What Triggered the Gaza Operation?
The US and Israel Unsheathed Their First Claws for Iran in Gaza
The Gaza Strip was singled out for the Netanyahu government's first major campaign because of a double Palestinian mistake: Hamas pushed out the military envelope against Israel too far while it was still the weakest cog in the radical terror machine Iran is building in the Middle East.
The radical group ruling the Gaza Strip began attacking Israeli forces in late October, interspersing those attacks with hails of missiles on population centers with new, advanced weaponry.
Hamas was not acting on impulse as it has often in the past.
Iran's Al Quds commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani was discovered to have secretly sent Mohammed Jabari, commander of the Hamas military wing, orders to launch a cross-border campaign of terror against Israeli military forces. The orders were routed through Iran's liaison chief Gen. Hossein Mahadavi for relaying via Hizballah's internal security director Wafiq Safa to Jabari's pro-Iran deputy, Marwan Issa.
Israel's four decision-makers, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, decided to move fast and pre-empt Tehran's plans for building a strong outpost in the Gaza Strip, before it was too late. The population of southern Israel was clamoring harder then ever to put a stop to the missiles. Orders accordingly went out from Jerusalem to launch the Gaza campaign on Wednesday, Nov. 14.
Tools of Hamas trade: Bomb tunnel, guided missile, Katyusha, Fajr
Related events moved up to that climax through the following sequence:
1. On October 23, an Israeli captain of the Givati Brigade approached the border fence in the Kissufim sector of central Gaza to open the gate for the unit under his command to pass through to the narrow 300-500 meter cordon sanitaire on the other side. As he touched the gate, a large bomb exploded gravely injuring him. Both arms and one leg were blown off.
That was the signal for Hamas operatives hiding in the sand dunes nearby to let loose with cross-border anti-tank missiles and mortar fire.
On November 8, for the first time in six years, Hamas detonated a secret tunnel running under the Gaza border. It was packed with explosives at the Israeli end, rigged to blow up against the armored vehicle used by IDF engineers when they surveyed the ground for hidden explosive booby traps.
By sheer luck, all four dismounted from the vehicle moments before the detonation - otherwise none would have survived the blast.
But the four Givati soldiers riding two days later in an armored command jeep near Kibbutz Nahal Oz were less fortunate. They were all seriously injured, two lost their eyesight - when their jeep was struck by a newly imported MIRA guided missile fitted with a MILAN anti-tank thermal sensor for precise targeting and capable of chasing its target for two kilometers.
A rocket shipment for Hamas, Round 2 was destroyed in Sudan
Hamas subcontracted a Popular Resistance Committees cell, which it uses for denying culpability, for this operation. The guided missiles were recently delivered to Hamas in Gaza. They were purchased by Hizballah agents in the Libyan towns of Tripoli and Benghazi and delivered mounted on minivans which drove through Egyptian Sinai to the Gaza Strip.
IDF hit back for the MIRA attack with an artillery cannonade against Hamas headquarters in the Sejaya district of eastern Gaza, bringing forth Hamas retaliation against Israeli locations with another high quality weapon recently smuggled in from Libya, mobile 120mm SK-8 multiple-rocket Katyushas.
Incoming intelligence input revealed that Hamas had launched the latest round of its current offensive, flaunting its new hardware, on orders from Tehran.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Gen. Soleimani it was time to activate the mutual defense pacts Hamas signed with Iran and Hizballah in the second week of September, when Hamas strongman Mahmoud a-Zahar and Jabari?s deputy Marwan Issa visited Tehran once and Beirut twice.
US and Israeli intelligence analysts estimated that the Iranian leader wanted to punish Israel for the devastating attack on the Iranian-Sudanese weapons factory and stores at the Yarmouk Complex near Khartoum.
That complex was the main source of Iranian Grad and long-range Fajr rocket supplies to Hamas and Jihad Islami. Fifty long-range Fajr 5 rockets were already packed ready for shipment to Gaza via Egypt, the largest consignment Iran had ever smuggled through to the Gaza Strip. It had been prepared for the next stage of the Palestinian Gaza war on Israel.
