\n\n“I think the main reason this is happening now is because of the prospect of the U.S.-Saudi-Israeli deal. Hamas understands this is a huge transformative event, and they are trying to create a circumstance where it will be difficult for Saudi Arabia to do it right. This is not spur of the moment. What\u2019s interesting is you had the Iranian supreme leader giving a speech this past week where he attacks the idea of normalization with the Zionist entity. This attack was clearly something planned over a long period of time: the fact that they had hang gliders, they had prepared to breach the fence, they did a barrage of rockets as a way of overwhelming Israel\u2019s air defense system, Iron Dome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are reports I have seen that yesterday, Hezbollah [a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran that has links to Hamas] was telling UNIFIL [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] to stay on their bases. Meaning, they knew this was coming. The scope of the intelligence failure in Israel is almost equivalent to literally 50 years ago [when a coalition of Arab states attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, starting the Yom Kippur War]. This surprise is equivalent, although in 1973 we\u2019re talking about Arab conventional armies. Now we\u2019re talking about non-state actors, although backed by a state, Iran. [Tehran, Israel\u2019s avowed enemy, has long supported proxy groups opposed to Israel].”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think this is where the hand of Iran is also a very prominent one \u2014 that Iran clearly began to think that if there is this kind of a normalization deal, it\u2019s a transformative event in the region. And not because suddenly it\u2019s this coalition arrayed against them. It\u2019s that you\u2019re taking the religious content of the Arab-Israeli conflict out by having the custodian of the two holy mosques be in accord with the nation state of the Jewish people. In addition, there is just the prospect that you\u2019re going to see these countries that are successful economically joining together and becoming more successful at a time when Iran economically is continuing to fail. They call themselves the resistance coalition but in truth, they\u2019re the coalition of the failed and the failing states. So [Iran and Hamas] are being confronted by what could make them lag even farther behind.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n