DUBAI: When Hamas launched a spectacular attack against Israel, it also took aim at efforts to forge new regional security alignments that could threaten Palestinian aspirations for statehood and the ambitions of Iran, the group’s main backer.

Saturday’s assault coincides with US-backed moves to push Saudi Arabia towards normalising ties with Israel in return for a defence deal between Washington and Riyadh, a move that would slam the brakes on Saudis’ recent rapprochement with Tehran.

“All the agreements of normalisation that you (Arab states) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict,” Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, said on Al Jazeera television.

A regional source familiar with the thinking of Iran and that of the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah added: “This is a message to Saudi Arabia, which is crawling towards Israel, and to the Americans who are supporting normalisation and supporting Israel. There is no security in the whole region as long as Palestinians are left outside of the equation.

Observers advise Arab states to realise that accepting Israeli security demands will not bring peace

“What happened is beyond any expectation,” the source said. “Today is a turning point in the conflict.”

Saudi Arabia and Israel have both indicated they are moving closer to a normalisation deal. But sources previously said Riyadh’s determination to secure a defence pact with Washington meant it would not hold up a normalisation agreement to win substantive concessions for the Palestinians.

Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, said Hamas may have lashed out due to a sense that it was facing irrelevance as efforts advanced toward broader Israeli-Arab relations.

“As Hamas watched the Israelis and Saudis move close to an agreement, they decided: no seat at the table? Poison the meal,” she said.

Timing the assault

Osama Hamdan, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon, said Saturday’s operation should make Arab states realise that accepting Israeli security demands would not bring peace.

“For those who want stability and peace in the region, the starting point must be to end the Israeli occupation,” he said. “Some (Arab states) unfortunately started imagining that Israel could be the gateway for America to defend their security.”

Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance for this black day”.

Mirroring the timing of the October 6, 1973, surprise attack on the Jewish attack, Hamas official Ali Baraka said of Saturday’s assault: “It was necessary that the leadership of the resistance take a decision at the appropriate time, when the enemy is distracted with its feasts.”

He said the assault by air, land and sea was “a shock to the enemy and proved the Israeli military intelligence failed to find out about this operation.” In the years since 1973, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and several other Arab states have also since normalised ties, including some of Saudi Arabia’s neighbours. But the Palestinians have moved no closer to their aspiration of securing a state, which looks as distant a prospect as ever.

“While not likely the main driver of the attacks, Hamas actions send a clear reminder to the Saudis that the Palestinian issue should not be treated as just another subtopic in normalisation negotiations,” Richard LeBaron, a former US Middle East diplomat now at the Atlantic Council thinktank, wrote.

Iran’s reach

A senior official in US President Joe Biden’s administration told reporters it was “really premature to speculate” about the effect the Israeli-Hamas conflict could have on efforts towards Saudi-Israeli normalisation. “I would say for certain Hamas will not derail any such outcome. But that process has a ways to go,” added the official.

Netanyahu has previously said the Palestinians should not be allowed to veto any new Israeli peace deals with Arab states.

A regional source familiar with the Saudi-Israeli-US negotiations over normalisation and a defence pact for Riyadh said Israel was committing a mistake by refusing to make concessions to Palestinians.

In its response to Saturday’s attacks, Saudi Arabia called for an “immediate cessation of violence” between both sides.

Iran has made no secret of its backing for Hamas, funding and arming the group and another Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. Tehran called the Hamas attack an act of self-defence by Palestinians.

Yahya Rahim Safavi, adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran would stand by the Palestinian fighters “until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem”.

A Palestinian official, close to anti-Israel fighter groups, said after the Hamas attack began: “Iran has hands, not one hand, in every rocket that is fired into Israel.

“It doesn’t mean that they ordered (Saturday’s) attack, but it is not a secret that it is thanks to Iran, (that) Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have been able to upgrade their arsenal,” said the official.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2023