Here’s how and why Putin gloats about the Hamas-Israel war. Economist Report
Russia and China sense an opportunity to distract and discredit America with the Israel-Hamas war. The analysis of the weekly The Economist
The last 48 hours have seen an explosion of diplomacy from Russia regarding the Middle East crisis.
On October 16, Vladimir Putin spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, and the leaders of Egypt, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Authority. Putin expressed his condolences for the killed Israelis, but did not condemn the Hamas attacks. The Russian autocrat also called for a ceasefire and blamed the crisis on America.
The calls confirm two things: Russia's estrangement from Israel and that the Kremlin sees the war between Israel and Hamas as an opportunity to undermine and distract the West. This effort will be applauded by China: Putin has in fact just arrived in Beijing to participate in the Belt and Road summit, hosted by Xi Jinping . Meanwhile, Joe Biden will fly to Israel to meet Netanyahu, seeking to shape Israel's military response, get a flow of aid to Gaza and deter Iran and its proxies. The two rivals' travel plans illustrate a world divided over Ukraine, the Middle East and more.
Netanyahu used to call Vladimir Putin “dear friend”. He has visited Russia a dozen times in recent years. He must therefore have been surprised that it took the Russian President nine days after Hamas' deadly rampage in southern Israel to answer the phone. Russia has had almost no word of censure against the militants, despite reports that among many others they have killed 16 of its citizens and that another eight may be missing.
Netanyahu had courted Putin over Russia's role in Syria, Israel's most unstable neighbor. Russia has supported the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's murderous dictator, with indiscriminate bombing of various rebel groups. Netanyahu wanted to be sure that Israel would be free to pursue its interests in Syria, including periodic airstrikes, without Russian hindrance. Some argue that Netanyahu, Israel's dominant politician for the past two decades, also has an affinity with strongmen like Putin. He hesitated to criticize Russia for invading Ukraine and was silent when he did so. It has not even supplied weapons to Ukraine, despite Ukrainian requests.
There is a lot of potential affinity between Russia and Israel: 15% of Israelis speak Russian, due to their origins in the former Soviet Union. Putin appears to admire Israel as a muscular regional power unafraid to throw its weight around and has welcomed Netanyahu's apparent indifference to Russia's democratic failures.
But despite displays of warmth, Russian support for Palestinian nationalism has never wavered since Soviet times, when Russia helped train Palestinian fighters and armed Arab countries that attacked Israel in 1973. Russia has been a long closer to countries like Syria than to Israel. And Putin's soft spot for Israel hasn't stopped him from moving closer to Iran, the most fervently anti-Israel regime in the Middle East.
There is no indication that Russia provided direct help to Hamas in planning or executing the assault on southern Israel. But Russia has maintained friendly relations with the Iranian-backed organization since it came to power in Gaza, believing it could one day be useful. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warmly welcomed a member of the Hamas leadership, Khaled Meshaal, to Moscow in 2007. When Israeli forces entered Gaza in 2014 in a seven-week operation, they found themselves on the receiving end of a large number of Russian anti-tank missiles, supplied by Iran.
Russia's increasingly warm relations with Iran have already created tensions with Israel and could have caused conflict even without the October 7 atrocity. Last year, when Russia was short of missiles with which to destroy Ukraine, it turned to Iran to supply hundreds of self-detonating Shahed drones to attack infrastructure and population centers. Now it is making its own version with assistance from Iran. In exchange, Russia is thought to provide Iran with attack helicopters and air defense systems. These weapons, in turn, would increase Iran's capabilities in the event of a war with Israel.
Putin may not want it, but he probably wouldn't mind if Israel's war against Hamas escalated and spread to other parts of the Arab world. Hamas has already helped divert the West's attention from the war in Ukraine. Joe Biden, the American president, is trying to get congressional approval for further aid to Ukraine by tying it to an emergency aid package for Israel. But even if this succeeds, an expanding conflagration in the Middle East is bound to reduce the flow of munitions to Ukraine, to Russia's benefit.
By sending two aircraft carriers to the region and its top diplomat, Antony Blinken, America has shown how eager it is to prevent the conflict from spreading. It hopes to deter Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, which controls southern Lebanon and has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.
A larger war would likely bring two benefits to both Russia and Iran. The first would be a surge in oil and gas prices that would help both struggling economies and give Putin extra money to finance his war in Ukraine. The second would be to upset American plans for the Middle East. Hamas has already served Iranian and Russian interests by indefinitely postponing the mooted peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, for which America has spent much time and effort.
It is for the same reasons that China also refused to support Israel by condemning Hamas. So far, China has limited itself to expressing concern "about the current escalation of tensions and violence between Palestine and Israel." According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, by juxtaposing the preparations of the heavily armed Israeli forces that will soon enter Gaza with images of American warships that appear to be heading towards the conflict zone, Chinese news reports give the impression that the operation is being led from Washington.
Like Russia, China will be happy to see America bogged down in the region and its authority challenged. Earlier this year, China helped broker a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, partly in hopes of undermining the American-led world order. He may have had no idea of Hamas's plans, but he is unlikely to regret the havoc he caused.
(Excerpt from the foreign press review by Epr Comunicazione)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ecco-come-e-perche-putin-gongola-per-la-guerra-hamas-israele-report-economist/ on Sun, 22 Oct 2023 05:30:16 +0000.