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In the midst of missiles raining revenge on Israel, fears increased this week of a full-blown war erupting in West Asia. Hours before America had warned, “Iran was preparing to launch ballistic missiles against Israel.”

Iran’s Khamenei had not arrived at his decision rashly nor on impulse. Two months ago, Hamas leader Haniyeh had been killed in an airstrike in Teheran by Israeli forces. Iranians had taken to the streets shouting “revenge, revenge”. On August 5, Khamenei added voice to the mass roar when he swore vengeance on Israel, declaring, “this will not go unpunished.”

Israel had blatantly violated Iran’s sovereignty by invading its air space to kill the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh. But he had held his peace; and rising tides of fear of an Iranian retaliatory attack began to ebb back to the dead sea of complacency. As the Italians say, ‘Revenge is a dish best-eaten cold’, and Khamenei bided his time.

But when Hezbollah leader Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Khamenei ran out of his tether of patience. The Israeli airstrikes that killed Nasrallah had targeted a densely populated zone, destroying residential buildings. Furthermore, Israel had carried out more strikes last Saturday in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. A total of 33 people had died in Israel’s Saturday night killing spree. Nearly 200 lay wounded.

The day after, Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei swore revenge. Revenge on the Israeli state. While he described the slain Hezbollah leader in glowing terms as “a path and a school of thought”, Israel condemned him as a “man whose hands were stained with the blood of thousands of men, women and children.”

After an Israeli airstrike had killed Hamas leader on July 30, on September 27, seconds before Israeli Premier Netanyahu was to begin his address to UN’s General Assembly, world diplomats staged a walkout en masse. The silent snub was a virtual slap on Benjamin Netanyahu’s face.

Though shaken by the snub Israel had received from world countries, he began his speech, nonetheless, and said: “I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war, fighting for its life. But after I heard the lies and slanders levelled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. I decided to come here to speak for my people.”

Portraying Israel as the innocent victim, much sinned against than sinning, he said: “These savage murderers, our enemies, seek not only to destroy us, but they seek to destroy our common civilisation and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror. When I spoke here last year, I said we face the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago, as we were about to enter the Promised Land. Moses told us that our actions would determine whether we bequeath to future generations a blessing or a curse.”

TERROR NIGHT REVENGE MISSILES RAINED ON ISRAELI LIVES: More than 100 homes damaged beyond recognition in northern Tel Aviv in vengeance strikes ordered by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei

Many, no doubt, will vouch that by Netanyahu acting in the manner of a rabid dog broken free from the chain, he has bequeathed a curse to condemn posterity to the dark ages of time. His insatiable lust for bloody revenge and his callous disregard for endangering world peace as long as Israel’s interests are sated and his political survival is assured, has earned for him the wrath and contempt of the world.

But here last week, on UNGA’s podium, he painted himself as a martyred messiah and Israel as the paragon of righteousness, when he said in his speech: “There should be no confusion of good and evil but unfortunately, there is a lot of it in many countries and in this very hall, as I’ve just heard. Good it is portrayed as evil, and evil is portrayed as good.”

But for all his sanctimonious humbug, he revealed his true revengeful self when he issued an ominous warning to his West Asian foes: “I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran: If you strike us, we will strike you. There is no place—there is no place in Iran—that the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that’s true of entire West Asia.”

He wasn’t bluffing for that very night Hezbollah’s terrorist leader Nasrallah was killed in Lebanon’s Beirut. As Netanyahu had warned, “You can run but you can’t hide”. It was only later that Hezbollah confirmed he had died in the Israeli airstrike.

With more than 1,000 people killed and more than 6,000 wounded, the gruesome toll of Israeli attacks in the past two weeks of conflict, the US dramatically increased pressure on Israel to hold their guns and enter into the Western-sponsored ceasefire pact with Hamas.

But Israel, determined to get their pound of flesh, no matter the amount of civilian blood they shed, insisted there could be no truce till all the hostages the terrorist captured on October 7th last year, were safely returned home. Hamas, too, who lived on terror and died on terror, resisted the demand for truce.

Each party did its worst to scuttle world’s hopes of a truce. And the world was rendered helpless, relegated to silently watch the massacre of their fellowmen on both sides of the Gaza strip unfold.

Driven by a satanic lust to quench their thirst from the desert wells of revenge, they soon found out that the more they quenched their goddam thirst, it made them thirst for more.

While the rapid exchange of retaliatory fire continued full blast, the Lebanese Foreign Minister dropped his own bombshell on Thursday to add fuel to the fire. Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in a face-to-face video interview that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just days before he was killed by Israeli air strikes in Beirut.

The temporary ceasefire was called for by US President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other allies on the sidelines of last week’s UN General Assembly. He claimed that Hezbollah’s willingness for a 21-day truce was made known to US and French representatives prior to Nasrallah’s demise.

