Were Trips by Hamas Officials to Moscow a Prelude to the Outbreak of War?

Israelis are reeling, but with whom are they actually dealing? October 7 was a black Saturday that saw Palestinian terrorists from Gaza launch a multipronged attack in which more than 600 Israelis were reportedly killed and more than 2,000 injured.These figures are expected to rise. Iran, predictably, was quick to heap praise on Hamas for its surprise attack on Israel, in which thousands of rockets were fired at Israeli cities and dozens of Israeli civilians living in communities near the border with Gaza were taken hostage by marauding Hamas terrorists.Amid the spiraling violence came a curiously anodyne statement from the Kremlin: “We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides to immediately cease-fire, renounce violence, show the necessary restraint,” the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said.Forget for a moment the indignity of a hamfisted statement attempting to stitch moral equivalence between the only democracy in the Middle East and the terrorists that with Tehran’s backing were on Sunday in their second day of attacks against the Jewish state. Remember that in September Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, welcomed the Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh to Moscow.Mr. Haniyeh did not travel to the Russian capital to see the sights in Red Square. Nor is it likely that the only thing he and Mr. Lavrov discussed was the rift between Hamas and Fatah, led by the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.What is known is that the meeting came at Moscow’s request, that Mr. Haniyeh was accompanied by at least two other senior members of Hamas’s so-called political wing, and that it took place a little over six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More recently, in March, Hamas dispatched another high-level delegation to Moscow. Vladimir Putin must be exceptionally dedicated to reconciliation between rival Palestinian factions, some might say — but they would probably be wrong.Mr. Putin is far more interested in hammering out his own version of a new world order. At an annual forum in Russia last week, he reminded his audience, “Everyone knows, and I want to repeat it, that Russia remains the largest country in the world in terms of territory, but first of all has a civilizational meaning.”What Mr. Putin really meant was that it has first and foremost a geopolitical meaning. The Russian leader is not the first person to understand that the Middle East is not merely a crossroads of civilizations but of conflict.It is par for the course that the Kremlin would look for ways to marry its war on Ukraine with the powder kegs always ready to go off along Israel’s borders. Coddling Hamas leaders, who already receive financial support from Tehran, is one way to do it. It might be giving the Kremlin too much credit to suggest that fomenting a regional war in the Middle East is part of a tactic to divert back to Israel arms for Ukraine. It might, though, be possible. Earlier this year the Pentagon sent American munitions stocks that had been stored in Israel to Ukraine.Earlier this month, in a setback as much for the Biden administration as for Ukraine, a measure to provide $6 billion in Ukraine aid collapsed in a government funding bill. In addition, the White House recently unfroze $6 billion worth of assets for Iran. All that adds up to a ripe moment for Mr. Putin, who is arguably the world’s most cunning architect of chaos today, to light a match in the Middle East. Iranians, too, are among the most calculating merchants of mayhem in the global bazaar. It did not take long for many observers to link Tehran’s cheerleading for Hamas terror to a presumed desire to sink an American-brokered normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Politico had a report on this, marking that in recent days the mullahs have come out swinging against any such deal. Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ali Khamenei, stated last week that “the position of the Islamic Republic is that countries that make the gamble of normalization with Israel will lose. They are betting on a losing horse.”Hamas gets support from Iran but Iran’s bigger proxy is Hezbollah, which has already deemed the latest assault on Israel a “decisive response to Israel’s continued occupation and a message to those seeking normalization with Israel.”It is worth recalling that members of Hezbollah fought alongside Russian forces in Syria. America’s Treasury Department says the Lebanese-based terror group, which is as ruthless as Hamas if not more so, has actively been involved in helping Moscow dodge Western sanctions imposed since the invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Putin has already admitted that in his conception of Russia what matters more than size is power, and part of that power is the ability to stir up trouble to distract from Ukraine and further empower Mr. Putin’s own kleptocracy.Too, the Russian leader is giving NATO a fresh headache by dredging up old animosities between Serbia and Kosovo, and in the Caucasus. If the Kremlin colluded with Tehran to do the same in Israel, it would be a new low for Mr. Putin. Whether Washington has the wherewithal to help put out the fires the wily Russian appears to be so giddily starting is now largely up to President Biden.

Were Trips by Hamas Officials to Moscow a Prelude to the Outbreak of War?

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