What is Israel's endgame in Iran?
When Israel launched an all-out air war against Iran on June 13, it said the attack was aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear programme. On day one, Israel bombed Iran's Natanz nuclear facility and several ballistic missile sites, besides assassinating the country's top Generals, including the chief of the armed forces. In the subsequent days, Israel bombed the nuclear facility in Isfahan. Iran's command centres, missile launchers, civilian locations and even the headquarters of the state TV. Israel has established air superiority over Iran. In retaliation, Iran launched close to 400 missiles, hitting several targets in Israel, including an oil refinery in Haifa and a top research institute near Tel Aviv.
While the air war is escalating, there are questions about Israel's endgame. The IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog, said on June 16 that Israel's attack 'severely damaged if not entirely destroyed' the centrifuges at the Natanz facility. The Israeli strike had 'completely destroyed' the above-ground facility at Natanz, according to IAEA chief Rafael Grossi. The underground hall housing the centrifuges that enrich uranium was not directly hit. 'However, the loss of power to the cascade hall may have damaged the centrifuges there,' he said. Mr. Grossi also said four buildings were destroyed at the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Centre – a chemical lab, a uranium conversion plant, a fuel manufacturing plant, and a facility to convert uranium hexafluoride to uranium metal. But there was no major damage to the Fordow enrichment plant, which is Iran's most fortified facility that has been built deep under a mountain.
Israel's main objective is the total destruction of Iran's nuclear programme. As Israel has aerial superiority, it can continue to bomb Iran. So Israel is unlikely to accept any call for an immediate ceasefire until it meets its objective. But there is a problem. Israel doesn't have the kind of bunker buster bombs or the strategic bombers that can carry such bombs to destroy heavily fortified facilities such as Fordow. So Israel's offensive is not going to be concluded soon. And Iran, on the other side, despite the heavy losses it suffered, continues to hit Israel back with ballistic missiles. On June 17 morning, Iran launched more than 20 ballistic missiles, some of which hit central Israel. This leaves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with three options.
One, continue the relentless bombing of Iran, pushing the country towards state collapse or regime change. On June 15, while speaking to Fox News, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel's attack could lead to regime change in Iran. The next day, he refused to rule out assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, as he said such an outcome would end the conflict. This explains why Israel is focused on decapitating the Iranian government. It is going after all the top commanders of the military and the IRGC. While it's not clear what would come if the regime collapses, Israel would prefer a weak, balkanised Iran, like Iraq, Lebanon or today's Syria, than a unitary civilisational and ideological state.
Two, let Donald Trump use the military pressure on Iran as a negotiation stick and extract a deal from Tehran. On June 16, there were reports that Iran had sent feelers to America through Gulf Arab countries that it was ready to return to talks if Israel stops bombing. The deal Mr. Trump wants is one which would require Iran to completely abandon its nuclear programme. Until now, Iran has maintained that it has, as a signatory to the NPT, legitimate rights to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. Mr. Trump said even after Israel started the war that he was open for a deal. But the question is whether Iran would go for talks with the U.S. when the country is under attack. So far Iran has said no. It demands Israel stop the bombing. But will Mr. Netanyahu, after having started the war and established air superiority, stop the strikes? Unlikely.
The third option is to drag the U.S. in. Mr. Trump has so far maintained that America was not involved in the war. But he admitted that he was aware of Israel's attack plans even when he publicly voiced opposition to them. Israeli officials say they went ahead after getting 'a clear green light' from America. Mr. Trump has warned Iran not to target American bases or soldiers. And Iran has been careful not to escalate the war beyond Israel. But Israeli officials, according to Axios, are pressing the U.S. to join the war. If the U.S. joins, Israel can pursue its goals with greater force — total destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities either through direct strikes or through regime change. Mr. Trump's position, as of now, is to let Israel continue the bombing. He said on June 17 that he was not pressing for a ceasefire. He said what he wants is a 'real end' to Iran's nuclear programme.
The Top Five
1. Rogue nation: On Israel's Iran strikes
If the Iran-Israel war spills over into the Gulf waters and kingdoms, it would be catastrophic for the global economy, especially for India whose millions of citizens work and live in the region. There must be an immediate, coordinated international effort to rein in the Jewish state and reboot diplomacy to restore stability in West Asia, write The Hindu in this editorial.
2. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | The last 'revolutionary' of Iran
The head of Iran's theocratic regime faces the greatest test since the 1979 revolution with the country's regional influence waning and Israel freely carrying out attacks at its nuclear and missile facilities and assassinating its top commanders, writes Stanly Johny.
3. India starts relocating citizens from Tehran to other parts of Iran
As conflict escalates, EAM Jaishankar speaks to counterparts in Armenia and UAE; Indian embassy in Tehran working with local Iranian authorities to shift Indian citizens in the capital and other places to safer locations; in Israel, where the airspace is closed completely, Indian embassy officials in Tel Aviv are guiding citizens who can move out towards the land borders with Jordan and Egypt, report Kallol Bhattacherjee and Suhasini Haidar.
4. More 'mind space' for India in the American imagination
India needs to ensure that it captures intellectual space in the American imagination, and is understood on its own terms, writes Nirupama Rao.
5. The war on Gaza, exposing Israel's hidden ambition
Israel's war is about 'finishing the job' — one that began in 1948, writes Ambassador Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh.
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The Wire
28 minutes ago
- The Wire
Why Watch Films that Trouble the Heart? A Kolkata Film Festival for Palestine has the Answer
From young college and university students to old-timer Leftists in the city, the audience remained engaged and animated. Kolkata: On August 15, as Lata Mangeshkar's tinny voice delivered the lyrics of Ae mere watan ke logo to a south Kolkata locality, six politically charged films forced its viewers to question nationalism and its markers in a 600-seater auditorium there. The occasion: the 8th Frames of Freedom film festival, titled 'Burning Earth, Waging Peace', organised by the Kolkata-based Leftist group People's Film Collective. The 11-hour programming consisted of international documentaries that shed light on the ill-logic of Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and the effects of war on Ukraine, and, sometimes, the soldiers themselves. The poster of the film festival. An initiative of this nature is radical given how pro-Palestine films have been pulled out of schedules from the country's major film festivals. For example, both MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and Dharamshala International Film Festival had to cancel the screenings of Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land (2024). Made by an Israeli-Palestinian collective, the film shows how Palestinian communities have had to suffer in the occupied West Bank because of Israeli attacks. People's Film Collective had screened the film in Kolkata in May. Like all their screenings, including August 15's festival, it was free and open to all. PFC has previously screened other such films including 5 Broken Cameras (2011) and Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege (2021). 'We are the social Left with no electoral goals,' PFC founder and filmmaker Dwaipayan Banerjee said. 'Therefore, we do not have the power or agenda to engage with electoral politics. However, I do think that had the Bharatiya Janata Party been in power in West Bengal today, we would have been an ideological challenge to them, and then, all this could pose a problem.' The Friday of August 15 was rife with anti-imperialist emotions as viewers strolled about and debated in the lobby, Free Palestine tote-bags and jute jholas in tow. From young college and university students to old-timer Leftists in the city, the audience remained engaged and animated. Hearty were their giggles when British journalist Louis Theroux and Palestinian activist Issa Amro expressed confusion about who among them was exactly flipped off by an Israeli passerby in BBC's The Settlers. PFC was founded by filmmaker couple Dwaipayan Banerjee and Kasturi Basu in 2013. Banerjee had just stopped being a full-time CPI(ML) activist. Basu had returned from abroad after finishing her research. They took their cue from Vikalp, the network of political documentary filmmakers founded by Anand Patwardhan, Sanjay Kak, and others. After their first screening held in an abandoned factory in 2013, the couple methodically set up the PFC to continue hosting yearly festivals and monthly screenings across Kolkata. 'There is a tendency of the Left to do cultural activities shabbily,' Banerjee observed. 'We were sure from day one that we will meticulously organise and promote PFC. All the visitors that leave their phone numbers and email addresses get screening mails, SMS and WhatsApp notifications about our events.' PFC is entirely crowdfunded, Banerjee and Basu said. Their members work as unpaid volunteers. Well-wishers such as author-activist Arundhati Roy has often given funds to the group. Patwardhan once declined to take any flight fare to attend their event in Kolkata, Banerjee said. 'It's simple,' he added. 'We will continue this as long as people are showing interest in our activities financially and by packing halls.' According to his math, a four-day annual PFC festival, held each year since 2014, costs up to Rs eight lakhs. The auditorium where the August 15 festival was being held charged Rs 15,000 for a single slot of three hours, plus entertainment tax. 'We have often wondered if we should start ticketing,' Basu said. 