Iran is operating a clandestine smuggling route across the Middle East, employing intelligence operatives, militants and criminal gangs, to deliver weapons to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to officials from the United States, Israel and Iran.
The goal, as described by three Iranian officials, is to foment unrest against Israel by flooding the enclave with as many weapons as it can.
The covert operation is now heightening concerns that Tehran is seeking to turn the West Bank into the next flashpoint in the long-simmering shadow war between Israel and Iran. That conflict has taken on new urgency this month, risking a broader conflict in the Middle East, as Iran vowed to retaliate for an Israeli strike on an embassy compound that killed seven Iranian armed forces commanders.
Many weapons smuggled to the West Bank largely travel along two paths from Iran through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, the officials said. As the arms cross borders, the officials added, they change hands among a multinational cast that can include members of organized criminal gangs, extremist militants, soldiers and intelligence operatives. A key group in the operation, the Iranian officials and analysts said, are Bedouin smugglers who carry the weapons across the border from Jordan into Israel.
The New York Times interviewed senior security and government officials with knowledge of Iran’s effort to smuggle weapons to the West Bank, including three from Israel, three from Iran and three from the United States. The officials from all…
Read moreA fundamental first step in bringing peace to this conflict would be for an American President to clarify for voters how our national interests differ from Israel's interests. For we already know that both major parties claim to protect Israel's security. So when does that protection of Israel's security end and ours begins? When does American interests ever conflict with Israel's? A first step in that direction is to reaffirm our objection to Israel's announcement today that it has set a date to invade Rafah's refugee site. Whether through a U.N. Security Council vote or in a bilateral talk, we ought to let the Israelis know that we will not let them do so.
Iran "smuggles arms" to the West Bank through a network of "militants and criminal gangs." The US provides "military aid" to Israel.
Yeah right, and one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Peace in the Middle East will only come through rapprochement with Iran. It is decades past the time that we accept Iran's rightful role in the region and start holding Israel accountable to the aid we provide.
@BuzzardGarySocialist3wks3W
Can we stop finding excuses to go on a war against Iran. Day after day, Netanyahu keeps on acquiring land in Occupied West Bank and all the West does is express concern, high time they actually do something I.e. level economic sanctions against Israel similar to Russia
@HumorousPorpoiseGreen3wks3W
If the international community won’t protect the right of West Bank Palestinians despite the fact that Israeli occupation and settlements have been declared illegal by every international tribunal . Can we blame Palestinians to resorting to armed conflict ?
@UniqueS3nateGreen3wks3W
Stop U.S. military aid to the Middle East and they all will be forced to negotiate peace. Israel has been emboldened to settle the West Bank, fund Hamas, blockade Gaza, and all of that except the funding Hamas part has accelerated since Oct. 7, because of U.S. arms and political cover.
Saudi Arabia also enjoys arms from the U.S. which is used against Iranian proxies as well. Which is odd because Saudi Arabia actually attacked us on 9/11, not Iran.
All of this is a power struggle for control of the Middle East, holy lands and Muslim world. U.S. involvement only distorts this process, crea… Read more
Given the Netanyahu government has allowed, even encouraged, thousands of illegal settlements to take place on the West Bank, and displaced Palestinians from their own lands, what else can Iran do but offer support? This is a Netanyahu problem, not a Palestinian problem. He is forcing these wars of attrition.
@PuzzledOcelotSocialist3wks3W
Seems to me that the biggest cause of unrest in the West Bank is the brutal and expanding settlements. No greater source of unrest than that. Iran reasonably is offering support to the oppressed.
If there were no Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Iran would still be smuggling arms there, as it has for years in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Its goal in the West Bank is not Palestinian statehood, but the annihilation of Israel and the extension of Iranian theocratic hegemony in the region.
I think this is a bad take. What Iran is doing is not necessarily to support Palestinians. It is in their own interest to foment instability to grab a hold of power in the Middle East. What they are doing could lead to a global conflict on a large scale. To attribute to settlements and a helpful hand of Iran is totally misleading.
@ISIDEWITH3wks3W
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