(The Egyptian angle in this episode is of prime importance and will be reviewed in a separate article)
Israel gains US approval for its Gaza plan
All this intelligence focusing on Iran's destabilizing hand was parceled up and delivered to Washington last week by Israel?s National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, shortly before President Barack Obama set off on his Asian tour. Amidror put it before Obama's National Security Adviser Tom Donilon - together with a proposed plan of action.
Israel proposed embarking on a major military operation for dismantling Hamas's military and intelligence connection with Iran. Time was pressing, said Amidror, because if the process was not stopped, Hamas would soon develop into Iran's main clandestine channel to the Muslim Brotherhood rulers of Egypt, with worse in store: Hamas' growing military capabilities and intelligence cooperation with Tehran would soon encompass the Egyptian military and march on to swallow up the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and seize control of the seven West Bank Palestinian command brigades which keep PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in power.
To arrest the Egyptian and Palestinian slide into Iran?s orbit, Jerusalem proposed the following plan:
After completing the first stages of the operation, Washington and Jerusalem would turn to Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi and ask him to broker a ceasefire between the IDF and Hamas.
Egypt to promise to block Iranian arms routes to Gaza
It was agreed that the ceasefire terms would also cover Egyptian military and intelligence agencies assuming responsibility for blocking the smuggling routes of Libyan weapons through northern Egyptian towns on the Suez Canal and of Iranian weapons from Sudan via the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel maintained that President Morsi is so desperate for urgent US financial assistance and loan guarantees totaling $10 billion that he is no position to deny Egyptian cooperation in stopping the arms flow to Gaza.
By the end of the second week of November, Israeli intelligence and its proposed plan of action were on President Obama?s desk. He signed off on the Gaza operation on two conditions:
1. Israel would not try and reoccupy any part of the Gaza Strip.
2. The IDF would make sure to keep Palestinian casualties very low - both among Hamas and Islamic Jihad rank and file and the civilian population.
Israel thereupon launched its Operation Pillar of Cloud on November 14 with the targeted assassination of Ahmed Jabari, head of the Hamas military wing, by a drone aided by precise intelligence. The operation was not designed to smash Hamas government in Gaza but to knock over Iran's military channels into Gaza and, more importantly, Egypt.
The Gaza Prelude to Syria & Iran
The Gaza Campaign Was the Brainchild of Intelligence Wizards Rather than Generals
Tamir PradoIsrael?s eight-day offensive against Hamas in Gaza was dubbed "Pillar of Cloud' by Israel and 'Bricks from the Sky' by Hamas. Unbeknownst to anyone outside a tight circle, it was in fact a pillar of smoke and one of the most successful intelligence feats of deception in recent years.
The prime movers who planned and supervised its execution were six spymasters: Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Qatari intelligence chief Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al Thani, Turkish National Intelligence Organization-MIT director Hakan Fidan, Israeli Mossad chief Tamir Pardo and Egyptian General Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Mohamed Rafaat.
A senior CIA officer, whose identity is unknown, stepped into a key role in this group in the past two weeks.
What intelligence sources have learned is that the former Central Intelligence Director David Petraeus took part in the preparatory discussions until he resigned on Nov. 9. The two visits he paid to the Middle East - on Sept. 3 to Istanbul and Oct. 31 to Cairo - were related to this operation.
The half dozen masters of clandestine warfare and espionage did not operate in an orderly manner through a formal central command. In direct interchanges over a period of months, they drafted a master plan. Each of the six tried to push the national and intelligence agenda of his own organization, but consensus was ultimately achieved on a common goal: The campaign to stem Iran's headlong rush for Middle East domination was to be kicked off in Gaza and involve Egypt. It would provide President Barack Obama with the springboard for his next moves targeting Syria and then Iran.
One operation, two coups
Intelligence rather than military brainpower was necessary for the operation because its centerpiece consisted of two internal coups - one in Egypt, one in Gaza ? to dislodge pro-Iranian elements from their positions at the helm.
In Egypt, Mohamed Morsi had to be put back on his presidential pedestal after a brief Washington fling with his sworn rival, the Muslim Brotherhood strongman, the millionaire tycoon Khairat al-Shater.
The coup in Gaza was a lot more touch-and-go than the palace changeover in Cairo.
Undercover agents of the intelligence chiefs masterminding the operation had to isolate and then bring down Hamas strongman Mahmoud a-Zahar, who had gained stature from his trips to Tehran and Beirut. (See the first article in this issue).
