Assassinations, atrocities and invasions, along with uncertain US leadership, presage a year of rising violence<\/p>\n
Assassination is a two-edged sword. Last week\u2019s targeted killing in Beirut of Hamas\u2019s deputy leader<\/a> is but the latest of many covert attacks<\/a> on individuals in Iran and the Arab sphere attributed to agents of Israel. Do prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials in Jerusalem ever consider the possibility they may be paid back in kind?<\/p>\n Hamas may not have the expertise and reach, although a booby-trap bomb requires no particular skill. But Iran does and maybe Hezbollah, too. Israel\u2019s assassination in December of a top Iranian general<\/a> in Syria, plus last week\u2019s atrocity in southern Iran<\/a> \u2013 claimed by Islamic State terrorists but officially blamed on Israel \u2013 could goad Tehran\u2019s more rabid hardliners into seeking an eye for an eye.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Assassinations, atrocities and invasions, along with uncertain US leadership, presage a year of rising violence Assassination is a two-edged sword. Last week\u2019s targeted killing in Beirut of Hamas\u2019s deputy leader is but the latest of many covert attacks on individuals in Iran and the Arab sphere attributed to agents of Israel. Do prime minister Benjamin … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}