Thousands dead, lack of food, fuel and water.
Fear and despair are spreading both in Gaza and Israel. But in the Kremlin, the flaring conflict in the Middle East could be good news.
TV4 News’ foreign correspondent Johan Fredriksson lists eight reasons why Vladimir Putin is a winner in the war between Hamas and Israel.
1. Russia’s illegal and mismanaged invasion of Ukraine ends up in the media’s shadow. “Finally,” breathes Putin, the world’s eyes are turned away from the humanitarian and military disaster that Russia’s war in Ukraine represents. Suddenly the spotlight falls on Israel’s bombings in Gaza instead of his own repeated war crimes in Ukraine.
2. US military resources are at risk of being drained. The Biden administration is forced to juggle two huge crises at the same time. Both Ukraine and Israel have immediate and existential needs for weapons, ammunition and intelligence. Putin rubs his hands in delight that the enemy USA must now prioritize its support.
3. The US is falling apart. The Hamas attack comes at the same time that the US is already in a semi-paralyzed political situation where the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has been ousted in a historic vote. Next year, presidential elections are held where Putin’s goal is to ensure that Donald Trump is re-elected. That the White House is now forced to deal with two of the worst wars we have seen in the region in decades at the same time, and where the risk of confrontation with, above all, Iran has increased is pushing an aging and questioned President Biden ahead of 2024. At home, there are also increasingly violent demonstrations between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups in an already polarized United States.
4. NATO is falling apart. For many years, Putin has done everything to split the Western defense alliance and the new war has forced NATO’s regional superpower Turkey to show respect and for President Erdogan and the majority of the Turkish people are and remain Hamas’ religious allies. Putin is happy that the NATO countries Turkey and the United States are now about to end up on opposite sides in a conflict that has exposed the Islamist and anti-Western soul of the NATO country Turkey.
5. Sweden’s NATO entry is further delayed. For the US (and most NATO countries), Sweden is an important piece of the puzzle for launching a new regional structure to defend the Baltic Sea region. Now that Turkey and the US are increasingly drifting apart, the chances that the pro-Israeli US Congress will give the green light to Ankara’s purchase of the advanced F-15 planes that Erdogan increasingly clearly linked his approval of a Swedish NATO membership to = Sweden becomes remained outside for a while longer.
6. Putin’s dream is a “multipolar” world where the US’s position of power is undermined. Israel’s war with Hamas is already a bloodbath in which Israelis and Americans are being portrayed step by step as insensitive to the suffering of the Palestinian people. Putin’s and China’s alternative world view, where totalitarian regimes are given increasingly more room to maneuver, may attract more and more countries that experience the actions of the United States and the West as hypocrisy, where human rights are measured by double standards.
7. Oil and gas are Putin’s economic lifelines. The war in the Middle East has driven up fossil fuel prices and the coffers of the Moscow regime (necessary to finance the war in Ukraine) are being filled. Putin can see with horror the millions trickle into his and his family’s bank accounts.
8. Putin can now present himself as the protector of Muslims. That PR stunt could help him win stronger support among Russia’s large Muslim ethnic groups, groups that are overrepresented among the tens of thousands of soldiers killed in the Ukraine invasion and have begun to express growing discontent with Moscow’s exploitation of Russia’s Muslim — often underprivileged — regions. Now the wind can turn, Putin has transformed himself into a defender of Islam.