahu’s blood thirst.
Speaking of the genocide on Palestinians, Minister Farrakhan explained that in the night hours, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had shown him in a vision the wicked King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
“And that man, Nebuchadnezzar: Allah turned him from a human to a beast,” Minister Farrakhan said. “And when I looked at what was happening to our Palestinian brothers and sisters, I saw why Allah showed me Nebuchadnezzar; because Netanyahu was becoming a beast in human form, with no feeling at all for the Palestinian people and for what they were causing the Palestinian people to suffer.”
The long game
Analysts speculate that the U.S. and Iran are playing a long game of who can hold out, as President Trump is banking on Iran’s economy to totally collapse and Tehran gambles that global economies will put pressure on Mr. Trump.
Politico recently reported that executives have warned the White House that U.S. oil reserves are “hitting rock bottom” due to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic nation’s strongest strategy and position in the war. Trump officials denied any conversation.
Meanwhile, the UN World Food Program (WFP) announced millions of people are being pushed further into hunger, even as President Trump did a June 5 midterm election campaign visit to Wisconsin to tout his agenda for farmers.
“The situation is being compounded by a lack of funding for humanitarian operations. … If the crisis continues for another six months, an additional 9 million people could lose access to aid,” WFP announced.
Oil and fertilizer are impacted by closure of the Strait.
With deaths rising above 3,500, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry since early March, Jordan Esparza-Kelley, a communications spokesperson for CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), told The Final Call that Israel’s goal is to achieve their “greater Israel project,” which includes taking Palestine and land from Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
“For over 30 years Netanyahu has aimed for this to happen and finally there was a U.S. President gullible enough to do it. The concern is always when attention drifts from Gaza that the genocide committed by Israel intensifies,” he said regarding lack of media attention to the continued bombing, killing and land grabs in Gaza and the West Bank.
He said CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, is focusing on domestic issues like the NDAA weapons legislation.
“Parallel to these global issues is the use of inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric by local, state, and federal elected officials, which stoke the flames for terror attacks” on Muslims, he said.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric is used as a vehicle to bolster defense budgets and create a state of paranoia in the U.S. by manufacturing an enemy abroad and at home, he concluded.
Four Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives joined Democrats June 3 to pass a War Powers resolution that calls on President Trump to either pull out of the war or get approval from Congress to continue. The resolution is mostly symbolic as it can be vetoed by the president, which then Congress would have to override.