On the other hand, despite all its statements, the Hezbollah movement has suspended its attack on Israel’s positions, which suggests that the conflict is still localized. Israeli political scientist Avraam Shmulevich commented in an interview with Minval.az on the processes currently unfolding in the Gaza Strip.
What are your thoughts on everything that is happening in Israel right now?
We are witnessing a process of national unity. The entire nation has rallied around the idea that Hamas must be finished. The political differences among the people are gone, and there is unprecedented support and consolidation of the people around the state. Now thousands of Israelis who were outside the state are traveling back into the country to support their army. Israel’s leadership has announced that flights will be organized primarily for reservists. That is, Jews are not fleeing Israel, but are returning to join the army. In short, we are not storming the government house to demand the resignation of the prime minister, but we are storming military recruitment centers.
The Israeli government says it is going to completely cleanse the Gaza Strip of Hamas, but we will see how that turns out. All that has happened is the result of the misguided policy concept that you can talk to and negotiate with terrorists. There were those who believed that if Hamas ran the Gaza Strip, they would become the people in charge, but that never happened.
Obviously, they are backed by Iran’s intelligence service, which provided them with what they needed. I think this is a preemptive strike by Iran against Israel, since the end of Iran’s nuclear program is now at stake. If Israel becomes convinced that Iran is building a nuclear bomb, a strike on Iran will follow. They are trying to distract Israel from striking their own country. If this was what happened, they will get the opposite in return. Because despite the differences between Israel and the Biden administration, the US is now providing unprecedented support to Israel. The same can be said for the EU: there is an aircraft carrier strike group headed to Israel that can be used in strikes against Iran as well.
The question is: will there be a second front and will Hezbollah get involved in the conflict? The Lebanese leadership in a conversation with the US Secretary of State said that Hezbollah would not participate in the conflict. Apparently, the Americans warned the Lebanese leadership that they too would interfere. As of this moment, the terrorists who seized part of the territories and took the Israeli army by surprise have been eliminated. Israel is now making preparations to launch an operation in the Gaza Strip. If they hoped that Israel would have no support, they were wrong: all of Europe and all of its capitals are wearing the colors of the Israeli flag. The whole world saw what kind of beasts these terrorists are as they abuse civilians. Everyone who participated in this will be killed.
Do you expect this conflict to escalate into a major Middle East conflict?
This is what Iran would like. This is probably what Russia wants as well, because it is close with Iran. I would not rule out that Russian officers were also involved in planning this Hamas operation. Russia has a vested interest in setting up another conflict in the Middle East. This will distract the West from the Ukrainian conflict, which many expect to happen. If Hezbollah enters this war, Israel will respond, which could turn this conflict into a global war, there will be a need to strike Iran. Then the conflict could escalate into a regional war.
Many are now wondering about the failure of Israel’s security system and its intelligence services. What caused this failure?
These are the questions that are being asked in every Israeli home. This failure is not as major as it seems. There is Hamas, a terrorist group, and the Gaza Strip itself is small. Hamas has been assuring Israel for a year that it is not going to attack because it is not economically viable to do so. Israel basically supports the Gaza Strip: electricity, water is supplied from Israel, money from the Gulf countries is transferred there through Israel, more than 20,000 residents of the Gaza Strip work in Israel, there was a recent Israeli intelligence report that said that an attack was not beneficial to Hamas.
Just like the attack on Ukraine was not beneficial to Putin: it was his way of lulling everyone into a false sense of security. Hamas said that they were conducting an exercise, they did it in a coordinated manner, they have conducted this exercise many times, and this time they started with shelling Israeli bases, they knocked down the security wall, and they entered Israel by cars. As a result, they managed to get into a number of towns that were close to their positions. Another question is: how did they manage to break into army bases? There is no answer to that yet. Many military personnel were on vacation because it was vacation period. Unfortunately, the militants were able to take hundreds of civilians and military personnel captive.
But the casualties are too great…
There was also a music festival going on nearby, which increased the casualties. The Israeli military were able to quickly bring the situation under control and kill the militants, but it took about 3-4 hours. I think all of this will be thoroughly investigated by a commission normally set up after this kind of incident.
This aggravation was wanted primarily by Iran in order to divert Israel’s attention from Iran’s nuclear developments. They also intend to carry out a number of aggressive actions in the region. This is a matter of threat not only to Israel, but also to Azerbaijan, as Armenia is Iran’s important ally, through which they receive sanctioned products. Amid Israel’s military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran may take some aggressive actions against Azerbaijan; Israel’s attention is diverted, so as an ally of Israel, Azerbaijan needs to be careful.
Nijat Hajiyev
Translated from Minval.az
