RE: Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War
October 9, 2023 at 8:59 am
(This post was last modified: October 9, 2023 at 9:22 am by Anomalocaris.)
This maneuver seems to be selected to not really to kill a few hundred Israelis but to ensure a period of brutal blood letting for the Palestinians during the inevitable Israeli reaction. This is no doubt so as to inflame Arab opinion. The timing of this maneuver seems to be selected to stop in its tracks the Saudi-Israel rapprochement that has been in the works for some time and seems to be within months of being consummated.
Saudi Arabia has been playing a rather cunning game in playing China off against the U.S. to extract a comprehensive security guarantee from the U.S. No doubt the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is another major chess piece in the same game. While new comprehensive security arrangement between the U.S. and Saudis will be a serious blow to China’s middle eastern oil and Central Asia Belt and Road strategy, it would be a much bigger, potentially fatal, blow to security interests of Iran in its home turf.
So I find it improbable Iran did not collude in this maneuver.
I find it unlikely China could be involved because China is at the same time playing its own game to woo Netanyahu, increasingly isolated from the Biden administration, away from the U.S. and Israel being attacked on a large scale, and the U.S. showing is it much better able to provide the Israelis with material support than China, is an thing that would just not do for Beijing.
However, it also seems unlikely to me that Hamas acted purely as Iranian pawn.
Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is closing off another avenue or meaningful international support for the Palestinian cause. If Palestinians give up on statehood as improbable, Hamas would lose its main competing advantage with respect to the Palestinian Authority that had been part of the now defunct Oslo accord and seem unable to do anything after the Israelis reneged and spat all over the deal. So survival or Hamas as a player in the Palestinian world also depends on brakes being put on Saudi-Israeli rapprochement.
Saudi Arabia has been playing a rather cunning game in playing China off against the U.S. to extract a comprehensive security guarantee from the U.S. No doubt the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is another major chess piece in the same game. While new comprehensive security arrangement between the U.S. and Saudis will be a serious blow to China’s middle eastern oil and Central Asia Belt and Road strategy, it would be a much bigger, potentially fatal, blow to security interests of Iran in its home turf.
So I find it improbable Iran did not collude in this maneuver.
I find it unlikely China could be involved because China is at the same time playing its own game to woo Netanyahu, increasingly isolated from the Biden administration, away from the U.S. and Israel being attacked on a large scale, and the U.S. showing is it much better able to provide the Israelis with material support than China, is an thing that would just not do for Beijing.
However, it also seems unlikely to me that Hamas acted purely as Iranian pawn.
Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is closing off another avenue or meaningful international support for the Palestinian cause. If Palestinians give up on statehood as improbable, Hamas would lose its main competing advantage with respect to the Palestinian Authority that had been part of the now defunct Oslo accord and seem unable to do anything after the Israelis reneged and spat all over the deal. So survival or Hamas as a player in the Palestinian world also depends on brakes being put on Saudi-Israeli rapprochement.
