The savagery displayed by Hamas will change the world more than 9/11 did. Now China and Russia will move to seize the advantage
Ayatollahs have very specific aims in employing Hamas against Israel.
A key goal is to undo the thawing of relations between the Jewish state and other Middle Eastern nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — that occurred between September 2020 and January 2021 with the signing of the Abraham Accords during the Presidency of Donald Trump (who, in contrast to his fiery, war-mongering image, was actually an advocate of peace and co-operation in the Middle East).
Tehran loathes this reconciliatory process. The ayatollahs deny that the State of Israel has any right to exist, and insist it should be wiped off the face of the Earth. Any peace process ending Israel's isolation would push Iran further into the cold.
Provoking Israel also enables Hamas and Iran to stir up sympathy for the Palestinian cause across the Middle East.
Contrary to most Western reporting, the terrorists' cynical slaughter of defenceless civilians, raping women and kidnapping others, gets little mention in the Arab media.
Rather, images of the 'victims' of Israeli retaliation are the ones shown on television stations throughout the Middle East.
In the heart of this maelstrom, Arab leaders now face pressure from below to pick a side. Saudi Arabia has already cancelled any plans to deal with Israel and appears to blame Israel for the violence inflicted on it.
Iran enjoys several other benefits from inflaming this proxy war. One is to establish its Shia brand of Islam as the prime enemy of Israel, eclipsing the influence of Saudi Arabia, which upholds the alternative Sunni creed.
Tehran can trumpet the ideological purity of the Shia code to the Muslim world in contrast to Riyadh, whose Sunni regime they'll portray as fatally compromised by attempts at rapprochement with Israel.
The Israelis' retaliating bombardment will whip up the Palestinian cause, encouraging fundamentalism and thereby weakening moderate Arab governments like that of Egypt — which will be destabilised even further by huge refugee flows from Gaza.
