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"Certainly Israel is forced to achieve a declared military victory in front of its partners in the IMEC project in order to ensure the safety of their goods shipped to the port of Haifa"
Political science enthusiasts understand that most wars and revolutions cannot succeed without addressing the social and cultural needs of human groups driven by shared economic interests. Hence, it is the economy that consistently shapes politics, not the other way around.
The situation in Gaza defies political norms because the attacking party lacks an economic project that could be used as a political maneuver. Instead, they present a broad slogan of "Revenge for Al-Aqsa" with the aim of achieving a distant vision: the exclusion of Israel from the political map and the return of its lands to the Palestinians. However, this vision is practically unattainable due to the international recognition of Israel and the international denouncement of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with many countries describing both organizations as terrorist groups.
Therefore, Hamas relies politically on some governments that reject normalization with Israel, in addition to popular movements influenced by an emotional discourse based on a sense of victimhood.
Half of Gaza's population consists of children, which undoubtedly attracts popular sympathy due to the daily Israeli bombings that have destroyed entire neighborhoods. Moreover, Israel has cut off water, electricity, and gas supplies to the Gaza Strip, making it uninhabitable. At the same time, its military institution has called on civilians to evacuate the northern areas of the strip, paving the way for an open war.
Economically, the Gaza war is draining for the Israeli army, but it is forced to engage in it for several reasons, including:
The promise to eliminate Hamas and Islamic Jihad:
This promise is not achievable since in every Gaza war, the Israeli army has failed to eliminate Hamas, but has managed to eliminate some of its leaders. The dilemma is that this movement is capable of easily appointing alternatives to its assassinated leaders. Therefore, the best option for the Israeli army is to focus on targeting the manufacturing and storage sites of Hamas weapons. This does not require a ground invasion but rather effective Israeli intelligence within Hamas decision-making centers. However, it seems that Israel does not possess these human qualifications, so it mobilizes a large army around Hamas in order to carry out a land, sea, and air invasion that saves face after Hamas's incursion into its territories.
The Gaza War is An Economic Necessity for the Success of the Indian-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC):
The observer of the economic corridor “IMEC” map in Jordan sees it passing through the Jordanian capital, Amman, reaching the city of Irbid, then the Syrian border, and crossing the Golan Heights to reach the port of Haifa. The main objective of this route is to avoid passing through the West Bank territories, thus excluding Palestinians from this important project. This indicates the absence of an Israeli desire to achieve a two-state solution or an Israeli belief in the impossibility of achieving such peace during the implementation period of this project.
From here, Hamas fighters realize that they do not benefit from this project, and their elements in the West Bank territories are also not beneficiaries. Therefore, their incursion into Israel came as a message with the broad goal of sabotaging such a project and drowning Israel in side projects, including:
- Rehabilitating the Iron Dome program.
- Seeking the release of Israeli prisoners.
- Distracting the Israeli political and military administration with security issues.
- Reorganizing the borders of the Israeli state.
The four points today are an Israeli priority, in exchange for the economic corridor project. Also, the repercussions of solving the aforementioned four points will lead to a delay in the Saudi-Israeli peace talks, which were announced by Prince Mohammed bin Salman Abdulaziz in an interview with Fox News[1] on Sep 21, 2023.
Given the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the Arab and Islamic sympathy with the people of Gaza, the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finds it challenging to normalize relations with Israel. This may be advantageous for the Saudi leadership, which does not want to give the Biden administration a supportive card in the 2024 elections. Similarly, this may be on the mind of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, known for his proximity to the Republican Party and former President Donald Trump.
Certainly, Israel is forced to achieve a declared military victory in front of its partners in the IMEC project in order to ensure the safety of their goods shipped to the port of Haifa. On October 14th, 2023, Hamas managed to launch a long-range missile called "Ayyash 250[2]" to target the area of Safed, which required the intervention of the "David's Sling" system to intercept this missile. This targeting indicates the availability of missile structures with greater capability to target the geographically closer city of Haifa compared to the city of Safed.
The necessity of cutting off Tehran's arms:
The media apparatus of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in addition to several nationalist and Islamic Arab channels, managed to mobilize the Arab and Muslim communities to support the Palestinian cause. Therefore, if the Islamic radical groups supported by Iran decide to militarily intervene to open the northern front of Israel, they will be welcomed by a large segment of the Arab world.
This matter will be in favor of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, eager to destroy any chances of peace between new Arab countries and Israel. Therefore, Israel must neutralize the Iranian military power within its borders, including Hamas and Jihad, and in its vicinity, including Hezbollah, the Syrian regime, and the Popular Mobilization Forces, simultaneously, before proposing peace projects with Arab countries. This is not possible because it requires a comprehensive war that affects the entire Middle East.
Therefore, Israel, with the United States behind it, may adopt a carrot-and-stick policy towards the Revolutionary Guard organizations outside Israel, with a focus on a sweeping attack on the Gaza Strip. It is necessary for this attack not to last more than two months because the Israeli economy and stock market are not accustomed to prolonged crises.
Certainly, two months is a short period considering the military-rich area of tunnels such as Gaza. Therefore, Israel is expected to use deadly and high-quality weapons to ensure the destruction of the tunnels or to prevent them from protecting Palestinian militants. In general, these military behaviors will bring wide criticism against Israel from human rights organizations. Israel has prepared for this by enhancing legislation to punish sympathizers with Palestine in several countries, including on social media.
Improving the conditions for negotiating prisoners:
Hamas seeks to shed light on the prisoners' file, clarifying that some of them have been killed due to Israeli airstrikes on civilians in Gaza. On October 16, 2023, Hamas released a video showing their treatment of an Israeli prisoner after being targeted.
These videos and statements are pressure messages to the Netanyahu government and the Israeli army, aiming to deter them from conducting intense air strikes that destroy the tunnels used by Hamas to hide prisoners and fighters.
Hamas fighters are trained in guerrilla warfare, and they desire a ground battle to prolong the war and inflict higher human losses on the Israeli army. The Israeli military institution is aware of this, which is why they ignore discussions about the prisoners' file and focus on their counterterrorism project, with the aim of causing more destruction to the tunnels. This will help them in future negotiations for the prisoners during their ground invasion.
All of this data makes us feel that the Israelis will not enter this battle alone, but they will be supported logistically, intelligence-wise, and financially by the United States of America. The United States military bases in the Middle East will be on high military readiness to support Israel in case Tehran or its proxies carry out any attack on the northern front. This may be announced by President Biden during his scheduled visit to Israel on October 18, 2023.
[1] YouTube, Saudi Crown Prince interview with Fox News, Sep 21, 2023
[2] In A First, Hamas Group Launches Long-range 'Ayyash 250' Missile on Israel | What It Means/ Oct 14, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsRxElAk1D4
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