By Aaron Pilkington
There will be only one winner in the war that has broken out between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. And it is neither Israel nor Hamas.
In an operation coined “the Al-Aqsa Storm,” Hamas, whose formal name is the Islamic Resistance Movement, fired thousands of rockets into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters infiltrated Israel by land, sea and air. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and many taken hostage.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas and launched airstrikes in Gaza. In the first day of reprisals, close to 400 Palestinians were killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In the weeks ahead, the Israeli military will surely retaliate and kill hundreds more Palestinian militants and civilians. As an analyst of Middle East politics and security, I believe that thousands on both sides will suffer. But when the smoke settles, only one country’s interests will have been served: Iran’s.
Already, some analysts are suggesting that Tehran’s fingerprints can be seen on the surprise attack on Israel. At the very least, Iran’s leaders have reacted to the assault with encouragement and support.
The decisive factor shaping Iran’s foreign policy was the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-friendly, repressive Shah of Iran and the transfer of state power into the hands of a Shiite Muslim revolutionary regime. That regime was defined by stark anti-American imperialism and anti-Israeli Zionism.
The revolution, its leaders claimed, was not just against the corrupt Iranian monarchy; it was intended to confront oppression and injustice everywhere, and especially those governments backed by the United States – chief among them, Israel.
For Iran’s leaders, Israel and the United States represented immorality, injustice and the greatest threat to Muslim society and Iranian security. The enduring hostility felt toward Israel is in no small part due to its close ties with the shah and Israel’s role in his sustained oppression of the Iranian people. Together with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, helped organize the shah’s secret police and intelligence service, the SAVAK. This organization relied on increasingly harsh tactics to put down dissenters during the shah’s last two decades in power, including mass imprisonment, torture, disappearances, forced exile and killing thousands of Iranians.
Support for Palestinian liberation was a central theme of Iran’s revolutionary message. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon – in retaliation for Lebanon-based Palestinian attacks against Israel – provided Iran an opportunity to live up to its anti-Zionist rhetoric by challenging Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and checking U.S. influence in the region.
Subsidizing conflict
To that end, Iran sent its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – a branch of Iran’s military, usually known as the “Revolutionary Guard” – to Lebanon to organize and support Lebanese and Palestinian militants. In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Revolutionary Guardsmen instructed Shiite resistance fighters in religion, revolutionary ideology and guerrilla tactics, and provided weapons, funds, training and encouragement. Iran’s leadership transformed these early trainees from a ragtag band of fighters into Lebanon’s most powerful political and military force today, and Iran’s greatest foreign policy success, Hezbollah.
Since the early 1980s, Iran has maintained support for anti-Israeli militant groups and operations. The Islamic Republic has publicly pledged millions of dollars of annual support to groups and provides advanced military training for thousands of Palestinian fighters at Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah bases in Iran and Lebanon.
Iran runs a sophisticated smuggling network to funnel weapons into Gaza, which has long been cut off from the outside world by an Israeli blockade.
Via the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, Iran has encouraged and enabled Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas violence, and these Palestinian fighters now represent a crucial element in what foreign affairs analysts call Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the United States, which constitutes Iran’s chief purpose.
But Iran cannot risk confronting either state directly.
Iranian weapons, funds and training enable surges in Palestinian militant violence against Israel when frustrations boil over, including during the Palestinian uprisings known as the first and second intifadas.
Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and death tolls have escalated steadily since 2020. Palestinians are outraged by increased evictions and destruction of property, and how Israel allows Israeli nationalists and settlers to violate a long-standing agreement preventing Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque – a site holy to both Muslims and Jews. In fact, a recent incursion by settlers into Al-Aqsa was specifically cited by Hamas as a justification for the Oct. 7 attack.
Attacking normalization
That is not to say that Iran ordered Hamas’ attack on Israel, nor that Iran controls Palestinian militants – they are not Iranian puppets. Nevertheless, Iran’s leaders welcomed the attacks, the timing of which serendipitously works in Iran’s favor and plays into the Islamic republic’s regional battle for influence.
“What took place today is in line with the continuation of victories for the anti-Zionist resistance in different fields, including Syria, Lebanon and occupied lands,” according to Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani.
The week before the Hamas attack, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman denied reports that Saudi Arabia had paused its recent efforts to normalize relations with Israel, which includes a formal declaration of Israel’s right to exist and increased diplomatic engagement. “Every day we get closer,” he said, an assessment praised and echoed by Netanyahu.
Israeli-Saudi normalization would represent the pinnacle of achievement thus far in U.S. diplomatic efforts, including the Abraham Accords, signed by Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco in 2020. The accords aimed to normalize and build peaceful relations between Israel and Arab countries across the Middle East and in Africa.
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei lambasted Arab states for signing the Abraham Accords, accusing them of “treason against the global Islamic community.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah praised Saturday’s violence against Israel and echoed Khamenei’s sentiments, warning that the attacks sent a message, “especially to those seeking normalization with this enemy.”
Israel’s expected heavy-handed response is likely to complicate Saudi Arabia’s normalization with Israel in the near term, furthering Iran’s aims. Netanyahu said that Israel’s retaliatory operation seeks three objectives: to eliminate the threat of infiltrators and restore peace to attacked Israeli communities, to simultaneously “exact an immense price from the enemy” in Gaza, and to reinforce “other fronts so that nobody should mistakenly join this war.” This last objective is a subtle but clear warning to Hezbollah and Iran to stay out of the fight.
Israeli troops have already mobilized to secure its borders, and airstrikes have hit Gaza. In all likelihood, Palestinian attackers will be killed or arrested in a matter of days. Israeli troops and air forces will target known or suspected rocket launch, manufacturing, storage and transportation sites, along with the homes of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members. But in the process, hundreds of civilians will likely also lose their lives.