'But if we do that, I don't think our viewers and supporters are going to take to it. Giving Rs 500 on your own is one thing, but having to pay Rs 100 by rule is another.' They are also steadfast about not taking corporate money or state patronage for their activities. 'In a world where Trump is offering Putin rare earth minerals to stop the war in Ukraine, how nakedly transparent does it need to be that modern politics is entirely corporatised and profit-driven?' Basu said. ' How can we hope any corporate funding us is not involved in any anti-people activity?' Midway through the festival, renowned singer-songwriter and researcher Moushumi Bhowmik stepped out. She had come to watch The Settlers, but was incredibly impressed with There Will Be No More Night. Made from archival gunfight and thermal-cam footage of the US and French armies, the documentary is a meditation on the nature of contemporary war. The film reminded her, Bhowmik said, of the work of artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, who works with 'politics of listening', and London-based Forensic Architecture research group which uses archival data to investigate state violence. Bhowmik has been supporting PFC from year zero. 'It is not about me supporting something that exists outside of me...' she explained, '...such initiatives are an extension of who I am as a person. There is not much else to do today other than organising small pockets of resistance like this at an individual level. And whatever is to be done must be done with caution. That is important.' The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments. Advertisement
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank
TURMUS AYYA, West Bank—Amid the olive trees and rolling hills of the central West Bank sits a little slice of Americana. The villages of Turmus Ayya and Sinjil are full of American dual nationals who have come to retire or to raise families in a place where their dollars go further and it feels like home. Many speak English as their go-to language, live in large suburban houses and eat in East Coast-style pizza parlors. It is easy to forget where you are until you see the tall, new barbed-wire fence that divides parts of Sinjil and separates much of it from a main road used by both Israeli settlers and Palestinians. It crosses the land of Fuad Daoud, a 55-year-old who splits his time between Sinjil and Florida's breezy west coast, where his wife and 26-year-old son remain. 'It isn't something you can get used to,' he said of the fence, which he watched go up earlier this year. Israel's military said it was erected to prevent rock-throwing onto the roadway below. Now, it is a symbol of the growing tension between Israeli troops and settlers and Palestinians that has shattered the hopes that pulled émigrés back from America to the villages. The fence that was put up earlier this year that crosses Daoud's land. The West Bank village of Turmus Ayya. Daoud, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1993 and spent the bulk of his adult life there before returning to Sinjil to be with his aging father, said there was a time when he would have encouraged his son to live there as well. 'But honestly right now, seeing what I have been seeing, I say no,' he said. Violence by settlers against Palestinians has risen sharply since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza. Places like Turmus Ayya are bearing the brunt. The village sits in a low-lying valley. To its north is a line of around a dozen Israeli settlements and several military positions towering above it from the hilltops. At least three Palestinian-Americans have been killed by Israeli military fire or during attacks from Israeli settlers this year. In April, 14-year-old Palestinian-American Amir Rabee was shot and killed by Israeli forces. Two friends with him were shot, too, including another American teen who survived and is undergoing treatment in New Jersey. The Israeli military said its troops fired at the boys after identifying them as 'three terrorists who were throwing rocks' at a roadway, 'eliminating one and injuring the two others.' The Rabee family disputes that account and says the boys were picking almonds, when Israeli troops sprayed them with gunfire. Rabee was struck 11 times, according to the medical examination conducted after his death. In Sinjil, Sayfollah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida who was visiting relatives in the West Bank, was beaten to death during an Israeli settler attack in July. The Israeli military said it is investigating the incident and that its mission is to ensure the security of all residents. 'It's a ghost town now,' said Diana Halum, Musallet's 27-year-old Palestinian-American cousin. 'Everybody is really worried, and it is driving people away.' Diana Halum in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Palestinians from the villages emigrated to the Americas in waves beginning early in the 20th century, as clans of peasant farmers sought economic opportunity. Many succeeded in their new lives and then began flowing back to the occupied West Bank in recent decades, bringing the wealth they amassed in the West to build houses and fund infrastructure projects and community centers. Dual nationals make up an estimated 85% of the residents of Turmus Ayya. Many have palatial, red-tiled homes. The municipality has an estimated full-time population of around 3,000, a number that typically swells during the summer, when Palestinian-Americans from the U.S. visit their relatives. 