A-Zahar was on the way to sidelining Hamas?s Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and military chief Ahmed al-Jabari in the movement's leadership.
The Saudi, Turkish and Qatari clandestine service chiefs undertook to recruit agents among Hamas' political and military insiders to stage the coup and supply intelligence for the Israeli operation. They too would be fed any useful intelligence gathered by the other six.
On Oct. 23, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, emir of Qatar, arrived in Gaza, the first Arab ruler ever to visit the small Palestinian enclave. His well-publicized visit was crowned with an offer of a half billion dollars to aid Gaza development projects.
Sources reveal here that Al Thani was essentially on a final scouting expedition before the coup was attempted. Well versed in the arts of toppling much bigger tyrants, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and Bashar Assad (still to come) in Syria in both of which Qatar was and is deeply immersed - its ruler went round shaking hands with all of Hamas leading lights, including its military commanders.
He came away with a strong impression, which he made known: Ahmed Jabari was the keystone of the a-Zahar power base. Removing him and his deputy would bring their target tumbling down.
Jabari was also the keystone of Iran's arch in Gaza
Acting on the Qatari recommendation, the Israeli Air Force made the targeting of Ahmed Jabari on Nov. 14 the opening shot of its eight-day Gaza offensive. Israel had targeted Jabari, an old and ruthless enemy, for six years - and missed. This time, he was caught in a trap rigged with the help of intelligence betrayed from the inside.
The Israeli bid to eliminate his deputy failed; Issa managed to escape the burning car struck by airborne rockets. He then quickly mustered a few hundred loyal fighters of the Ezz e-din Qassam Brigades and anointed himself Jabari?s successor as supreme commander of Hamas' military wing.
Issa and his following remain in the conspirators' sights and his days may be numbered.
In another move, Qatari intelligence reinstated the former Hamas politburo chief, Khaled Meshaal, who was deposed in internal elections and lost his Damascus base as a result of the Syrian civil war.
Meshaal was installed in Cairo with the key function of liaison between the coup leaders in Gaza and their confederates in the Egyptian capital who had been entrusted with restoring President Morsi to full authority.
Key figures in the intelligence master-game focusing on Gaza began to surface in Cairo this week. They turned up at the presidential palace table around which the parties haggled over a truce for terminating Israel-Hamas hostilities.
Morsi and Meshaal were prominently present, but so were Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and Qatari intelligence chief Jassim al Thani.
Morsi is back in the saddle
Morsi gained enormous prestige in the Middle East, the Arab world and the international arena by pulling off the Gaza truce and began steadying his position as president of Egypt. UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a procession of European foreign ministers appearing by his side on world camera, Wednesday, Nov. 21, lent him added clout and legitimacy. Surprisingly, the MB strongman the millionaire tycoon al-Shater showed exceptional resilience the next day and threw his support behind the president, his rival. But intelligence sources report that, like most processes set off by secret internal intrigue, the Gaza and Cairo coups are still young enough to need careful shoring up against possible counter-coups or upheavals. Not all the surprises in store may be salutary.
This is discussed in the next article.
After the Gaza Ceasefire
Obama Plans to Finally Go for Syria's Bashar Assad
On their way home for Thanksgiving, three US Navy's assault ships were just passing through the Strait of Gibraltar Saturday, Nov. 17, when they were ordered to turn around and set course for Israeli waters.
The USS New York, USS Iwo Jima and the USS Gunston Hall had just ended a six-month stint in the Middle East. Instead of spending Thanksgiving at home, 2.500 Marines were told to stand by until the latest spate of Israeli-Gaza hostilities settled down or so said the official version. In fact, say intelligence sources, barring a last-minute change, the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group will be standing by for its next order, to deploy off the coast of Syria.
President Barack Obama is preparing, as soon as the Gaza situation stabilizes, to start engaging the US military and intelligence in direct intervention against the Assad regime in Damascus and a speedy end to the Syrian civil war.
