Comment by candiodari
2 years ago
My of the situation is different: Hamas is a business model. Dead Palestinians (and a show of killing Jews/Israeli, the superiority of islam/repressed people) for a LOT of money. It worked for the PLO, but it seems Abu Mazen suddenly decided he cares about human beings (AFTER becoming a billionnaire this way)
I don’t think Hamas has a clear strategy going forward. October 7 only happened because Israel was caught off-guard, that isn’t going to happen again. So what does Hamas do next? They will try to get as much leverage as they can out of the hostages; but they only have so many hostages, so that strategy can only take them so far. Then what do they do?
October 7 was calculated to derail the peace negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and in the short-to-medium term it succeeded. But, I expect that (privately) MbS is really angry at Hamas for doing that, and I think most other Arab governments likely feel similarly. That doesn’t bode well for Hamas in the long-run.
I think it's telling that Putin visited Saudi Arabia ... landed ... and nothing. Clearly he came with an offer MbS couldn't refuse, and MbS refused it.
It also shows, of course, that Arab countries have not changed and have zero interest or respect for the ICC or the UN. But they do seem to respect that Iran wants to destroy them. And if stopping Iran requires war in Gaza, then they're perfectly ok with that. They have barely denounced Israel over it, in fact most haven't done that at all.