In killing Nasrallah, Israel chose to open the gates of hell. We'll all pay the price: Hezbollah has confirmed that its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was among the hundreds of Lebanese killed in Israel’s massive bombardment of a suburb of Beirut last night. Israel's decision to assassinate Nasrallah, using some of the enormous bunker-busting bombs the United States has been arming it with, is beyond foolhardy. It is outright deranged. Israel has removed – and knows it has removed – a moderating influence on Hezbollah. Israel’s action will achieve nothing apart from teaching his successor, and leaders of other groups and countries labelled as terrorist by western governments, several lessons: * That Israel, and the West standing squarely behind it, do not play by any known rules of engagement, and that their opponents must do likewise. The current restraint from Hezbollah that has been so baffling western pundits will become a thing of the past. * That Israel is not interested in compromise, only escalation, and that this is a fight to death – not just against Israel but against the West that sponsors Israel. * That Israel's ideological extremism – its Jewish supremacism, and its endless craving for Lebensraum – must be met with even greater Shia-inspired extremism. Decades of western terrorism in the Middle East unleashed a Sunni nihilism embodied first in al-Qaeda and then in ISIS. Now, the West, via Israel, is fomenting for the Shia resistance its own ISIS moment. The moderates in what the West dubs “terrorist organisations” have once again lost the argument. Why? Because the US imperial project known as “the West” has once again demonstrated it will not compromise. It demands full-spectrum, global dominance – nothing less. Israel may make very short tactical gains in killing Nasrallah. But we will all soon feel the whirlwind. When that whirlwind comes, the job of our politicians and media will be to ensure we make no connection between this moment of savagery and insanity from us and the blowback. The role of western establishments will be to cry victim, to insist “They hate us for our freedoms”, for our civilisational superiority, because “they” are simply barbarians. But what comes next, as with what came before, will be entirely predictable. Violence doesn't beget calm, it begets more violence. Israel knows that. Our leaders know that. But they opened the gates of hell anyway. (Disclaimer: Nothing in this post, in line with Section 12 of the UK Terrorism Act, in any way indicates, or should be seen to be encouraging, support for any group designated as a terrorist organisation by the British government.)