Which parties support Hamas? Do Iran and Russia have a hand in the game? Senior researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute Timo Stewart open up the situation.
Iran’s role
Iran supports Hamas with money, advice and arms smuggling, says Stewart. However, he rejects claims that Hamas is only a product of Iran against Israel.
– Seeing Hamas only as a pawn of Iran does not correspond to reality.
According to Stewart, Iran’s role is still not completely clear.
According to him, the weapons are smuggled into Gaza through Egypt.
– For one reason or another, Egypt has not completely prevented arms smuggling.
Among other things, the use of drones against Israel was new in the Hamas attack. With them, Hamas managed to destroy at least one tank based on a video that spread on social media.
According to Stewart, it is still too early to say how Hamas has managed to get the drones.
Iran has congratulated Hamas for the attack, but has denied any involvement. A video of Iranians celebrating the attack by Hamas and shouting death to Israel went viral on Saturday from the Iranian parliament.
Hamas, on the other hand, released a video in which it thanked Iran for the armament.
– It cannot be completely ruled out that Tehran would have said that now would be a good time to attack, says Stewart.
The role of Saudi Arabia
Stewart says that one of the main, if not the main, motive for the Hamas attack may have been the rapprochement of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Hamas saw the situation as threatening.
– What Israel is doing now in the form of counterstrikes will certainly undermine the normalization dreams of Israel and the Saudis, says Stewart.
According to Stewart, this can be counted as a political victory for Hamas.
Saudi Arabia has previously set a condition for closer relations with Israel to be a two-state model, i.e. an independent Palestinian state. In the quiet negotiations, the two-state model was no longer on the agenda.
– Now the negotiations took place on a considerably different basis. Something was demanded of the Palestinians, but it was very little.
This was an undesirable development for the Palestinians, and now Hamas probably succeeded in blocking the development, at least for a while.
According to Stewart, it can also be counted as a victory for Iran.
More and more Muslim countries have established diplomatic relations with Israel in recent years. For example, Morocco and Bahrain have normalized their relations with Israel. According to Stewart, it remains to be seen how Israel’s counterattack will affect the agreements that have already been created.
Russia’s role
As news of Hamas’s brutal acts of terror in Israel spread on Saturday morning, Russia in social media was celebrated. According to Stewart Russian media and the fact that Russia had something to do with the Hamas attack are two different things.
Israel has normally tried to maintain good relations with Russia. However, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Israel sided with Ukraine and condemned Russia’s invasion, albeit slowly.
– Israel has been sitting on the fence, but the condemnation of Russia’s attack has been noted in Russia, says Stewart.
Hamas has met with the Russian leadership regularly, and at least twice the last time a year during. It hardly bothers Russia that Hamas promised in the meetings “weaken the west”. It hardly bothers Russia that attention can be turned away from the war in Ukraine.
– Russia is certainly trying to take advantage of the situation, says Stewart.
The United States and the EU have declared Hamas a terrorist organization and will not negotiate with it. Russia has not set similar conditions for whom it negotiates with.
Stewart throws the ball west.
– A better question is why there have been no negotiations with Hamas, even though it has ruled the Gaza Strip for seventeen years.
Stewart emphasizes that he is not trying to downplay the fact that Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization, but points out that the United States was negotiating with the Taliban even though it was at war with it at the same time.
On various social media platforms, the axis of Iran, Hamas and Russia came up for discussion over the weekend.
Stewart thinks the talk is an exaggeration.
– Iran has something to do with this, Russia not much. Russia is not a great global manipulator, but a state in deep trouble.
Stewart says that Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have made the Palestinian cause more prominent than the West.
Can the conflict widen?
Tensions have also increased on Israel’s northern border, where Israel has territorial disputes with Lebanon. The situation at the border is fragile. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel from Lebanon on Sunday.
Stewart does not believe in the expansion of the conflict with Hezbollah.
– The rockets fired by Hezbollah were more of a “we are monitoring the situation” reminder. They felt it necessary to send a message of solidarity to Hamas.
According to Stewart, Hezbollah could do a lot more if it wanted to, but a war against Israel would not be in its interests. Wars have always been devastating for Lebanon. According to Stewart, Israel also did not perceive the rockets fired from Lebanon as a declaration of war.
Could the war spread to Iran?
Stewart does not consider this scenario to be likely either. According to Stewart, Israel and Iran have been engaged in a “shadow war” for years. It is directly related to the war in Syria, where the parties have opposing interests.
Israel has been striking against Iranian-backed forces and weapons shipments in Syria for years. Iran, on the other hand, has supported Hamas and Hezbollah.
– The strikes have been kept within certain limits. If it were revealed that there is a very direct connection with Iran, then Israel would possibly make some sort of strike against Iran.
However, Stewartn says that both sides have avoided open conflict and believes that this will continue to be the case.
What happens next?
It is very likely that Israeli ground forces will attack Gaza. Israel has gathered an army of about 300,000 thousand in a couple of days. The Israeli counterattack is expected to be strong and bloody. It has announced that it will destroy Hamas once and for all.
What is the fate of Gaza and is the two-state model further away after the brutal attack by Hamas?
According to Stewart, the “driving force” of Hamas is not terrorism and hatred of Israel, although these things exist. According to him, Hamas’ “driving force” is the lack of a political solution.
– Lack of own state, lack of rights and lack of justice. It creates a driving force for such actors like Hamas. The need for a political solution is very obvious.
However, Israel’s current administration does not support the two-state model. According to Stewart, Israel has also pursued policies that have made the achievement of two states even more difficult.
– The rest of the world has moved the two-state model into an empty liturgy. It is talked about and complained about, but in practice it has not been promoted in any way.
Stewart presents two alternative scenarios for the development of the conflict.
– It may happen that the criminality and brutality of the Hamas attack is so blatant that it removes from the agenda the option of negotiating with the Palestinians.
Another option is to realize that the situation requires a political solution. Stewart does not see a military solution to the conflict.
– Even if the last member of Hamas is killed, it does not mean that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will adapt to the situation they are in now.
Stewart is convinced that if no attempt is made to reach a political solution now, the cycle of violence will continue.