The US-Iran negotiations are widely seen on a note of hope by most people. The issue of alleged nuclear weapon plans of Iran has long been a highly controversial issue that has the potential of igniting a big war. While most countries do not want Iran to become a nuclear weapon power, the USA in particular has been committed strongly to preventing such a possibility. Even more than the USA, Israel has been very aggressive regarding the urgency of preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons or getting very close to this.
In fact Israel under the leadership of Netanyahu has prioritized this objective so much that it has been trying in various dangerous ways to somehow get the USA to attack the nuclear infrastructure of Iran. On its own Israel is unlikely to have the capacity to destroy this infrastructure but with the involvement of USA this capacity increases significantly.
As Israel has tremendous influence in the USA government directly and via the Israeli lobby, the risks of USA bombing of Iran increase due to this. However, once this happens, there are various possibilities that the US/Israel war with Iran can get even wider, much wider in various ways, thereby emerging as a very big threat to world peace.
Hence in the interests of regional as well as world peace, it is very important that the issue of Iran’s alleged advance towards nuclear weapons should be resolved as early as possible in peaceful ways.
It is widely believed that peaceful resolution is possible only if Iran agrees to give various kinds of assurances that it will not acquire nuclear weapons. In this context while all forces of peace welcome US-Iran negotiations, there is a lot of uncertainty regarding exactly what kinds of assurances or guarantees offered by Iran will be considered adequate by the USA.
These uncertainties increase if one remembers that Israel and the Israeli lobby in the USA may be trying all this time to harm the prospects of these negotiations succeeding, as the failure of negotiations can clear the path for the option that Netanyahu desires—that of the USA bombing the alleged nuclear weapon facilities of Iran.
While these issues are being widely discussed today, one aspect that needs more attention is the linkage of all this to the situation in Gaza. Israeli attacks in Gaza have again increased leading to a very tragic and distressing situation.
Looking at the pattern of this renewed aggression, several observers believe that Israel is following the objective of ethnic cleansing, as various options of expelling the people of Gaza, or most of them, are being explored by Israel, perhaps in collusion with some western allies. Similarly, Israeli aggression in the West Bank region is also at a high level, and here too at least the longer-term objective is seen as bringing in more Israeli settlers while expelling more and more Palestinians.
Given these objectives, the next few weeks may be an important time for increased military operations of Israel aimed at forwarding the objective of ethnic cleansing in Gaza in particular.
If this is indeed so, then it is important to further ask and explore what the linkages of this can be to Iran-USA talks. If something very sinister or even more aggressive is being planned for Gaza by Israel, how will this be impacted by Iran-USA negotiations?
This question is important, as Iran has been generally seen as a very important ally of the Palestinian cause and in recent times generally there has been higher expectation of military help reaching the Palestinians from Iran ( more likely through proxies) compared to this help reaching from Arab neighboring countries.
Given this reality, the ideal situation in any Iran-US agreement on Iran suspending or giving up its alleged nuclear weapon program will be for this to have a clause which says that both sides will strive for justice –based peace in Gaza and in any case there will be no ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
On the other hand, if there is no mention of Gaza and Palestine related issues or assurances regarding them provided to Iran, then even if a widely welcomed outcome of Iran-US peace talks emerges based on Iran suspending or giving up its alleged nuclear weapons program, an apprehension will remain that the silence of Iran may also have been secured regarding not doing anything big to stop any ethnic cleansing type of operations in Gaza by Israel.
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Hence there is a possibility that securing peace in Iran may also be used as a way for keeping Iran quiet for a while as preparations for ethnic cleansing in Gaza are made.
To prevent such injustice, Iran should strive to contain in its agreement with the USA some common points on protecting the people of Gaza. In addition, of course, the solidarity of people with the people of Gaza should also increase worldwide.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071.
