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Iran is Using Hamas Not to Help the Palestinians But to Destroy Israel [1]

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Date: 2023-10-09  

This is NOT an Israeli/Palestinian diary; it’s an Israel/Iran diary, and I hope (probably in vain) that we can avoid relitigating the usual arguments about Israel and the Palestinians. This is between Israel and the religious establishment that rules Iran. Here is a quote from back in July 2006 by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then the president of Iran:

"Nations in the region will be more furious every day. It won't take long before the wrath of the people turns into a terrible explosion that will wipe the Zionist entity off the map...The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this problem. It is a usurper that our enemies made and imposed on the Muslim world, a regime that prevented the progress of the region's nations, a regime that all Muslims must join hands in isolating worldwide." www.theatlantic.com/… (5 Feb 2012)

No mention of Palestinian concerns; it’s that the Jews and the West dared to establish a Jewish state in lands the Islamic world thought was theirs. This is the same mentality that was behind Osama Bin Laden’s denunciation of the “tragedy of 500 years ago” — by which he meant the Spanish Catholic reconquest of Al-Andalus, a land that had been part of the Dar-al-Islam: the House of Islam. Daniel Pipes explained it this way:

The Islamic religion contains within it a deep assumption that a land conquered and settled by Muslim becomes part of an inalienable Islamic patrimony, a waqf; should it then fall under non-Muslim rule, that is an unnatural and intolerable circumstance that eventually must be reversed. www.danielpipes.org/...

This is what drives the mullahs of Iran, not any sympathy for the Palestinians. This is what led them to build and support Hamas, including the current vicious assault.

Hamas received weapons and training from Iran, officials say (WaPo 9 Oct 2023)

The Palestinian militants behind the surprise weekend attack on Israel began planning the assault at least a year ago, with key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons, current and former Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said Monday.

But Iran’s purpose wasn’t to help the Palestinians in Gaza:

While Iran’s precise role in Saturday’s violence remained unclear, the officials said, the assault reflected Tehran’s years-long ambition to surround Israel with legions of paramilitary fighters armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons systems capable of striking deep inside the Jewish state. [emphasis added]

And further:

“Iran over the years has provided a lot of assistance to Hamas in terms of rocket capability,” [Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program] said. “The signature weapon of Iran proxies are rockets, and increasingly missiles. You see that everywhere — with Iraq, Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah. That’s very much inspired by Iranian example and advice.”

Hamas may see itself as promoting the Palestinian cause — though it certainly set it back with this weekend’s actions, both in the cruelty is showed in taking children hostage, in gleefully savaging the dead, in indiscriminately and deliberately attacking civilians — all of which caused much of the world to react in horror and to support Israel. But the Iranian mullahs don’t care; they want random terror, they want inhumane treatment, they want to eliminate Israel.

Though Israel Defense Forces have said there is no evidence of Iranian operational involvement in the attack, the tactics used are very much “in accordance with Iran’s concept of operations,” to create a “crossroads of fire” — launching an attack every few months or years to “undermine Israeli morale, sap Israeli resilience” with the aim of “undermining the long-term viability of Israel,” Eisenstadt said.

Israel is gearing up for an invasion of Gaza to root out Hamas. That’s going to be a very expensive operation in terms of lives on all sides. But Israel won’t stop there; they know (even if they slipped up here) that they will have to reduce Iran’s capacity to inflict harm on them. That was the point of the Israel-Saudi negotiations; the Saudis fear Iran as much as the Israelis do, and one of the reasons Hamas attacked Israel at this moment in time was in the hope of derailing those negotiations. That is a goal that primarily serves Iran. At some time fairly soon, Israel will conduct some sort of operation in Iran. Whether they will be careful enough to do so in a way that does not further escalate this situation is something I can’t predict.

Israelis recognize this, and some of them are — even in the midst of the war — blaming Netanyahu. Here’s an excerpt from a Ha’aretz (center-left) analysis:

Now look at [Netanyahu’s] foreign policy and geopolitical record. It's nothing short of abysmal. Let’s go through the areas one by one, starting with his bogus claim to fame. How ludicrous does his decade-old bragging look – that only he can save Israel, and indeed Western civilization, from the regime of the messianic mullahs? Netanyahu Must Go Now, Not After the Gaza War

(I know, in my previous diary, I quoted the Israeli line, “Quiet please, we’re shooting” to say that recriminations would wait until later. That was the old Israel, it seems.)

A side note Tuberville is still refusing to lift his holds on military promotions, even though it is interfering with our ability to respond to Hamas — not just to support Israel, but to rescue Americans held hostage. Chuck Schumer might want to consider this option: Tell the Senate that it will be in session 18-20 hours a day, every day, with short breaks for meals, in order to confirm each of the officers whose promotion is vital to the war effort. This will continue until enough officers (and for that matter, ambassadors) are confirmed to let the military function, or until the GOP gets so sick of Tuberville that they put a stop to his nonsense.

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