Opinion: The West now wants 'restraint'- after months of fuelling a genocide in Gaza

Suddenly, western politicians from US President Joe Biden to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have become ardent champions of "restraint" – in a very last-minute scramble to avoid regional conflagration. 

Iran launched a salvo of drones and missiles at Israel at the weekend in what amounted a largely symbolic show of strength. Many appear to have been shot down, either by Israel’s layers of US-funded interception systems or by US, British and Jordanian fighter jets. No one was killed.

It was the first direct attack by a state on Israel since Iraq fired Scud missiles during the Gulf war of 1991. 

The United Nations Security Council was hurriedly pressed into session on Sunday, with Washington and its allies calling for a de-escalation of tensions that could all too easily lead to the outbreak of war across the Middle East and beyond. 

"Neither the region nor the world can afford more war," the UN’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, told the meeting. "Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate."

Opinion by Jonathan Cook.

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