The devastating attack on Israel by Hamas yesterday and Israel’s declaration of total war have been the featured news items in Western media today. Some of what the talking heads are saying to CNN, Euronews and the BBC is perceptive and valuable, much more so than any of their commentary on the war in Ukraine, which is my primary focus. I think that I am impressed not merely because the less you know about any given subject, the easier it is to take seriously what mainstream presents. No, what I have heard about the failures of Israeli intelligence on these stations has made good sense and seems credible.
I ventured to say a few words about the conflict on WION Indian television earlier today, because I was given the opportunity to talk about it from the geopolitical perspective, which got relatively little attention in Western mainstream. The link to that interview will be posted below when it becomes available.
There are, incidentally, two markers that would justify giving the geopolitical perspective more thought. One is the news that the head of the Arab League flew to Moscow today for talks with Foreign Minister Lavrov. The other is the statement from an official in the Russia-controlled Donbas that NATO arms delivered earlier in the year to Ukraine were resold and likely are being used against Israel in the war there now under way. That brings up the remarks of Benjamin Netanyahu this past July that the Palestinians were known to have procured anti-tank weapons, presumably Javelins, from the Ukrainians. That is not an irrelevancy, because the Israelis will have to move armor into the Gaza Strip to take control and this type of NATO weaponry could inflict great damage on IDF personnel and equipment.
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Mainstream commentators with some military experience have pointed out that an attack like this one must have taken a long time in preparation, perhaps as long as a year. And so the question arises, why now?
One clue mentioned by commentators is that it has come just after the Jewish High Holy Days. That might be a clue if we consider that this Hamas attack is the greatest threat to Israeli security since the Yom Kippur War back in 1973, which also was so damaging because of failures by Israeli intelligence to see it coming.
However, I believe the timing was driven by something entirely different, something purely in the domain of geopolitics: the attack was staged to disrupt the ongoing rapprochement of Saudi Arabia and Israel under the direction of Washington. If the parties succeeded in concluding the agreement on normalization of relations, then that would put in jeopardy all hopes of the Palestinians to enjoy the support of their Arab brethren in the region for realization of their political ambitions for statehood. Meanwhile, if there should be a Saudi-Israeli agreement, then the power balance in the region between Iran and Saudi Arabia would shift significantly in Saudis’ favor, since the conditions they were negotiating with Washington to make peace with Israel included declaration of a formal security treaty with the United States and access to U.S. nuclear technology up to and including enrichment of uranium. In other words, the Saudis would close in on the current Iranian advantage of being a hair’s breadth away from possessing bombs.
Under present conditions of all-out war by Israel on Hamas and the prospect of a bloody incursion into Gaza by the Israeli Defense Force, it is unthinkable for Saudi Arabia to proceed with normalization of relations. This means, in effect, that a serious blow has been dealt to the foreign policy of the Biden administration. This failure comes on top of the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. The net effect will not only be felt once the electoral campaign for the presidency gets underway later this autumn, but will be felt immediately insofar as it weakens the president’s hand in his ongoing arm-wrestling with Congress over the 2024 budget and in particular over funding for Ukraine. If the allegations that NATO weapons have come into the hands of Hamas via Ukraine, then the consequences of uncontrolled delivery of weapons to Kiev will be on display for everyone to see.
Failure breeds failures, and you cannot dress up this new pig in the Middle East policy of Biden and Blinken and Sullivan with lipstick.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Gilbert Doctorow 
Excellent perceptive commentary.
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An ominous side-effect of the U.S. Neocons provocation of Russia in Ukraine is more nuclear arms proliferation by countries in the Middle East. Various countries held off on developing nuclear weapons in the past. They now understand that nuclear weapons provide the only deterrent that a smaller nation can use to fend off U.S. dominance and hegemony. A war mongering U.S. only encourages smaller nations to develop nuclear weapons, making the world more in danger of nuclear war than ever before. The foreign policy conduct of the U.S. at present is sheer madness.
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re: “the failures of Israeli intelligence”
it’s beep widely reported and confirmed in the US Senate that Egyptian intelligence warned Israel days in advance…so did they allow this to happen? and if so, to what end?
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Pepe Escobar wrote a column published in The Cradle on the “why.” 1) Netanyahu at the U.N. during September speeches there, you may recall, appeared with a “new map of the Middle East” which did not include Palestine. 2) On the 5th of October, which was 2 days before the Al-Aqsa Flood op began, “at least 800 Israeli settlers launched an assault around Al-Aqsa mosque, beating pilgrims, destroying Palestinian shops, all under the observation of Israeli security forces.” In the past year, there have been over 48,000 settlers invading the Al-Aqsa compound, always aided and protected by Israel’s security forces, and many break-ins and desecration of the Holy Mosque, which is a red line not just for Palestinians, but for all Muslims. While Hamas and PIJ have not responded directly to those incursions with other than words, it seems they’ve been preparing for the Flood. The push for Saudi Arabia to normalize with the Israelis (as done by Bahrain and the UAE in the Persian Gulf for the Saudis to piggy-back on) may have added urgency to the Flood, but the increased anti-Palestinian and anti-Islam actions taken by Netanyahu was likely the fire beneath the kindling.
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