THE PUPPETEER IN ISRAEL HAMAS IMBROGLIO
1. Assassination of Gen Soleimani by US Forces in Jan 2020[1] was considered to be the beginning of the end for Quds Force and its influence in West Asia, but like most prophecies hazarded about the cesspool of West Asia this one too has come up a cropper. The influence of Quds force in Levant and especially its deep rooted control over Hamas, Hezbollah and (Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn), known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has manifested in this recent spate of rocket attacks on Israel which had been predicted by the leader of Quds Force in an interview on 06 May to Iranian News Agency wherein he had stated; “Israel could be blown up in a single operation”[2]. While the present violence was attributed to Palestinians having faced off every night with Israeli Police in East Jerusalem during the holy month of Ramadan, who put up barriers to stop evening gatherings at the walled Old City’s Damascus Gate. Palestinians saw the barriers as a restriction on their freedom to assemble, while the Police said they were there to maintain order[3]. The violence quickly spread to the Old City compound containing Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam and the most sensitive site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also the epicenter of the second Intifada.
2. Hamas appeared to see the escalation as an opportunity to marginalize Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and present itself as the guardian of Palestinians in Jerusalem. But to a discerning eye, this was the spark which was needed to blow the powder keg which had been collected by Iran over a period of time to exact their pound of flesh against the US-Zionist axis. Iran has kept a keen eye on the political turmoil brewing in Israel and sees the timing as opportune with Israel in flux as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents try to form a government that would unseat him after an inconclusive fifth election on 23 March. Netanyahu appears to be distracted by his trial on corruption charges and has allowed the situation to slip out of hand where in a civil war like situation prevails within Israel as violence has erupted in mixed Arab-Jewish cities across Israel, with members of Israel’s 21% Arab minority angry over the Jerusalem evictions and Gaza violence. A synagogue and cars were torched in the Tel Aviv suburb of Lod, motorists were stoned on some roads, and Palestinian flag-waving protesters scuffled with police in northern Haifa port. However, the Israeli Police said the assaults appeared to be more by Jews against Arabs[4].
3. Iran and Israel now view each other as rivals for power and influence in the region. The Iranian regime considers Israel as a regional competitor bent on undermining its revolutionary system; Israel sees Iran as its predominant security challenge posing grave strategic and ideological challenges to the Jewish state. Israeli concerns that the all uprisings in Lebanon and Palestine are handiwork of Iran and enhance its regional influence have only deepened Israeli alarm and forced it to even execute proactive and preemptive operations against Iran’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. Israelis today views nearly every regional threat through the prism of Iran. Israel’s threat perceptions of Iran stem in part from expanding Iranian missile capabilities and nuclear advances. Israeli leaders worry that if Iran’s nuclear weapons capability is enhanced it would add heft to its influence, severely limiting Israeli and U.S. military and political maneuverability in the region.
4. The Quds Force in the post-Soleimani era was expected to extend its asymmetrical battlefield as a force multiplier to bring more pressure to bear on Iran’s adversaries, particularly the United States and Israel. The “Axis of Resistance” stretching from Tehran to Beirut; sometimes described as a “Shia crescent”, is the most vital pivot of Iran’s unconventional alliance and patronage network in the region. First, it provides a “land corridor” that spans Iraq and Syria up through Lebanon and the Mediterranean. Second it guarantees cooperation between the IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas, the most decisive node of the Islamic Republic’s “strategic depth” and its greatest deterrent against Israeli threats, including a possible offensive against its nuclear facilities. It was, first and foremost, the maintenance of this strategic connection that convinced Iran to intervene militarily in Syria and prop up the Assad government against all odds. It is not surprising, therefore, that Israel has been doing all it can to disrupt and degrade this network in Syria and, more recently, Iraq. Israeli airstrikes in Syria and western Iraq were aimed at achieving two main objectives: curbing Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria, and halting its efforts to provide Hezbollah and Hamas with precise missiles and rocket launching capabilities. Instead of delivering precision missiles and rockets to Hezbollah and Hamas, Quds Force has encouraged setting up of a cottage industry with assembly line production of rockets in Lebanon and Gaza.
