Reducing the crisis to Gaza will not solve the Palestinian issue!

By Youssef Badr

There are those who are pressing to stop the aggression against Gaza, including supporters of the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas", for fear of the expansion of the impact of this war on their lands. This was translated into practice by the visit of Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani to Moscow and his meeting there with a member of the Political Bureau of the "Hamas" movement Moussa. Abu Marzouk, and talk about a ceasefire deal in exchange for hostages.

There are also those who secretly support Israel's plan to eliminate this movement, believing that with its fall, tampering hands in the region will be loosened, which was translated into practice by the political statements and media speeches that sought to distance themselves from the Iranian square, or the Al-Aqsa Flood process was translated into political explanations ignoring the Palestinian issue. Or its conspiratorial view of the plan to get involved in a war with Israel, or its reference to resistance movements as an insinuation or statement of terrorism, or confusion in describing the situation of the Hebrew state between occupation and the right to defense; The positions were mixed with security concerns and challenges for fear of slipping into a square that would take the region back to June 1967, at a time when there was much talk about the new Middle East!

But the occupying state is continuing with its plan to reshape the Gaza Strip in a way that eliminates the resistance movements, even at the expense of the lives of the Palestinian people! The occupation army's plan is still in its first phase, which is based on launching harsh air attacks that destroy neighborhoods and buildings and transform the Gaza Strip into rubble and open land, making it easier for it to carry out a ground invasion without resisting street warfare, in addition to the stifling siege and starvation to push the residents of the Strip into forced displacement and return. Shaping its demographics if it ends up being in favor of the Hebrew state’s plans; Its leaders are buying time to settle their internal affairs and trying to achieve any formal victory, if in the end they are forced to respond to pressure from their Western allies to accept a truce... but the question remains: what comes after that?!

Search for an accused

Israel is not worried about expanding the circle of war with the northern front (Syria and Lebanon on the borders of occupied Palestine). On the contrary, it is looking for an accused to justify its actions in Gaza, or to distract international public opinion with a new front that places it in the image of a victim who is in need of the support of its allies. International parties, so that the picture appears as if what happened in Gaza was a conspiracy carried out by a country like Iran to eliminate the Zionist state, which may help it in the future to evade the rights of the Palestinian people that it ignored, which is what led us to the situation that the region is experiencing now.

The veto battle that took place between Russia and the United States during the UN Security Council meeting, Thursday, October 26, indicates that the West is looking for international approval to criminalize what Israel was subjected to in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation and include it under the name of terrorism. To complete the scenario that the occupation will exploit later to give its plan towards Gaza international legitimacy. Russia removed the name of its ally Iran from the draft US resolution accusing the Islamic Republic of supporting armed groups that it described as terrorist!

Russia, which is waging war on Ukraine, appears to have defended Iran. Because it does not want to expand the scope of the Gaza crisis outside its territory; Officially condemning Iran in the Security Council may divert attention from Hamas and open fire on a bigger culprit, which would harm Russia, which is also facing Western sanctions, especially since Iran has turned into a regional policeman working in its interest in Syria, the South Caucasus, Ukraine, and Africa.

Alliance against terrorism

The role that we have witnessed from French President Emmanuel Macron over the past few days is that of a light-hearted godfather to promote an international project to include the Gaza Strip among the tasks of the international coalition to combat terrorism currently spreading in Syria and Iraq. Although his plan is smart in the eyes of the West, it appears stupid in the eyes of the countries of the region. ; The West seeks to minimize the Gaza crisis and reduce it to “Hamas” after including it on terrorist lists, and the mission of the international coalition is to help Israel implement its plan towards that sector under an international and legitimate umbrella.

But in the eyes of the countries in the region that do not want Hamas to exist, this plan could increase the region’s crisis. When the international coalition fought ISIS, everyone supported it, even if there were those who supported it. But for Hamas, the matter is related to angry people and parties intertwined with this movement, such as Qatar, Turkey, and Jordan. The matter is not limited to Iran.

Although it seemed as if Macron had gone out alone without discussing his partners, in reality he was throwing a stone in the water to prepare public opinion. The visit made by US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, to Qatar on Wednesday, October 25, as well as the tour of US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, to Europe. It indicates the existence of joint Western cooperation to help Israel. If he does not succeed in forming an international coalition to represent its operation in Gaza; He succeeds in helping her in the post-process stage; It guarantees the drying up of the resistance movements’ financing network and supports the Palestinian Authority’s control over the Gaza Strip if Israel obtains what guarantees its security.

Confrontation with the United States!

