Given that there are only two superpowers presently, the PRC and the USA, there are no prizes for guessing which country the superpower sponsor of Hamas is. – Prof. M.D. Nalapat
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has named a diverse list of entities that were correctly identified by him as terror groups, among them being those that had been concentrating on harming India for several decades, such as the LeT. Several times, India had sought to get the relevant UN committee to designate and constrain several individuals directly responsible for acts of terror in India. Some of these attempts have been jointly backed by the US. Not once but several times, the PRC used its clout as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to block such efforts. Small wonder therefore that China is refusing to explicitly condemn Hamas for the October 7 terror operation launched against Israeli targets. There were signals for several weeks that Hamas was planning a mass terror attack on Israel, and was only waiting for an excuse that would, in its calculus, unite the Arab world in its favour once the operation was carried out.
The entry storming of elements of what is often termed the “messianic fringe” of Jewish society in Israel into the Al Aqsa mosque compound gave them that opportunity. Al Aqsa is among the three holy sites of Islam, together with Mecca and Medina, in the way that Mathura, Ayodhya and Kashi are to the Hindus.
The Balfour Declaration envisaged a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine existing side by side. Both the 1948 as well as the 1967 wars launched by Palestinian groups and their regional supporters saw the defeat and reduction of the territories controlled by the Palestinian authorities. There is no way short of a catastrophic defeat of the IDF that an Israel confined to 1967 borders has a chance of coming true.
Neighbours of Israel need to accept that there is no way that any government in Jerusalem would agree to a return of Israeli control to the land area of Israel prior to the war. Israel needs defensible borders, but it is equally important that the Palestinians not just be given the West Bank and Gaza but are given the ability to ensure that these locations become the hub of economic activity, including through the building of modern ports and airports. Should the Israeli Defense Forces succeed in its post-October 7 mission of eliminating Hamas, that victory could result not in more radicalism but in young Palestinians in particular coming to terms with the reality that they would by far be the worst sufferers should they commit any acts of aggression against Israel. Politicians in Israel who seek the elimination of the Palestinian state need to appreciate that their stance is conducive to a degradation rather than an enhancement of Israeli security.
Comparing two states, Taiwan is a country in all but name while Palestine is a country in nothing but name. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been reduced to the role of a spectator where important decisions affecting the West Bank are concerned. The PA needs to be given control of Gaza once the IDF succeeds in its mission of ending the menace of Hamas, an organisation that has harmed several times more Palestinians over the course of its rule than it has Israelis. Such control would, in exchange for ensuring that groups hostile to the security of Israel are not allowed to operate in the West Bank and Gaza, include the ability to create infrastructure in health, education and transport that would catapult Palestine into a country that the abundance of talent within its people makes possible. Rather than keep on disastrously chasing the bird in the bush, they need to concentrate on the bird in hand. In Israel, the fringe needs to understand that the Palestinians deserve a state that they administer, subject to their ensuring an absence of activity that is intended to harm the Jewish state. Should such a transformation take place, the Abraham Accords will gather speed.
The most important country in the region from the perspective of influence is Saudi Arabia, and should Riyadh join in the Abraham Accords, that would be of benefit to the entire region. Of course, before that to happen, there needs to be the checkmating of the efforts of what was called the Superpower Sponsor in the front page story that The Sunday Guardian ran (just after the October 7 attack took place) a report
based on information that had been accumulating over six weeks. This was that Hamas was being encouraged since March 2023 by a “Superpower Sponsor” to carry out a terror attack of unprecedented magnitude, the aftershocks of which would in particular be designed to distance the US from the Middle Eastern powers. This would cause the region to fall under the influence of the superpower in question. Given that there are only two superpowers presently, the PRC and the US, there are no prizes for guessing which country the Superpower Sponsor of Hamas is. Israeli transmissions relevant to the planned operation were intercepted and the results handed over to Hamas operatives in Doha and in other cities in the region. Maps and photographs were prepared based on remote photography, so that Hamas had an accurate picture of the target locations. October 7 was chosen because of the music festival and the relatively light, even complacent, presence of Israeli security forces in the vicinity. Being data crunchers, asymmetric warfare specialists in the Superpower Sponsor suggested the taking of at least 175 Israeli hostages. Such a development, when added to the hubbub against retaliation that would be organised by the network of the Superpower Sponsor together with its associates, would in their view ensure that the retaliatory attack would be of a level that was ineffective in neutralising Hamas. Once such a failure by the IDF to destroy Hamas took place, the expected boost in the perception of Hamas within Palestinian youth would (in the view of the asymmetric warfare planners in the superpower in question), enable Hamas to repeat in the West Bank what it had done in Gaza in 2007, which was to replace the Palestinian Authority as the ruling power. Once such a transition took place, both wings would be developed as safe zones in which to plan operations against the US and its allies across the Atlantic, in the way Afghanistan became under the Taliban during the 1990s.
The objectives of the Superpower Sponsor were to (i) reduce US and western influence sharply in the Middle East, to (ii) create another kinetic conflict, this time in the Middle East, to divert US and NATO determination further away from plans to intervene in a kinetic conflict designed to absorb Taiwan into the PRC. Such a takeover would, in the view of the leadership, cement Xi Jinping’s position as supremo
for life in the CCP. Another objective was to (iii) show that countries such as Israel that depend on the US and its NATO allies as their guarantor of security have made a losing bet. Altogether, the three points represent an attractive package for a predatory power intent on controlling the Indo-Pacific before moving on to repeat that feat in the Atlantic. The future of much more than the Middle East hinges on the outcome of the war now raging between the IDF and the military wing of Hamas. – The Sunday Guardian, 29 October 2023
› Prof. M.D. Nalapat teaches of geopolitics and holds the UNESCO Peace Chair at Manipal University, where he is vice-chair of Manipal Advanced Research Group and Director of the Department of Geopolitics & International Relations.
Filed under: gaza, israel, palestine | Tagged: asymmetric warfare, chinese imperialism, geopolitics, israel-palestine conflict, sponsorship for hamas | Comments Off on Hamas is backed by a ‘Superpower Sponsor’ – M.D. Nalapat