I believe that Iran expects and welcomes all of this.
How Iran wins
There are at least three possible outcomes to the war, and they all play in Iran’s favor.
First, Israel’s heavy-handed response may turn off Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to U.S.-backed Israeli normalization efforts. Second, if Israel deems it necessary to push further into Gaza to eradicate the threat, this could provoke another Palestinian uprising in East Jerusalem or the West Bank, leading to a more widespread Israeli response and greater instability.
Lastly, Israel could achieve its first two objectives with the minimal amount of force necessary, foregoing usual heavy-handed tactics and reducing chances of escalation. But this is unlikely. And even if this occurred, the underlying causes that led to this latest outbreak of violence, and the enabling role Iran plays in that process, have not been addressed.
And when the next round of Israeli-Palestinian violence occurs – and it will – I believe Iran’s leaders will again congratulate themselves for a job well done.
Aaron Pilkington is a doctoral candidate at Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
Jackson says
What is it about Republicans that they need to make everything about themselves? What poor excuses for human beings they are. The chairman of the RNC said before one body could be recovered, Israelis being bombed was a good opportunity for Republicans. WHO SAYS THAT? They’re so power hungry and so intent on revenge, they’ve become nothing more than soulless walking dead ghouls
ASF says
Call those “Palestinian militants” what they are”–terrorists. They are deliberately and with forethought slaughtering, raping and burning innocent civilians, including women, children, in the most up close and personal manner–often uploading images of their horrific acts on Facebook and other media outlets. Americans are included in the hundreds of hostages they have taken–and, by some reports, are already killing.
ASF says
…By the way, as per one of the pictures you included in your above report–it should be mentioned that a Hamas rocket leveled a Mosque in Israel today.
JimboXYZ says
I suspect it’ll be like most of the other Middle Eastern wars, Israel will go into the area take out the Palestinian terrorists and it’ll get to a point where the liberals will be begging Israel to back off the throttle for a cease fire again because when Israel moves in the casualty ratio is always that lopsided. Send in Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).
marlee says
and ……Is this factual information?
Egyptian intelligence official said that the Right Wing government in Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings that the Gaza-based terror group was planning “something big” — which included an apparent direct notice from Cairo’s intelligence minister to the prime minister.
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
Really enjoying this transition that flaglerlive is making to Yet Another Conservative Media Outlet.
DaleL says
Hamas won the parliamentary elections in Gaza in 2006 and then violently took control of Gaza in 2007. Under Hamas, there have been no further elections. Two years ago, under pressure by the US and other countries, Israel limited it’s response to Hamas. The pattern though is familiar. Hamas builds up its supply of weapons and without provocation attacks and murders the people of Israel. Hamas fighters and leaders then shelter among the everyday Palestinians, using civilians as human shields. There is a cease fire and Hamas builds up its weapons again. Hamas is a terrorist (criminal) organization.
Make no mistake, an organization, that murders civilians at a music festival, that murders civilians in its custody, that violently suppresses its own people, is criminal and evil. Any country, organization, or person who supports Hamas is by association supporting murder and hostage taking.
The USA must continue to stand for Democracy and support democratic countries. Countries such as Israel and Ukraine have elections. Their people choose their leaders. That is not so in Putin’s Russia or Hamas controlled Gaza.
Laurel says
Ah, but just where is Putin now? Does Iran have such sophisticated weaponry?
I’m not for either side. This is another war based on religion. Neither side will ever be happy, and they will continue to steal from and/or terrorize each other. It’s a part of life for them.
I thought Jared Kushner was supposed to fix this. Instead, he moved Israel’s capital right in the face of the Palestinians. Are the Palestinians going to sit by? No. They retaliate. Will the Israelis sit by? No. They will retaliate.
Netanyahu will continue to try to override the Israeli Supreme Court, so democracy is fragile everywhere, and I won’t hold my breath on that either.
ASF says
The Israel Supreme Court is not elected by the people of Israel. The Knesset is. Yet, the current Israeli Surpeme Court gets to override any law passed by the duly elected government of Israel based on little more their own political sensibilities and personal defintions of “reasonableness.”
The bulk of the Court is Far left leaning, They appoint judges from amidst their own political ranks. That is The current Supreme Court of Israel has also been known to appoint family members and personal acquaintances to fill clerkships and the like. The current court could use some democratic reform. The should not be untouchabke while they wail against their ;poliktical oppsitikon for presumably considering thesmelves to be untouchable.
I think Americans should focus more on the open quesrions surorinding our own system of justice. It’s not like we are exactly paragons. Maybe America will sound less hyocritically inclined in their criticisms when and if American women get their Right to Choose back.
Laurel says
Israeli civilians were protesting in the streets about Netanyahu’s attempt to override the Supreme Court. Our democracy is fragile as well, as it is far right leaning and the American public also has lost confidence. I don’t trust Netanyahu as far as I can throw him.
I am upset that Israel is now overshadowing Ukraine, which is also a democracy in trouble, and maybe more so than Israel. This is clearly to Putin’s advantage. Putin (once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent) was once the bane of the Republican Party. Now, the Trumplican Party are okay with this guy. Trump was also chummy with Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. Who is taking advantage of whom?
ASF says
What do you think The Middle East–the world–will look like if Israel bites the dust?
“Anti-Zionist armchair critics” should be careful what they wish for…espcially in America. To Jihadist forces, Israel is just “The Little Satan.” America is “The Big Satan”. Who do you think will be the target of their unending wrath then?
Something tells me if that last situation came to pass, other democracies like the US would not be as restrained in their response to incessant attack as Israel has been (for 75 years.)