He conveyed this intention in phone calls, made on open and secure lines in the course of the eight-day confrontation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, to Qatar ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minister Prince Salman, Jordan's King Abdullah, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Obama is weighing safe asylums and no-fly zones for Syria
Obama did not reveal exactly what military action he had in mind for Syria, but sources in Turkey and the Persian Gulf received the impression he was finally coming around to the notion of safe asylum zones, some of them under the protection of US Marines, along the country's borders with Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Safe zones were also under consideration for the Syrian border strip with Lebanon. The US president is also preparing to declare Syrian skies a no-fly zone for military and civilian aircraft. All this would not only cut off the Iranian air corridor through which military supplies are ferried to Assad's army, but also the overland corridor through Iraq, and Hizballah's supply lines from Lebanon.
In addition, the Iwo Jima Group and other US Navy warships collected from bases in Turkey, Greece and Italy would throw a blockade around Syria?s Mediterranean ports, assisted by British, French and Italian warships. Regional leaders gained the impression from their conversations with the US president that he was resolved - after the disastrous setback dealt Iran and Hizballah in Gaza by the loss of their "southern front" on direct action for Assad's removal.
He sounded convinced, they reported, that time was pressing: Unless the US steps in now, the Assad regime would weather the Syrian revolt and hang onto power for years to come.
If that happened, the military and diplomatic momentum the United States gained from Israel?s Gaza operation would soon melt away.
Reviving the Libya coalition for Assad's overthrow
The US president is counting on outmaneuvering Russia in Syria and the active support of the approximate coalition which ousted Libya' Muammar Qaddafi in 2011: Britain, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Since Assad and/or Hizballah may well try and heat up their borders with Israel, separately or in unison, Washington is recommending that Israel redeploy the tens of thousands of reservists posted around Gaza this week to its northern fronts. It is hoped that Hamas will uphold the ceasefire negotiated in Cairo - for the time being, at least.
Washington's plans to directly tackle the Syrian crisis are confirmed by the buildup of US warships this week in the Mediterranean and Obama's withdrawal of his veto on NATO stationing Patriot missiles near Turkey's border with Syria as insistently requested by Ankara.
The deployment of Patriots on Turkish soil is not subject to Turkish parliamentary endorsement, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday, November 22, when he arrived in Pakistan to attend the D-8 Summit in Islamabad.
According to Article 4 of the Washington Treaty, "our soil is NATO soil," he said. "The Turkish Parliament's permission is not needed for this process, as this is an action taken by NATO. The Turkish military will determine appropriate locations for deployment of the missiles," he added. "This deployment should be seen only as a defensive measure against possible attacks from Syria on the other side of the border"
Washington's approval of the anti-missile missile batteries deployment on Turkey's border with Syria is evidently the first overt move towards getting safe asylum sites and a no-fly zone in place inside and above Syria. The Patriots will come with US military crews for their operation. This will represent the first direct US military intervention in the Syrian conflict.
At the same time, US military personnel will also be dispatched to Sinai. (See separate article on US plans to secure Sinai and Suez.)
24 Hours after Gaza, Cairo Coups
Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Gaza on High Alert for Iranian Reprisals
Hillary ClintonEgyptian President Mohamed Morsi called off his scheduled trip to Islamabad for the Developing Eight-D8 summit opening Thursday, Nov. 22, just hours after he and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pulled out of a hat a Gaza ceasefire ending eight days of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
The D8 brought together the leaders of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey to promote investment and trade for populations of more than one billion people. Normally, Egypt's dire economic straits would have sent Morsi running to this critical summit. Yet he opted to stay home explaining it was of supreme importance for him to oversee the Gaza truce and make sure it held, while also keeping track of domestic developments in Cairo.
The Egyptian president did not say what those developments were.
Intelligence sources report that Morsi decided to play it safe and stay in Cairo in case of a backlash against his Gaza feat from some quarter. He was right: The first punch came from close at home.
Thursday, Mohammed Badei, the Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, denounced the peace efforts with Israel made by the president of the same movement and urged "holy war to liberate Palestinian territories." He said, "The enemy knows nothing but the language of force. Be aware of the game of grand deception with which they depict peace accords."
Badei's remarks were carried on the group's website and emailed to reporters.
Morsi faces strong challenges
In today's Egyptian democracy, the president is bound to defer to the Muslim Brotherhood "supreme guide" as the country's highest authority. The rebuke was therefore damaging but not surprising.
Morsi had reckoned that a counter-coup might be on the cards from the radical wings of the Muslim Brotherhood, even though his rival, the MB millionaire Khairat al-Shater, came around to support him.
