Eurasia News

  W hile addressing the Islamic governments on October 3 2023, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned leaders against normalising their relations with Israel, equating all initiatives to betting on a losing horse. Meagre days after his address to the Islamic governments, Hamas fighters infiltrated Israeli territories, culminating in an ongoing war in Gaza. The war not only reversed normalisation processes between Israel and Saudi Arabia, but shifted even the staunchest sympathiser (public sympathy poured for Israelis in the first few weeks) towards Palestinians (and the Islamic world) as the battle in Gaza enraged. Although Tehran denied its role in orchestrating the October 7 attack, experts argued on Tehran being deliberately kept in the dark on the nature/specificity or intensity of the attack despite Tehran’s strategic control over Hamas. That said, political leadership in Tehran continue to take the credit post-October 7, threatening Israel in roughly all political/no

  T he last period has seen some new activity, not necessarily for the better. Now there is threatened an escalation between the two main protagonists, Israel and Iran. Going back about 3 weeks, Israel was at a pause point, brought about by its targeting aid trucks and openly killing 7 aid workers, including 3 British acting for protection and 1 American. This brought a storm of protest from western allies, and Israel was advised very strongly not to pursue its plans to attack Rafah in an attempt to clear out the thugs of Hamas. This action would not receive whole-hearted backing.  PM  Benjamin Netanyahu  faced a quandary. The US and western allies sent a forceful message that they would not condone a heavy-handed entry into Rafah with many civilian casualties as witnessed in previous actions in Gaza . Israel was losing the high moral ground. To regain this they had to provoke the opposition, led by Iran, to take some action against Israel which would concern the west. Consequently, th