Another mission of the French moves is to relieve the embarrassment of the United States of America, whose bases and forces in the region were subjected to symbolic attacks by armed groups loyal to Iran. Washington does not want its support for Israel to shift so that the battle with it shifts in a way that makes the crisis facing its administration internally more difficult, as indicated by the continuous communications and warnings from Washington to Baghdad after the attacks on its soldiers, as well as its intensification of security around its force bases in the Gulf, Syria and Iraq.

Thus, the mission of calling on France to form an international coalition is to form a mechanism that guarantees Israel and concerned regional and Western powers that a new front will not be opened in the region, especially by the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthi group, or the Golan Front. If Iran gives them the green light to do so; Because fears of slipping into the Iranian square are everyone’s obsession with aligning themselves with revolutionary Iran in the end.

Therefore, the speech of Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday, October 25, cannot be ignored, as he explicitly sought to transfer the battle with the United States, saying: “America’s hands are stained with the blood of the people of Gaza, and it is in fact managing this crime that is being committed in Gaza.”

As well as the continuous statements by Iranian military commanders, especially by the Revolutionary Guard, warning against a ground invasion of Gaza. Even if it is to save the face of the Iranian regime internally; But the experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria has proven the extent of what Iran can do against American interests.

In practice, managing the battle with America and putting pressure on it could relieve Iran of the dilemma of having to move its allies to confront Israel, and help it achieve its demands to stop the war and bring in aid, especially since the war in Gaza has somewhat shattered the mental image that was formed in the minds of supporters of the Iranian regime who have always heard A call to you, O Al-Aqsa, on the pulpits of their leaders, and now they find that the matter is subject to special calculations more than the calculations of the battle of good and evil! This is what the media machine is currently seeking to fix.

The demands of Western countries to open humanitarian corridors into the Gaza Strip indicate the effectiveness of this pressure. The issue of the hostages for Hamas represents a disturbing and embarrassing issue for the governments of these countries, which prompts them to put pressure on Israel to liberate the hostages by safe means through intermediaries such as Egypt, Qatar, or Jordan, or through specific operations that attempt to achieve a double goal: formal victory and the announcement of the hostages’ liberation.

Likewise, there is corresponding pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear file and the American threat to withdraw from the Sultan of Oman’s plan to reach an informal temporary agreement, according to which Tehran obtained part of its funds frozen abroad, and Washington also overlooked its oil exports, which lessened the impact of Western sanctions, the severity of which threaten the stability of the Iranian regime at home if it faces violent popular protests.

After 1967!

No one wants to return to the history of the June 1967 war. The countries of the region are seeking to overcome this history and its pain and restore what was destroyed by the Israeli aggression against them. But also what Israel is doing is because it believes that history and the region have stopped on that day, and that no one is moving except it. But this mentality is what brought Iran into the region.

If Israel continues to think with the same mentality after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, this means that Iran will tend to expand its presence in the Mediterranean, through rapprochement with a country like Turkey, which has a crisis with the European powers over Cyprus, and also has a desire to achieve a balance. In front of Israel in the eastern Mediterranean region, especially since Turkey feels the need for this balance since the discovery of gas in that region, where German, British, French, and American forces are present to protect its interests and energy fields.

No one also accepts that Israel will continue to have the upper hand, at least there is a desire to balance it, as Turkey is geographically distant from it and manages its foreign relations in a clear and sometimes contradictory pragmatic manner. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, rejected Western efforts to describe Hamas as a “terrorist” movement. Because this harms Türkiye's interests and popularity at home and abroad.

Erdogan's statements coincided with what was said by the Iranian leader, who called on Islamic governments not to repeat Western governments' description of "Hamas" as a terrorist group.

  Also, the plans of the Western powers, which ignore the nature of the Middle East region and believe that Israel is still superior, express a crisis in their thinking. Iran will not allow the Hebrew state to repair the security and psychological defeat it has suffered, thus eliminating its ambitions towards the region.

Likewise, Turkey, which entered into a debate with Western powers because of its supportive support for the Hamas movement, will also not accept sacrificing its interests and regional balance in the interest of Israel’s superiority.

At the present time, the matter is no longer about Arab rights and a return to the 1967 borders; Rather, the matter has become more complicated for Israel, and it has wronged itself. The entry of parties geographically distant from Palestine, such as Iran, Turkey, and the Gulf states, has made the solution to the Palestinian issue a matter of a more complex network of calculations. Perhaps this matter has helped relieve pressure on neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan. But he managed the issue in the interests of accounts far from the solution area. The Turkish President called for holding a conference that brings together Israelis and Palestinians, similar to the Astana meeting, to resolve the Syrian crisis, and for Turkey to be a guarantor of any agreement reached. But it will not succeed if Palestine's neighboring countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or Lebanon, are ignored, and all it will achieve is serving the agenda of any country that came from afar to support the Palestinian cause!