Foreign Minister Habib said: “Nasrallah agreed and we agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire but had been consulting with Hezbollah. The Lebanese House Speaker Mr. Nabih Berri consulted with Hezbollah, and we informed the Americans and the French what happened. And they told us that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents Biden and Macron.”

“White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein was then set to go to Lebanon to negotiate the ceasefire,” Habib continued. They told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this and so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that and you know what happened since then.”

The day before Nasrallah’s death, a joint statement issued by the United States, France, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar had called for 21-day ceasefire to “give diplomacy a chance to succeed and avoid further escalations across the border.”

A CNN Western source, familiar with the negotiations, had told CNN that Hezbollah had agreed to the temporary truce shortly before the US released the proposal last week. The source didn’t say whether the decision had come directly from Nasrallah, but said that for the movement to agree, they would have needed his approval. A second CNN source familiar with the talks had agreed that the US was aware that Hezbollah was agreeing to the ceasefire.

However, an official from the Biden administration, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, told CNN that Nasrallah himself agreeing to the deal is “not something we have heard before. If true, it was never communicated to us.” He did not rule out that it had happened, but also said the US was not aware.

CNN reported: On a hastily arranged call that night, senior Biden administration officials told reporters with confidence: “the ceasefire will be for 21 days” across the Lebanon-Israel border. But hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, Israel would “continue to hit Hezbollah with all our might.” Israeli officials tried to explain what happened as an “honest misunderstanding,” saying they thought the proposal “was the start of a process that could ultimately lead to a ceasefire.” The US official said that the administration retreated from pushing last week’s ceasefire plan once they learned Israel may try to take out Nasrallah.

Well, the Israelis did, didn’t they? Didn’t they, who take fanatical pride in hailing themselves as God’s own chosen seed, successfully snuff out in the nick of time the ignited spark of even a temporary peace illuming the war-torn land with hope?

As long as the belief in an ‘eye for an eye, life for a life’ remains the governing religious creed of these two enemies at war, what chance is there for hope’s flower to bloom in this accursed desert of violence?

What miracle would the hour demand for a man to appear and offer—not from a cringing cowardice but from courageous inner strength—his other cheek, too, to be slapped? And show to both Netanyahu and Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist leaders, the fires of hate can only be doused by the soothing waters of compassionate love.

Alas, in the absence of such a man, the UN will have to step in and bring to heel its marauding member gone rogue to terrorise other inhabitants, dwelling in the same land he lives.

Simultaneously the UN must through a concerted global drive smash the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists’ financial networks, and force the terrorists to lay down their weapons and reap the fruits of peace when the universally agreed two-state solution blossoms in the arid blood-soaked desert for the lasting benefit of the people in whose name they live and gainless die a bloody and terrible death.

With the aid of member nations, which must also shed its’ hypocrisy and genuinely come out straight, the UN must be the vanguard force to make this hallowed mission succeed.

No elephant, no cry: No telephone, no cry Hopes of an SJB-UNP alliance flounder on the rocks of symbols in a storm-tossed turbulent sea of Ranil-driven undersea currents RANIL: New alliance Basking in the expected sunshine of an election triumph on September 21, both SJB and the UNP had brazenly rejected the notion of joining common hands to win the presidential polls. Due to a deep-seated acrimony between the two leaders, both Ranil and Sajith refused to entertain the idea ahead of the hustings, point blank. But now with both parties jointly sucking the bitter grape of election defeat, their forlorn hopes began to rise again when election results showed that, if they had the foresight to contest the presidential poll together under one banner and symbol, their combined votes would have easily exceeded the minority 5.6 million votes received by Anura Kumara that sufficed to make him President. SAJITH: Going alone UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe announced last week he will not contest future general elections but will focus on guiding the party. This raised UNP hopes that with Ranil out of the frame, the stumbling block that had existed to prevent an SJB-UNP alliance was cleared. The path now lay open and UNP Deputy Leader Ruwan Wijewardene announced last Tuesday, the UNP was willing to hold unconditional talks with the SJB with a view to forming an alliance. While SJB members mulled over the invite, Sajith Premadasa told a group of party faithful in the Kolonnawa electorate, “simple arithmetic belied what lay beneath and a deep analysis was required”. However talks between the two parties continued amicably for the rest of last week till it developed into a battle whether the symbol should be the elephant or the gas cylinder or telephone on which the SJB refused to budge. But towards the end of the week, it became apparent that, though Ranil had given up his political ghost, he had not renounced his desire to remain the invisible elephant in the room guiding the alliance. To the SJB, this was the last straw, and the talks collapsed over the weekend. The SJB is now set to voyage alone, while the UNP has already hitched its wagon to their leader’s new alliance star, packed as it is with the infamous Pohottuwa defectors. The new alliance name will be the New Democratic Party with the old gas cylinder as its new symbol. But whether they journey alone or truck with a new alliance, what is needed now is a strong opposition to prevent the new Government from gaining a two-third parliamentary majority and thereby consolidating their new found power to the hilt.