Russia and Hamas: a strategic alliance of convenience

Hamas has asked Moscow to act as guarantor to a Gaza ceasefire. Growing Russian ties with West Asia’s resistance actors should be no surprise; within the context of the global power standoff, they share common enemies.

By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

February 13, 2024

In the past few years, Russia’s expanding ties with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas have contributed to the growing list of issues that muddy relations between Moscow and Tel Aviv. After Hamas‘ 27 October visit to Moscow following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared the trip „sends a message of legitimizing terrorism against the Israelis.“ Yet Hamas officials have continued to flock to the Russian capital, most recently in late January.

The Russian position on the war in Gaza

Since the onset of Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza, Russia’s official stance has been closer to the Palestinian position, evident by Moscow’s various UN Security Council activities: calling for a ceasefire, statements by Russian officials criticizing Israeli criminality, repeat meetings with Hamas in Moscow, and the country’s official media’s focus on human rights violation in the Gaza Strip.

Despite the long-term collaborative nature of Russo-Israeli relations, the Ukraine war has rejigged Moscow’s geopolitical calculations significantly. Today, Russia views the Gaza war and its regional implications from the perspective of its competition with the US and, therefore, considers Israel a critical tool of American influence in West Asia. The Russian leadership considers the current conflict to be as much Washington’s battle as Tel Aviv’s – a weakened Israel would mean the further disintegration of US power projection from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, a strategic Russian objective.

Although Tel Aviv and Moscow still retain common interests of value to both, it is the US–Russian strategic competition that currently holds the most sway over the Kremlin’s decision-making.

This can be seen in a flurry of harshly worded Russian statements criticizing Washington’s role in prolonging and exacerbating the Gaza war. Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced the sentiments of most West Asians when he declared: “Many people would agree that this is a vivid example of the failure of US policy in the Middle East.” His Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov went the extra mile:

The United States bears primary responsibility for this dramatic and dangerous crisis, since it has sought for many years to monopolize the settlement process and ignore relevant Security Council resolutions, and has now obstructed efforts to reach an appropriate solution.

Read more: https://thecradle.co/articles/russia-and-hamas-a-strategic-alliance-of-convenience

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Read also

Why Israel’s war on UNRWA is so sinister

Tel Aviv’s goal of dismantling the UN agency in the name of security is a strategic move aimed not only at depriving Palestinian refugees of lifesaving assistance, but completely eradicating the notion that they will one day return to the lands they were expelled from.

By William Van Wagenen

February 15, 2024

https://thecradle.co/articles/why-israels-war-on-unrwa-is-so-sinister

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The World’s Gyre

By Alastair Crooke

February 12, 2024

Biden may see himself needing some ‘grand victory’, as much as does Netanyahu, Alastair Crooke writes.

The U.S. is edging closer to war with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, a state security agency composed of armed groups, some of which are close to Iran, but which for the main are Iraqi nationalists. The U.S. carried out a drone strike in Baghdad, Wednesday that killed three members of the Kataeb Hizbullah forces, including a senior commander. One of the assassinated, al-Saadi, is the most senior figure to have been assassinated in Iraq since the 2020 drone strike that killed senior Iraqi Commander al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani.

The target is puzzling as Kataeb more than a week ago suspended its military operations against the U.S. (at the request of the Iraqi government). The stand down was widely published. So why was this senior figure assassinated?

Tectonic twitches often are sparked by a single egregious action: the one final grain of sand which – on top of the others – triggers the slide, capsizing the sandpile. Iraqis are angry. They feel that the U.S. wantonly violates their sovereignty – showing contempt and disdain for Iraq, a once great civilisation, now brought low in the wake of U.S. wars. Swift and collective retaliation has been promised.

One act, and a gyre can begin. The Iraqi government may not be able to hold the line.

Read more: https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/02/12/the-worlds-gyre/

German translation: https://afsaneyebahar.com/2024/02/13/20698078/

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The Chris Hedges Report with Dr. Ahmed Alhussaina, vice president of Israa University in Gaza, on Israel’s demolition of every university, along with hundreds of schools and cultural centers, in Gaza.

Israeli’s genocide in Gaza includes a campaign to erase Palestinian identity and the institutions that sustain and nurture that identity.

By Chris Hedges

February 12, 2024

The Israeli attacks on Gaza has included systematic attacks on Gaza’s cultural and educational institutions. Israel has damaged or destroyed all 12 of Gaza’s universities. Some 280 government schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools have also been destroyed or damaged, often resulting in dozens of fatalities. About 133 remaining schools are used to shelter those displaced by the assault. More than 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes amid continued Israeli ground and air offensive that has killed more than 25,000 people, including 10,000 children.

Read more: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-with-dr-ahmed

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Let Them Eat Dirt

The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it.

By Chris Hedges

February 8, 2024

There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed.

Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza.

UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.”

Read more: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/let-them-eat-dirt

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