5. Tehran has shown remarkable willingness to work with whatever organizations suit local circumstances and to allow these organizations to evolve as the situation changes. Hamas, relatively well-organized fighting force is now a governing partner and political rival to Fatah. Interestingly Hamas is a Sunni group and this very heterogeneity is tactically advantageous for Tehran as it allows Iran to support whatever tools are most readily at hand throughout the region without signing on to any particular ideological or even practical region wide program. Anti-Americanism (and anti-Zionism) is the only common feature Quds Force shares with all the groups it supports.
6. The present love affair between Hamas and Iran became visible as head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Tehran, with a high-level delegation in the form of protocol participation in Soleimani’s funeral[5]. Soleimani’s daughter mentioned Haniyeh in her speech at her father’s memorial, as being capable of avenging her father[6]. Involvement on Hamas’s part in a purely Iranian matter was indicative of Hamas’s desire to turn a new leaf in their relationship with Tehran. Iranian Aerospace Force Commander General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, while holding a press conference to explain the details of the Iranian attack on the American base in Ayn Al-Assad in West Iraq in retaliation for Soleimani’s assassination had several banners of the Iranian armed forces in the region; Hezbollah, Houthis, Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq, Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas in Syria, Liwa Fatemiyoun in Afghanistan, and also banner of Hamas.
Image-1 : Aerospace Commander Amir-Ali Hajizadeh during his Press Conference[7]
7. Iranian Revolutionary Guards spent about $48 million on Hamas’s military industrialisation in 2015[8]. Revolutionary Guard continued to support the Palestinian factions with money and weapons, despite the financial crisis in Iran. Iranian economic and military support provided to Hamas is only directed at military industrialisation and the production of combat materials. It is evident that Hamas had made its choice by aligning itself with Iran, because it supports it politically, militarily and in the media, and strategic considerations calculate their closeness despite their sharp differences regarding the Syrian issue, their relationship regarding the Palestinian issue is close to an alliance against the common Israeli enemy. It is not directed against any Arab country, and it aims to unify efforts to confront the occupation.
8. A power failure caused by a deliberately planned explosion had struck Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site in April this year. Iranian officials had called it an act of sabotage that they suggested had been carried out by Israel. Haaretz an Israeli newspaper had assumed it to be an Israeli cyber-attack.[9] “The Zionists want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions, but we will take our revenge from the Zionists.” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had responded immediately after the incident. Iran was subjected an Israeli attack, its fronts in southern Lebanon and southern Palestine were inextricably forced to enter this large-scale conflict calculus. It may be prudent to connect the dots at this point and assume that this asymmetric response by IRGC Quds Force through Hamas is the revenge they were seeking and which Iran now hopes will be the battle of the entire axis it leads against the Zionist and Americans.
[1]https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/who-is-general-qasem-soleimani-and-why-was-he-so-popular/article30467687.ece accessed on 14 May 2021.
[2]https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1400/02/15/2497708 accessed on 14 May 2021.
[3]https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-jerusalem-tensions-sparked-heaviest-israel-gaza-fighting-years-2021-05-12/ accessed on 14 May 2021.
[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/violence-grips-mixed-arab-jewish-towns-israel-tensions-flare-2021-05-12/ accessed on 14 May 2021.
[5] https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-leader-praises-soleimani-at-tehran-funeral-in-show-of-support-for-iran/ accessed on 14 May 2021.
[6] https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/01/10/Soleimani-s-daughter-says-Haniyah-al-Assad-capable-of-avenging-her-father accessed on 14 May 2021.
[7] https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-disabled-us-monitoring-systems-during-missile-attack-irgc-commander-claims-/30368664.html accessed on 14 May 2021.
[8] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/iran-hamas-and-palestinian-islamic-jihad accessed on 14 May 2021.
[9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56708778 accessed on 14 May 2021.
