Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be considered the “chief arsonist in the Middle East”, American journalist Jeremy Scahill says.

Scahill tells host Steve Clemons that Netanyahu “smells blood right now because [United States President] Joe Biden is a lame duck president”. This allows Israel to make bigger moves against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and also to drag the US into confrontation with Iran, Scahill argues.

He spoke after Israel claimed responsibility this past week for the killings of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s military chief, in Beirut and Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, in Gaza. Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, the chief negotiator in the talks to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, was also assassinated in Tehran. Israel is suspected in his killing but hasn’t claimed responsibility for it.