'Palestinian-Americans here are a bridge to the outside world,' said Yaser Alkam, a semiretired family-law attorney who emigrated from Turmus Ayya to Orange County, Calif., in 1987 then returned 35 years later to live out his retirement. 'When I am here, there are freedoms and luxuries in the U.S. that I miss. But when I am in the U.S., I miss the feeling of home, of community—a society where everybody knows each other and you might run into someone four times in a day and shake hands every time.' Dual nationals make up an estimated 85% of the residents of Turmus Ayya. But as Palestinian-Americans began returning home, growing numbers of Israelis began building their own settlements across the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967. Palestinians and much of the world consider the Israeli settlements illegal. Israel regards the West Bank as disputed territory and says most of the settlements are legal. Proponents of the settlements see them as a way to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and ultimately achieve full sovereignty over the West Bank. Earlier this month, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel would move ahead with a controversial settlement expansion near East Jerusalem that 'finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state.' The result is worsening friction. Along the drive to his house in Turmus Ayya, Alkam pointed out plots of land owned by Palestinians that were torched during Israeli settler attacks and others rendered inaccessible by Israeli military restrictions. He drove by the large, empty houses of Palestinian-American neighbors who had left Turmus Ayya out of fear. Village officials say the municipality used to receive applications for about two dozen construction permits a year. Since the war in Gaza began, it has received about four. 'I would rather die in my home than leave,' said Yaser Alkam. 'People are thinking twice about building new homes or moving back here,' said Alkam, who with the mayor's approval set up a municipal department of foreign relations to deal with diaspora affairs and manage Western media attention. 'But I speak for myself when I say I would rather die in my home than leave.' Rights groups and Palestinian-American residents of the villages say settlers who carry out attacks are rarely prosecuted or punished and act with impunity. The Palestinian-Americans said they don't feel protected by the U.S. government and are calling for more American pressure on Israel to rein in extremist settlers and lethal military force on unarmed civilians. American administrations had long condemned the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, seeing them as obstacles to peace and the prospects of an eventual Palestinian state. President Joe Biden raised the pressure by imposing sanctions on settlers linked to violent attacks. President Trump lifted those sanctions and appointed an ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who openly supports settlements. In the home of Amir Rabee, the 14-year-old killed in the almond grove, Palestinian and American flags hung side by side on the wall next to a memorial for the boy. Mohammed Rabee, his father, teared up as he held the bloodied, punctured clothes his son was wearing when he was killed. Mohammed Rabee, whose 14-year-old son Amir was killed by Israeli forces in April. 'In Palestine, we are not treated as Americans,' said Rabee, who has alternated between living in the West Bank and New Jersey, where his family still has a home. 'I don't need the American Embassy to be a messenger between me and Israel. I need them to fight for me.' In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Huckabee said he is sympathetic to concerns from Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank who say the U.S. isn't doing enough to protect them. 'I wouldn't argue with them over it, because until you have been in someone's shoes and lived their lives, you can't know what people feel. So, all I would say is I respect if people feel that way,' Huckabee said. 'Maybe we need to do a better job of communicating, a better job of showing a level of respect.' Huckabee toured Taybeh, another town with a large population of U.S. citizens and one of the few majority-Christian villages in the West Bank, after several Israeli settler attacks, including one that left fields at the foot of an ancient church ablaze, according to local leaders. Fire damage near a church in Taybeh, a majority-Christian village in the West Bank. The church dates back centuries, and the town has many U.S. citizens. Huckabee said he expects Israeli forces to protect Palestinians during settler attacks and apply the law evenly. 'As an American that is so fundamental to what we are supposed to believe—that justice does not wink at some people committing a crime and open both eyes at another,' Huckabee said. Religious, business and political leaders in Taybeh say they are worried the West Bank's depressed economy and intensifying attacks will lead to wide-scale exodus from the tiny town. Its economy relied heavily on tourists coming to view sites mentioned in the Bible, as well as summer visits from its American diaspora. Both have been all but frozen since the war began. The knock-on effect is clearly apparent. Taybeh entrepreneur Nadim Khoury brewed beer in his Boston dorm room while at college in the 1980s. When he returned to his hometown in 1994 to launch a brewery with his brother, it became the most renowned Palestinian brewery and grew to include a winery, distillery and eco-hotel. Nadim Khoury in his brewery in Taybeh. Production today is down 90% from prewar levels, and the hotel is closed for lack of visitors. Checkpoints, settler attacks around a crucial source of spring water and difficulties obtaining permits have hampered imports and exports, Khoury said. 'There has been so much strain,' Khoury said as he sank in his chair, sipping a beer in his now largely quiet brewery. Write to Omar Abdel-Baqui at An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank An Enclave of Americans Finds a Difficult New Reality in the West Bank
