Answer to a reader’s question: About Hamas’s attack on Israel and its impact on the global situation

There is a popular movie "Golda", which tells the story of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Directed by Israeli director Guy Natif. The film was released in many countries, including Russia and Arab countries.

The current situation is in some respects the same as it was in 1973. It's not the same scale, but probably more brutal.

I will not repeat these stories of the Israeli “state” and the Palestinian struggle. In other words, don’t take sides. What we need to focus on now is the impact this has on the overall situation.

Israel and Ukraine may find themselves in direct competition for U.S. aid. If the war lasts longer than three months (which is possible assuming Iran joins), the world's attention will be diverted from Ukraine. And this "works" for Russia.

On the other line - in the footsteps of Biden, who aims to award a "Nobel Prize" for reconciliation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And it’s another coin in Trump’s piggy bank.

Overall, the world in 2024 is going to have to solve some very non-linear equations. There will be more unknowns and solutions to the unknowns.

Below is an overview of some key points.

Analyze the attack and its impact

1. At the infrastructure level, Hamas does not have the ability to openly fight the Israeli army. Therefore, it has other goals.

2. Netanyahu’s current government is the most right-wing cabinet in Israeli history. They are used to living on the front lines. But Israeli settlements have never come under direct attack on a large scale. Now Hamas is counting on many of them to flee the settlements. This is the first goal.

3. The second goal is to take hostages and use them . If you remember the story of Corporal Gilad Shalit , his life led to the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas now has more Israelis in its hands, both military (major generals) and civilians.

4. The third goal is to delegitimize the Israeli authorities - what's the use of a government that can't even protect its people. War in the information age has a powerful information component, and Hamas takes full advantage of this.

5. The fourth goal is to gain support on the Arab streets. Arab streets will cheer when they see horrific footage of Hamas - it's already happening, online you'll find massive marches in the Yemeni capital, rallies in Aleppo, Syria, rallies in Baghdad, Iraq. Arab leaders are cautious, but they cannot ignore the sentiment of the masses, for whom the Hamas men are heroes.

An inevitable harsh response from Israel is also part of the plan - one that could derail Israel's normalization of relations with Arab states (under Trump, Israel established diplomatic ties with some Arab states; under Biden, Israel has Difficult negotiations with Saudi Arabia continue). And the diplomatic combination will collapse during military operations.

6. The fifth goal is to strengthen the already close relationship with Iran. Lebanese Hezbollah has threatened to intervene if Israel defeats Hamas (it has no choice). At the same time, Iran is consolidating its domestic society - opposition groups calling for regime change are now being smeared by the government as " Zionist agents."

7. A huge tool for domestic stability maintenance. In Israeli society, a "conformity around the flag" effect is at work, as it always is in situations like this. The opposition supports the government's actions regardless of their effectiveness - public divisions over Netanyahu's judicial reforms have temporarily lost their relevance.

But the question is what to do next? No amount of heavy-handed strikes against Hamas's military infrastructure in the announced ground operations will be able to defeat the group, which has Gaza as its beachhead.

And trying to establish control over Gaza risks a resumption of the long-running uprising (as it will in the West Bank as well), new losses for the military, and a radical deterioration in relations with Arab states. And all this doesn’t take into account the hostage factor.

8. After the state of emergency ends (no one knows when), there will be a "decisive battle" - just like the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which despite victory, exposed the unpreparedness of Israeli security forces . The result was the resignation of Golda Meir's government. Netanyahu and his ministers will also have to answer tough questions about the performance of security agencies, including the intelligence services. Furthermore, why did the Minister of National Security and far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir bravely climb the Temple Mount despite the threat of Hamas and realize that this is not only the work of radical Arabs? What is unacceptable, and what moderate Arabs cannot accept, is that the safety of ordinary people is not guaranteed.

Something that may need to be emphasized regarding the situation in Israel

1. The reason is oil . Rather, it is the role of oil in geopolitical competition.

Hamas's attacks are an attempt (like those of Iran and its allies) to ignite war in the region and undermine the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Why? To prevent Israel's U.S. partners from pushing Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. This will lower oil prices, strengthen the West, weaken Russia, squeeze China and attack Iran. An attack by Hamas would trigger Israeli retaliation, and Saudi Arabia, which supports the Palestinian cause, cannot ignore it.

2. Much depends on the Saudi response.

Historically, Saudi Arabia has supported Palestine. But there is a view that the new generation, led by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is taking a more philistine view of the issue and may be willing to abandon the Palestinians in exchange for the benefits of normalized relations with Israel and the United States.

3. Hamas is a political organization whose extremism is fueled by Iranian funding and Israeli state policies in Gaza, which in turn provides a pretext for the rationalization and advancement of those policies.

4. Sympathy for the Israelis does not negate sympathy for the Palestinians , and sympathy for the Palestinians does not mean that we should support Hamas, a right-wing conservative whose nationalism is tinged with religious fundamentalism. Not only did the actions fail to achieve their stated goals, but they consolidated the status quo and kept the Palestinians in an oppressed position.

5. Hamas's attacks cannot eliminate doubts about Israel's policies in the Gaza Strip, nor can they be the basis for depriving the Palestinian people of their rights to life and homeland .

