By John Catalinotto
October 4, 2024

The following is an interview of Workers World managing editor John Catalinotto by Robin Delobel, written and published in French on Sept. 26, 2024, at investigaction.net. That was before the massacre in the suburb of Beirut that assassinated Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the liberation organization Hezbollah, which Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu ordered while in New York City. Catalinotto added a few comments to the interview since then to reflect this new development.

Robin Delobel: Would the United States support Israel in the event of war?

John Catalinotto: I suggest the real questions are, “Will the U.S. join the terrorist war the Israelis have already started with the slaughter of the people of Lebanon, and will they join in an attack against Iran?”

Unfortunately, yes. The U.S. government has made no protest against the latest Israeli terrorist war crimes against Lebanon, after a day when Israeli bombs and rockets killed 500 Lebanese people. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris continue to arm and support Israel. Donald Trump cheers on Benyamin Netanyahu. The Pentagon has sent more troops to the region.

Then, according to reports repeated in U.S. media, the Israelis used 80 of the U.S.-supplied 2,000-pound bombs, “bunker busters,” to kill Hezbollah Secretary- General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 28. Both Biden and Harris called this war crime a “measure of justice.” That means U.S. imperialism supplied the weapons and gave the murder political support — even as the U.S. officials claimed to be urging de-escalation and negotiation.

Even before Israel’s new round of mass terrorism, there had been no indication during the entire period after October 7, 2023, that the U.S. government would withhold its support from Israel. Despite Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian population of Gaza — a genocide observed by billions of people worldwide — Washington supported the Zionist state.

During that entire period of the slaughter in Gaza, the U.S. government has continued to fund weapons to keep the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fully supplied. U.S. diplomats have given Israel full protection in the United Nations. The people of most of the world have observed the U.S. government’s complicity in genocide, ethnic cleansing and mass murders of civilians, including tens of thousands of children.

This situation is no surprise. Except for the aftermath of the 1956 British/French/Israeli seizure of the Suez Canal and the Sinai Peninsula, the U.S. has supported Israel in every war crisis situation during the 76 years of Israel’s existence with arms, intelligence and diplomacy.

It is hard to imagine a situation in which the U.S., the Pentagon, the CIA and the U.S. State Department would withdraw support from Israel. This is especially true if there were any possibility that the Israelis might be defeated, because such a defeat would encourage the liberation struggle in the region and threaten key interests of U.S. imperialism.

Elements in the U.S. military or civilian leadership may oppose involving the U.S. military in an Israeli initiative, because a wider war in West Asia would weaken U.S. intervention elsewhere. They might argue that NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine with Russia is more important or that China presents the biggest danger to U.S. world hegemony.

But there are certainly elements in the U.S. state apparatus or in the government (for example, the Congress members who gave standing ovations to Netanyahu) who agitate for a war against the Axis of Resistance and especially against Iran. These elements even urge the Israeli offensive as a way of convincing those forces Washington considers its “enemies” that no crime is too great for Israel or the U.S. to commit. Israeli aggression then becomes part of the U.S. offensive against Russia and China.

All of Washington’s strategists consider Hezbollah, the Syrian government in Damascus, the Ansarullah forces in Yemen, the guerrillas in Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran — called the Axis of Resistance — enemies of U.S. imperialist interests.

RD: Israel seems to be forcing the hand of the United States. How do they manage that? 

JC: Since at least the June 1967 war (if not earlier), the U.S. and Israel have had a strategic partnership. The U.S. is the main supplier of weapons to the IOF, the main diplomatic ally in all international arenas, the main supporter of the Israeli economy. The Pentagon and the IOF exchange intelligence, as does the CIA and Mossad.

There are places in the world — some of the South American countries, for example — where the Israelis provide police or military training. The IOF, which has enormous experience suppressing popular movements with force, even shares know-how with city police in the U.S.

U.S. imperialism and the Israeli settler state have overlapping interests worldwide. Any movement for liberation from imperialist domination also threatens the Zionist project. In oil-rich West Asia, Washington has ties with many of the regimes, but the other U.S. allies are monarchies or military dictatorships with shaky mass support.

While U.S. imperialism dominates by far its relationship with Israel, the Zionist state apparatus provides a convenient strike force for U.S. interests in West Asia and a land mass for U.S. bases. It is extremely valuable to imperialism to have the IOF ready to strike any liberation movement or any really sovereign state in the region, for example, Iran. Historically, Israel commits aggression, and then the U.S. pretends to be the “honest broker.”

Although the Zionist project of expansion in the region provides its own dynamic, it’s hard to believe that major Israeli initiatives are taken without first getting a “go” signal from the U.S. government or from elements in the U.S. imperialist state. Without U.S. support, the IOF could lose a protracted regional war. The Israeli leaders either already have the go-ahead or they assume they will get it when they act.

Anti-imperialists in the U.S. and inside the countries of the U.S.’s imperialist allies must also assume the imperialists will support Israel and must build a movement to block this support. Billions of people know that the U.S. and Israeli rulers are the enemies of humanity and especially of working people worldwide. ​A “Stalingrad moment,” a defeat that encourages​ a massive change in consciousness, is something all anti-imperialists should devote themselves to doing whatever they can to help bring about.

RD: What is the impact of the elections on the behavior of U.S. leaders for Israel and Lebanon? What role does Netanyahu play?

JC: Trump is an Islamophobe and xenophobe and pro-Israel. Normally, any people sympathetic with Palestine would reject Trump. Since the Biden/Harris administration has armed the genocide in Gaza, however, these voters now are withholding support for Harris. Because of the bizarre nature of U.S. voting laws (the Electoral College), Harris’s refusal to stop arming Israel could cost the Democrats the election.

Right-wing U.S. politicians cheer for Netanyahu (like they cheer for Trump), because they think he’s tough and a winner, even though he’s a crook and an opportunist, besides being a mass murderer.