The Hindu
3 hours ago
- The Hindu
The Hindu On Books newsletter: Nehru's influence on India's foreign policy, history books for children, Jataka tales and more
Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter. The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize longlist for 2025 has been announced featuring 10 books. From profiling lives of icons like B.R. Ambedkar, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, M. Visvesvaraya and Irawati Karve to tracing the influence of Hindutva ideologue V.D. Savarkar, exploring the confluence of religions in India and understanding the process that makes Indian democracy work, the books 'weave the threads of the past into the challenges and debates of the present,' said political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, member of the jury. The shortlist will be announced in October and the winner on December 6. Here's the longlist: In reviews, we read about the influence of Nehru's non-alignment on India's present foreign policy, quirky stories for children on Indian history, a new translation of the Jatakas introducing Buddha's stories to a new audience, an essay on book bans in Kashmir and more. Books of the week In The Nehru Years: An international History of Indian Non-Alignment (Juggernaut), Swapna Kona Nayudu argues that the concept of strategic autonomy has been the cornerstone of India's foreign policy, set down by Nehru. 'Non-alignment was a political vision built through historical consciousness,' she writes, adding that it 'predated and outlived the Cold War'. In his review, Stanly Johny writes that what sets Nayudu's book apart is its rich archival depth and also the theoretical foundation she lays for non-alignment as a foreign policy doctrine. 'She presents it as 'a radical political vision' rooted in both Tagore's idea of the international (an interconnected world with soft borders) and Gandhi's critique of imperialism.' Nayudu examines four major crises of the Nehru years— the Korean war (1950-53), the Suez crisis (1956), the Soviet intervention in Hungary (1956) and the Congo crisis (1960-64), and how India responded to them. Despite the challenges, the quest to safeguard its strategic autonomy continues to reverberate in India's foreign policy, writes Johny, as Nayudu shows in her book. The Buddha's Path to Awakening (Harvard University Press), translated by Sarah Shaw, from the Jatakanidana in Pali, is a commentary on the 547 birth stories known as the Jatakas, which underwent numerous adaptations in the centuries after the historical Buddha's lifetime. Composed by an anonymous monk in the 5th or 6th century CE in the region known as present-day Sri Lanka, this text, says Chintan Girish Modi in his review, is significant to seekers and scholars alike because it preserves the oral traditions that have emerged and accumulated around the Bodhisatta, a title that is used to refer to a person who takes a vow to attain Buddhahood after which there is no rebirth. 'This is not a selfish aspiration. It stems from the motivation to be free of suffering in order to help free others.' With this book, Shaw, a faculty member in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford, has produced a translation that makes the Jatakanidana 'accessible to people who have no knowledge of Pali but a strong wish to understand and even emulate the Buddha's path.' The Indian children's publishing industry has sounded the bugle for a new kind of revolution — one that makes reading history cool, writes Rati Girish. From graphic novels to fictionalised stories set against the backdrop of major historical events, children's authors are exploring interesting ways to make Indian history come alive for children. Here's a list of some recommended reads: 'Songs of Freedom' (Duckbill) series by multiple authors; After Midnight: A History of Independent India (Penguin) by Meghaa Gupta with a Foreword by Manu S. Pillai; 565: The Dramatic Story of Unifying India (Hachette) by Mallika Ravikumar; A History of South India for Children (Hachette) by Pradeep Chakravarthy; and The Puffin History of India by Roshen Dalal. Spotlight The J&K government has banned 25 books, including works of A.G. Noorani, Arundhati Roy and Anuradha Bhasin. In an essay, Attaul Munim Zahid examines why authority always goes after books. 'Perhaps it is not the ideas themselves. Ideas, after all, are already loose in the world. But it may be the physicality of the book. While ideas are elusive, books as instruments are tangible and susceptible to the blows of power.' The book as object is under attack, he writes. 'Not its words which have long floated online as zeroes and ones. But its form, its spine, its paper and its physicality. A physical book is a 'thingness' something rooted in being; it stands in the world, and the world stands around it. It resists deletion and takes up space and stares back. It can be hidden in pits and behind walls, or found years later in a forgotten trunk while a PDF, an e-book disappears in a keystroke.' Browser