Trouble could also come from the military, from one of the security services which disapproves of his return to full authority, or from the web of Iranian and Hizballah undercover networks operating surreptitiously in Egypt's cities mostly under the radar of Egyptian, Arab and Western intelligence.
In Egyptian security minds, the memory is still fresh of the 2009 Hizballah plot to sow terror in Suez Canal cities, Cairo, the Sinai Peninsula and across the border in Israel. Egyptian security foiled the plot and rounded up 49 Hizballah agents and accomplices.
President Morsi fears that the Hizballah rings in Cairo today have become even more dangerous than they were in 2009 he is concerned that Tehran might let them loose to sow mayhem in reprisal for the Gaza ceasefire and its unwritten annex, an accord between the Egyptian president and the United States for joint action to block the routes across Sinai through which Iran, al Qaeda, other Islamists and Hamas smuggle arms and jihadis.
In their crucial interview in Cairo on Wednesday, Secretary Clinton stressed the importance of Morsi?s pledge in this regard as a key testing stone of the Gaza ceasefire accord.
Sinai security is pivotal for America's regional plans
The US is preparing to sink billions in the erection of a security fence along the Suez Canal and Gulf of Suez. Our sources have learned that the Obama administration plans to extend this fence to the Egyptian-Gaza border and other parts of the Sinai Peninsula as well.
A special US security force will be flown in to Sinai to defend this elaborate fence system and Egyptian territory against the smuggling rings and their clients.
Both the US and Israel want to be sure Morsi understands the comprehensive strategy behind this plan.
If contraband weapons and missiles are allowed to continue to flow freely through Sinai to Gaza and other embattled Middle East arenas, the American plan to secure Sinai as an important base for defending the pro-Western Arab powers and Israel will come to nothing. Iran will still be free to drive straight across the lawless peninsula to entrench itself in Cairo and expand its control over the Palestinians.
Although this was not said bluntly, Morsi was given to understand that if he doesn't follow through on his pledge, Egypt stands to forfeit US financial aid and international loan guarantees which are urgently needed to give their regime a breather to bolster its hold on power.
The new regime is hard-pressed for economic solutions. The number of jobless jumped 2 percent in the last quarter to 12.6 percent with inflation keeping pace.
Iranian retaliation by terrorism,
So on top of disastrous straits beyond any that the former President Hosni Mubarak ever faced, Morsi is not only at risk from Iran?s retribution for its debacle in Gaza, but also from a military coup by angry young officers like the revolt that brought Gemal Abdel Nasser to power.
Five more pressure points may be set to explode in different places in the aftermath of the Gaza convulsion:
1. Terror: Wednesday, Nov. 21, as Hillary Clinton was tying up the last ends of a Gaza truce in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a Palestinian terrorist detonated a bomb planted on a Tel Aviv bus as it drove past a central intersection near the Israeli Defense Ministry and General Staff headquarters. Up to 27 people were injured. The terrorist managed to escape
That a terrorist can stroll past the Israeli security centers and detonate a bomb without being noticed or caught is taken by Israeli counter-terrorist agencies as confirming that more than one terrorist organization maintains cells deep inside Israel, some of them run by Iran and Hizballah.
The Tel Aviv bus bomb was taken therefore as a warning of more terrorist strikes on the way in Israel and possibly outside the Middle East should Iran choose to vent its ire against the Jewish state.
Seizing power in Jordan?
2. Pro-Iranian cells: Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, Israeli security and intelligence forces raided the West Bank homes of approximately 70 Palestinian political activists suspected of ties with pro-Iranian elements in Hamas or with the terror networks standing by for activation by Iran and Hizballah.
3. The shaky Jordanian throne: There is serious concern in Amman, Washington and Jerusalem that Tehran will exacerbate and exploit the mounting riots and demonstrations staged in recent days by the Muslim Brotherhood against King Abdullah II.
Tehran would deem the MB?s seizure of power in Amman as evening the score for the defeat of its power moves in the Gaza Strip, especially since the Jordanian Brotherhood is dominated by Palestinian Hamas and therefore easy meat for the ayatollahs to gobble up.
