The current fighting in Gaza is part of years of sporadic conflict, but there’s more to it than that

By George Friedman

Palestinian Divides

For the Palestinians, one of their main challenges has been the profound divide between Palestinian groups. The West Bank is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, a descendant of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The PLO is an umbrella organization for various Palestinian factions that all descended from the secular Arab movements that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Gaza, on the other hand, is dominated by Hamas, a different strand of the Palestinian movement that took its bearings from the rise of Islamists. Ideologically, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority diverge profoundly. Strategically, they have different interests in Gaza.

The PA had some possibility of creating a viable entity there and made formal and informal arrangements with the Israelis to achieve that end. But ultimately, Gaza wasn’t viable. Given its size and population, it was sustainable only through outside support. Any settlement with Israel would leave Gaza permanently unmanageable. But the divergent interests of the PA and Hamas benefited the Israelis. Internal division had been a feature of the Palestinian movement from the beginning, but this sharp ideological and geographical split made it easier for the Israelis to manage the situation.

Gaza was contained not only by the Israelis but also by the Egyptians, who saw Hamas’ links to the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to their interests. The Saudis, on the other hand, saw an opportunity. Saudi Arabia sees itself as the center of Sunni Islam and, therefore, responsible for the religiously oriented Palestinian movements, providing them with military support.

Another factor was Iran, which also offered Hamas support. The foundation of Iran’s power in the Levant was Hezbollah. It was a Shiite political and military movement that confronted the Israelis during Israel’s invasions of Lebanon and in Israel itself. There was tension between Shiite Iran and Sunni Palestinian groups, but Hamas needed military aid, and Hezbollah and the Iranians were ready and willing to supply it. They provided the rockets that Hamas fired at Israel and the technology Hamas needed to construct rockets of its own.

Israel was thus militarily diverted in two directions: to the north in Lebanon and to the south in Gaza. Neither posed an existential significant directions. threat force to Israel, but drawing Israeli

Iranian Expansion

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After the U.S. withdrawal from the region, the spread of Iranian power created a new strategic dynamic. Saudi Arabia and Israel had a common interest in containing Iran, and Iran’s connection to Hamas concerned both. The Saudis seemed to support Israel’s efforts to shift Hamas away from confrontation.

As the main supplier of non-lethal aid, the Saudis had massive influence over Hamas, and in recent weeks, the group indicated it was interested in some settlement with Israel and displacing PA as the main representative of Palestinians.

The shift in Hamas’ posture had to alarm the Iranians. Gaza was not an existential threat to them, but its ability to divert Israel’s focus and shift logistical support would be an asset in any potential conflict with Israel. I speculate now that the Saudi pressure to accommodate Israel may have resulted in Iranian counter-pressure, and the increasing Israeli probes were in some way connected to this. Gaza would be permanently crippled if it accepted the Saudi status quo and, therefore, continued working with Iran, as covertly as possible.

For Israel, the real strategic problem is that Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa are the heart of the country and where its population is concentrated. If they were to come under massive rocket and missile fire, the losses would likely be unacceptable. Israel, therefore, must pre-empt any possible attack from Iran. U.S. economic pressure on Tehran has weakened the regime, but that has not changed the strategic problem Israel faces.

Gaza is therefore not the real problem. The real problem is the peripheral threat from the north, east and south. The