Hamas is able to gain support from these people because of their desperate situation. And this support cannot be understood without its context: the history of Jerusalem, the Nakba, Israeli politics, the policies of Fatah (and Hamas’s other rivals in the PLO); the targeted erasure of Palestinian politics A more progressive leader in the field ( Kanafani ); people who have lived for decades in the reality of prisons, blockades, towers, checkpoints and night raids , in the daily realities of apartheid colonialism and humanitarian disasters , with the option of either obediently disappearing from the face of the earth, or joining the ranks of the fundamentalists (under whose ecology the independent Palestinian resistance movement is fragmented and discredited).

6. Here, Iran and the Russian Federation are friends, the Russian Federation and Israel are friends, the Israeli army is supported by the United States, and the United States is friends with Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia supports Palestine, and Hamas for "freedom from the river to the sea" While fighting, they did not invade Egypt. Egypt supports the blockade of Gaza.

7. Be wary of claims that superficially try to urge you to take sides. For example, those "liberals" who are fed by the regime try to suggest that "a group of aggrieved beggars suddenly swooped in" and "killed and tortured beautiful, wealthy people just because they were so beautiful and wealthy"... This is a terrible thing madness.

8. Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces are not nearly as powerful as each other.

Unless the entire hostile coalition of the State of Israel comes together, Hamas will be crushed.

It will be crushed together with the entire Palestinian people to the roaring applause of the "civilized world".

Transactions between Israel and Saudi Arabia may be frozen.

If this happens, the likelihood of a Republican victory in the US election will increase, which will affect Western support for Ukraine .

The essence of this nightmare will be captured by Iran , China , and Russia , which will continue to speculate on resources and exploit resentment to consolidate camps in the Global South. Israeli policy will become more militaristic and nationalistic. Deglobalization will continue.

9. Anyone shouting racist slogans of "stupid barbarians" should stop and take a moment to look at the scale of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the Arab world and consider whether it is worth pouring fuel on this powder keg.

Attachment: Regarding Israel and Palestine, the following content is recommended——

There was no gentle uprising. But the discussion of why people only have this choice often gets less attention. Most of the onlookers just made black and white judgments with a false sense of morality, integrating with the suppressors' public opinion campaign.

Under such circumstances, it is not easy for activists to defend the spirit and purpose of the uprising. This article achieves this. In particular, it does not fall into the so-called violence and non-violence rhetoric that China observers usually find difficult to avoid. Instead, it truly analyzes the situation on the ground as an actor; and correctly points out the problem. The key - true harmony is about uniting to resist tyranny, not about who is submissive to whom.

This is the right way to effectively break the matrix of racism and nationalism laid out by narrative manipulators.

This article is an anonymous material from occupied Palestine, hoping to show a template for Chinese activists on how to record and analyze an action - from background to theory to action timeline and capture of key points.

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Now the whole world is using Israeli surveillance technology, which is why we have a separate column for this "Israel and NSO"; at the same time, mass surveillance under the pretext of coronavirus prevention is also spreading around the world... Rights Organization And advocates have been reminding people that the expansion of surveillance power will not stop after the epidemic is over, and now people have seen the true purpose of those in power — not the virus, but dissent.

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The colonial nature of Zionism helps explain why its leaders – past and present – ​​have allied themselves with far-right and violently anti-Semitic figures: from the Nazis in the 1930s to Viktor Ohr today Ban or Jair Bolsonaro. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not an aberration; his far-right, violent, and expansionist agenda has been what Israel has advanced from the beginning.

At the same time, callous claims of “anti-Semitism” were used to attack the most basic forms of solidarity and organization. In the United States, 217 bills aimed at curbing the speech of Palestinian rights activists have been introduced at the state level; 23% of these bills have been passed. If the IHRA's definition becomes law, it would mean that statements as simple as "Israel is an apartheid state" would be considered anti-Semitic, violate so-called hate speech policies, and in some cases constitute hatred crime.

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They select the best young people in society for intensive training and train them to become part of the war machine;

They built a pipeline from one of the world’s most powerful government spy agencies directly into the spyware surveillance industry;

They have cultivated a kind of values ​​in society, making people respect these cyber weapons industries, and mobilizing the whole society to have zero tolerance for rebels...

They talked and laughed in the face of sin.

…

Cellebrite was able to break into Signal two years ago. Even China has used the company’s products to hack into the phones of Hong Kong activists…

What's behind all this?

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Power that was once in the "barrel of a gun" is now in the code.

It may be the most powerful political weapon of this century. This is a shadowy underground arms race that can destroy anyone, whether allies or political opponents; it can be sold to anyone, as long as you pay enough money.

There is no ideology here, it is all about money and power. Governments all over the world are doing this secretly, including the ones you think are the most kind and democratic; but the biggest players here, the top buyers who spend a lot of money, are only those governments: the United States, China, Israel, Russia... Among them, the United States Overwhelms all other countries.

Those who know how to use this weapon stand like giants on this earth.

Politics is the struggle to bend others to your will. War is an extension of politics through other means. In the cyber realm, politics and war entered a new chapter that is still being written today…

This book is the product of more than seven years of interviews with more than 300 individuals involved in, stalking, or directly affected by the underground cyber weapons industry. These individuals include hackers, activists, dissidents, academics, computer scientists, U.S. and foreign government officials, forensic investigators, and mercenaries. The documents in question are considered confidential or, in many cases, are privileged through nondisclosure agreements. Many of those interviewed for the book agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter.

This article is an excerpt from the new book.

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