4. Lebanon: In the last week, tentative efforts have been made to mount attacks on northern Israel from South Lebanon. Wednesday, shortly before the Gaza ceasefire went into effect, two shells were fired at an IDF outpost in Metullah in the Upper Galilee. Thursday, two rockets ready for launching were discovered and dismantled by the Lebanese army near the Lebanese town of Marjayoun - also opposite Metullah.
Israel is not ruling out an Iranian counter-blow for its Gaza defeat being carried out through an attempt by Hizballah to heat up the Lebanese border..
5. Anti-US terrorist attack: Iran has repeatedly threatened to target American interests in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
Eight Fateful Days in Gaza
The Gaza Operation Restores the US to the Middle East Premier League
Though small in time and scale - and relatively inconsequential in the large Middle East picture - the eight-day Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip had a disproportionally large transformational effect on the strategic stature of certain world powers, starting with the United States under a second-term president.
America's restoration to the Middle East premier league by the Gaza conflagration appears to have enthused President Barack Obama for tackling Syria and then Iran.
Israel's policymaking trio, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Israeli Mossad chief Tamir Pardo is the unseen key team member), are breathing a deep sigh of relief. Four years of bitter wrangling with President Obama over Iran and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood as a result of the Arab Spring have suddenly made way to understanding and amiable working relations between Obama and Netanyahu.
Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood rule is restored by the Gaza conflict to center stage in the Arab world. For the first time, the MB movement of the largest Arab state is cooperating through President Mohamed Morsi with Washington and Jerusalem to shape a new pro-Western policy concept as a model for future stages of the Arab Revolt in other Arab countries.
US wins, Iran and Russia are pushed down
Iran looks like the big loser from the brief Gaza confrontation. The Palestinian enclave and Hamas have been torn out of its ambit. Even the Palestinian Jihad Islami, groomed by Tehran for its eventual role as a second Hizballah for the Gaza Strip and Egypt, may also be slipping out of its control.
Russia, which just before the US presidential election two weeks ago was cast as President Obama's senior partner in what was called the "Grand Bargain" for the Middle East and Persian Gulf, was pushed by the Gaza operation to the fringes of Middle East hustle and bustle. President Vladimir Putin finds himself marooned on the same shore as Iran and Syria, both of which Obama now proposes to tackle.
How could these extreme transformations have taken place in eight short yet fateful days? Can the unforeseen alliance between Obama, Morsi and Netanyahu hold? And do these happenings touch on the sudden resignation of David Petraeus as CIA Director?
The opening article of this issue details how Iran developed its military and intelligence ties with Hamas from September, block by block. The fulcrums were two Hamas figures - Mahmoud a-Zahar, a member of the Hamas political leadership, and the late Ahmed al-Jabari, commander of the Hamas military wing and operations chief of the Ezz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, whose death led off Israel's Gaza operation.
Adopting a pro-Iran orientation, this pair gambled on Tehran?s emergence as Middle East top dog. They decided to guarantee Hamas?s future in the Palestinian movement and the Muslim Brotherhood movements of Egypt and Jordan by hauling the Gaza Strip into Iran' sphere of influence.
This process was advancing at a rapid pace. Had it not been curtailed, Iran would soon have gained a solid foothold in the Gaza Strip, ready to partly compensate itself for the inevitable loss of the Syrian power base after Bashar Assad's inescapable departure.
Gaza would also have been Tehran?s gateway to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, where the Brotherhood is dominated by Palestinian Hamas adherents.
Assuring Hizballah a safe berth after Assad's fall
Tehran was also concerned to assure Hizballah of a safe landing after Assad's departure in the weeks or months ahead. Hizballah was already well entrenched in the Gaza Strip as an accepted military and clandestine force under the aegis of Hamas's pro-Iran faction. Gaza was destined by Iran to be Hizballah's Hassan Nasrallah's fallback base of operation and save him from being isolated by the fall of his close ally, Bashar Assad.
Looking at the wider Muslim picture, Iran's success in winning Hamas over would have been an important step towards consummating the fundamental aspiration of Iran's 1979 Shiite revolution: to seize key positions from Sunni Islam and diminish its domination of the Muslim world.
This aspiration was taken into consideration when the undercover steps in preparation for Israel's Gaza operation were set in motion by President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Egyptian President Morsi, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Qatar's Emir Al-Thani.
A separate article reviews the secret war behind the Gaza operation.
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