Albinaa’ Newspaper August 13, 2024
Nasser Kandil
It is certain that one of the most prominent aims for the assassination of the Hamas Political Bureau Head in Tehran, with American approval, in the course of provocation of the Lebanese Mukawama, the assassination of one of its high commanders, and crossing her red lines by targeting Al Dahieh (Beirut’s southern suburb), was providing the entity with the opportunity of regaining control over the deterrence equation which Iran had drawn with her response on April 14 for the attack on her consulate in Damascus, and recalibrating the Iranian-American equilibrium in the region through the American military amassment under the slogan of the protection of the entity from the Iranian response, and facing Iran in response to the return of the Iraqi Mukawama operations against the American occupation forces in Syria and Iraq. This was designed to secure a status quo based on an axis, one pole of which is a tenuous balance between Al Mukawama Axis and the entity with a booby-trapped agreement over Gaza as translation, and expressed through the call for negotiations this coming Thursday, and its second pole, the continued American occupation in Syria and Iraq as part of the American power equation which protects the entity on the one hand, and on the other hand maintains international and regional balances for America which grant her presence and influence in confronting the ascending Asian triad, Russia, China, and Iran, while awaiting the demarcation of what it called the New World Order. What Washington desires in the New World Order, and which it has weaved under the slogan of the return to pre-2011, is withdrawing from Syria in exchange for Syria, the ally of this ascending triad, getting from under the Asian umbrella and having her rights to territorial integrity and sovereignty over her resources liberated. What Washington is offering in the dossier of the Gaza conflict is the return to Pre-October 7, where the settlers return to north Palestine and south Gaza, and the Red Sea becomes open to navigation under American protection, and the entity regains security in Gaza through embargo and control over the crossings, and with Al Mukawama in Gaza under the pressures of Arab financing and the presence of the Palestinian Authority.
While this is the strategic aim behind the big escalation the region was brought to through an American decision to release the Israeli hand, providing it with political protection, and sending over all the American arsenal for its military protection, there exists a tactical goal which is a necessary base for the achievement of the strategic goal, namely the infiltration of the internal workings of Hamas, after the impossibility of manipulating its structure and balances under the leadership of Ismail Hanieh, who demonstrated the ability to maintain the unity of the political bureau while coordinating with precision with Al Qassam leadership and the head of the movement in Gaza, Yahya Al Sinwar, along with displaying care regarding Hamas’ relations with each of Doha, Cairo, and Ankara, without losing the trust of Iran, Al Dahieh Al Janoubieh (Beirut’s southern suburb), Sanaa’, Baghdad, and Damascus. What appeared in the call for negotiations in the American Presidential declaration also carrying the signatures of Qatar’s Emir and Egypt’s President, was that embedded in the plan to target Hanieh was a project to contain the response and abort it through the return to negotiations, and depicting any response as a sabotage to the serious effort of ending the war in Gaza. This, however, was predicated on a new leadership in Hamas which Doha and Cairo could influence to make amenable to participation in the negotiations, and responsive to a semi-solution in Gaza, based on agreeing to half of Hamas’ conditions, through placing pressures on the choice of resistance inside Gaza and Al Mukawama Axis under the humanitarian title and the need to end the war at any cost. Anyone following the events over the days preceding the unanimous election of Yahya Al Sinwar will have noticed the attempts of leaking names and encouragement of leaderships in Hamas to impose a fait accompli, temporarily or in the place of.
The Hamas leadership’s unanimous choice of Al Sinwar as its Head, with the participation of the whole of Hamas’ spectrum in the choice, took everyone by surprise. It came as an initial pragmatic response to the assassination, and was factored into the balance of gains and losses in the entity, leading prominent opponents of Netanyahu to ask him what he has done with them by getting rid of Hanieh and opening the way for Al Sinwar, considering the arrival of Al Sinwar to the presidency a complete loss, added to paying the bill through Iran’s expected response to Hanieh’s assassination, and asking where are the gains? The reference here to Al Sinwar is not comparing him at an advantage to his peers in the leadership, but because of his responsibility for Al Mukawama, and the Deluge, and the relationship of trust which exists between him and
Al Mukwama Axis, and his presence in Gaza away from elements of embarrassment and pressure from each of Doha and Cairo, all elements not possessed by anyone else. These elements appeared directly in Hamas’ stance towards the call for negotiations, a call basically intended to abort the response.
Hamas’ declaration was skeptical about the correctness of the option of negotiation and the credibility of betting on it. It reminded of Netanyahu’s manipulation in all prior opportunities, the presence of an agreement plan decided on by the Security Council, supportive of the American President’s proposal, and containing important details, and the text of which Hamas has agreed on and is missing Netanyahu’s agreement, after which an implementation plan can follow. This response came to open the door anew for Al Mukawama Axis’ response to the assassinations, placing the ball back in the mediators’ and entity’s courts regarding an agreement on the war in Gaza. That was how a principal component of the plan following the assassinations was disabled, and the political initiative fell from Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s hands and went back to Gaza, placing the military initiative in the hands of Tehran, Al Dahieh Al Janoubieh (Beirut’s southern suburb) and Sanaa’.
