The news you read about Israel always seems to be missing a vital component: The major force behind Hamas is Iran, and Hamas takes its orders from Iran. When the media does mention Iran, it always downplays the Iranian role in this war.
Analysts in the mainstream media always seem to get it wrong. Fareed Zakaria has a piece in Newsweek that insists that Iran is actually winning something out of the current war with Hamas.
First, Hamas is not Iran’s pawn. For decades Iran actually preferred and funded another Palestinian faction, Islamic Jihad. Recently, Hamas has been taking funds and weapons from Iran, but that does not mean it also takes orders from it. Hamas’s provocations and its decision not to renew the ceasefire probably took place without direction from Tehran.
That’s just laughable. But I’m not laughing, because it’s in Newsweek, and it will be repeated by the anti-Israel crowd. Who will never read this:
Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.
The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.
[…] The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.
“As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it,” the Egyptian government official told the Post.
“The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon”.
There are also the Israeli analysts, who have written time and again of Iran’s influence over and financial backing of Hamas.
What may be said with certainty is that Iran knew in advance of the decision by Khaled Mashal to reject renewed terms for a ceasefire. Teheran thus evidently considered that its protégés were ready to bear the likely consequences.
Iranian military aid to Hamas has been steady and vital to Hamas since its coup of July, 2007. The movement has been equipped with dozens of Iranian Fajr-3 missiles – the longest range ordnance it is currently thought to possess. The 122mm Grad rockets with which it has been firing at Israeli towns in the last days are in its possession because of the Iranian connection.
Reva Bhalla, an analyst at the private intelligence firm Stratfor, recently described the role played by Hizballah operatives in transferring weaponry into Gaza. She noted arms purchases in Sudan, and the involvement of Hizballah men in transferring weaponry through Egypt, bribing officials and employing the services of Beduin smugglers along the way.
So the status of the Hamas enclave as a fully paid up member of the Iran-led regional alliance is not in doubt.
Or perhaps Zakaria should just read AP reports (not that this one was published anywhere the average anti-Israel creep would read):
Israeli military officials said Monday that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Hamas militants recently left the Gaza Strip to receive advanced military training in Iran.
The training is similar to that received by thousands of Hezbollah guerrillas from Lebanon over the past few years, and Israel fears it will greatly improve Hamas’ military capability in any future battle with Israel Defense Forces troops in Gaza, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.
That was from 2006. And there’s more of it.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas returned last week from a visit to Iran, which has already funded the cash-strapped Palestinian government with $120 million and pledged millions more.
Haniyeh met with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Haniyeh hailed Iran for providing Palestinians with “a strategic depth.”
Abu Obayda, a spokesman for Hamas militants, declined to confirm whether the militants were training in Iran.
“But I confirm that we have the right to train inside or outside the country,” he said.
Iran has been calling the shots for years. Hamas has completely copied the Hezbullah model—which was developed with Iranian training and financing. To say that Hamas is not Iran’s pawn is to deny the reports of dozens of sources and news reports. And that’s exactly what Zakaria does.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Friday to keep supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas until the “collapse of Israel.”
The Iranian news agency Khabar quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that Iran views the support of the Palestinian people as part of its religious and national duty and that Iran will stand behind the Palestinian nation “until the big victory feast which is the collapse of the Zionist regime.”
You don’t invest hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons, training, and equipment just so you can make flowery statements to the press. This report is from May of last year:
An Iranian source told the paper that in light of Mashaal’s fears, Iranian regime officials promised the head of Hamas’s political bureau that Iran would continue supporting Hamas financially, materially and morally, even if Syria would turn its back on the organization for the sake of an agreement with Israel.
According to the source, the Iranians had even elaborated what that support would be: Newer, upgraded rockets and an increase in the budget allotted to Hamas to $150 million in the second half of 2008.
From 2007:
On Saturday, Hamas hardliner Mahmoud Zahar was quoted as telling a German news magazine that he had personally carried $42 million in cash from Iran across the Gaza-Egypt border.
Money. Training. Materiel. All this, but Hamas doesn’t take orders from Iran? Really?
I’m so glad the mainstream media is full of so many highly-paid analysts that can’t be bothered to do a little research, or maybe, since they’re not lowly bloggers, talk to some sources that might know a little more about the topic than they do.
Iran isn’t winning as Hamas loses. If Israel succeeds in pushing Hamas from power, it will be a huge blow against Iranian hegemony in the Middle East. Zakaria doesn’t seem able to piece that together from his read of the situation.
He’s not all that bright, is he?
Sort of makes you want to go back and re-think all of the mis-information the MSM published about the Iraq War, doesn’t it? The whole “Bush lied about WMD’s,” and “Saddam wouldn’t have worked with al Qaeda because he was secular,” and “the Insurgency was “home-grown,” and “we can’t win…” etc… It amazes me how the MSM, and magazines like Newspeak, er, Newsweek, are so constantly wrong, and AP and Rueters are hopelessly biased, and everyone knows it, but they just never seem to lose their credibility…
Robert
I think you misunderstand, Zakaria. I’m sure he’s aware of the report in the JPost, but that’s a “pro-Israel” or “neo-con” publication. So anything there – that contradicts the solemn and wise foreign policy experts like Zakaria or David Ignatius – is subjective and to be taken with a grain of salt.
People like Zakaria are not burdened by such biases. They are all-knowing and sophisticated. They knew that Yasser Arafat was ready to make peace. They knew that when Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah would lay down its arms or face international criticism. They knew that Hamas would moderate once it took on the responsibility of governing. (And they also knew that Hamas would rule wisely and benefit its constituents.)
Zakaria and co. are not led about by slavishly pro-Israel neo-cons who put Israel’s interests ahead America’s. Their analyses are fact based and unsentimental.
They know that as soon as Israel accedes to the Saudi peace plan all will be joyful and blissful in the Middle East.
Given their track record, I’m sure you know it too.