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Russia Is the Loser in the Israel-Hamas War ,,, As Hamas Visits Its ‘Closest Friend’ Moscow, Questions Surround Russia’s Knowledge Of, Involvement In October 7 Hamas Attack: A Review Of Russia-Hamas Ties and Strategic Relationship … Escalating violence in Gaza increasing chatter of possible terror attack in New York, intelligence report says … What Will Happen In Gaza After Israel Stops Its War On Hamas? … US said to delay shipment of weapons for security squads due to Ben Gvir’s conduct
In the fall of 2012, I took part in an open discussion at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Russia’s role in the Middle East. In her presentation, an experienced American diplomat focused on how Russia was a spent force that would never be able to recapture the Soviet Union’s prominence in the region. With few dissenting voices, the discussion was remarkable for how off-base it was: It was exactly then that Moscow was starting to reemerge as a major player in Syria and across the entire region.
In the fall of 2012, I took part in an open discussion at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Russia’s role in the Middle East. In her presentation, an experienced American diplomat focused on how Russia was a spent force that would never be able to recapture the Soviet Union’s prominence in the region. With few dissenting voices, the discussion was remarkable for how off-base it was: It was exactly then that Moscow was starting to reemerge as a major player in Syria and across the entire region.
Today, Russia’s influence in the Middle East is at another inflection point. Hobbled by its disastrous invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s declining relevance in the region has been thrown into sharp relief by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Whereas Moscow was central to the diplomacy surrounding the civil war in Syria 10 years ago, Russia’s push in the U.N. Security Council for a cease-fire in Gaza gained little traction. The contrast is emblematic for the end of Moscow’s decade-long comeback in the region.
Even before regaining the Russian presidency in May 2012, Vladimir Putin was determined to return Russia to a prominent role in the Middle East, which he likely believed was necessary for Russia to be a great power. Criticizing then-President Dmitry Medvedev’s decision to abstain on the U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force in Libya, which Putin likened to the medieval crusades, he appeared bent on preventing the West from ever having a free hand again. And as the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011 and intensified in 2012, the Kremlin took a hard line opposing any U.N. action, fearing a replay of events in Libya.
It was amid the Syrian war that Moscow charted its course to renewed significance in the Middle East. Putin made his first major move there in September 2013. With the United States preparing for an armed intervention after the Syrian regime crossed the “red line” publicly announced by then-President Barack Obama and used chemical weapons on its own people, Putin devised a diplomatic compromise, whereby Russia promised to help eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
Two years later, Russia cemented its renewed position in the region by militarily intervening in Syria. In less than a year, Moscow’s forces turned the tide of the war and secured Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s rule—a success Putin would parlay into influence across the region. With its firm hold in Syria, Russia became central to regional diplomacy from Ankara to Riyadh to Cairo. Working with Iran and Hezbollah on the battlefield in Syria, Moscow’s relations with Tehran began to warm. Forced to take account of Russian military forces next door—especially the Russian air defense units that could potentially ground the Israeli air force—Israel increasingly engaged Moscow. Iraq and Egypt sought Russian intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation. Soon, Russia-backed forces began to arrive in Libya to intervene in that civil war as well.
Moscow used its new entree in the region to posture itself as an alternative to the United States, leveraging discontent with Washington to boost its influence. In Turkey, Moscow capitalized on perceptions of Western support for the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016 as well as persistent clashes over U.S. cooperation with Kurdish forces in Syria that Ankara considers terrorist groups. In Egypt, Putin used the Obama administration’s concerns after the overthrow of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood-led government by the Egyptian military in 2013 to develop warm relations with new Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In Israel, Putin took advantage of the icy relationship between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to further boost ties with Israel. In Saudi Arabia, Putin made an early bet on the ambitious crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, demonstratively shaking his hand at the G-20 summit in 2018, just a month after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi government operatives.
Moscow’s interest-based approach and skillful diplomacy helped it successfully navigate regional cleavages. Russian policy has been pragmatic and even cynical, unmoored to ideology or values such as democracy. Russia was able to simultaneously improve ties with Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. It managed to engage the Turkish government and Kurdish groups in Syria, deftly avoiding the criticisms that Ankara levied at Washington.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, however, initiated a gradual unraveling of the Kremlin’s influence in the Middle East. First, Russia’s unprovoked attack tarnished its international standing, making it a less appealing alternative to play off against Washington. Cairo, for example, facing pressure from Washington, agreed to halt planned shipments of weapons to Russia that would have supported its war in Ukraine. Ankara has reportedly eschewed purchasing another batch of Russia’s S-400 air defense system, likely concluding that playing the Russia card with Washington is now less credible and effective.
Moscow’s leverage in its relationships with key states in the region has also been reversed. Whereas Russia was able to impose painful sanctions on Turkey in response to the latter’s downing of a Russian fighter jet in 2015 and eventually force Erdogan to apologize, Russia is now reliant on Turkey as a conduit for the transshipment of goods to circumvent Western sanctions. Russian aircraft are now routed through Istanbul and Dubai to avoid European airspace restrictions. Moscow is buying Iranian-made armed drones and even building a factory to produce Iran-licensed drones in Russia.
Finally, Moscow has weakened its military and security presence in the Middle East. While Russia still maintains a key naval and air base in Syria, it has reduced some of its forces and equipment there to support military operations in Ukraine. To feed its struggling war machine, Russia has even recruited Syrian fighters. Although Russia maintains a presence in Libya through what was the Wagner paramilitary group, it has reportedly also redeployed forces from the group to help fight in Ukraine. Russia’s ability to project power in the region is also hamstrung by the fact that Moscow would be hard-pressed to reinforce its presence in a crisis or should its forces there be challenged, given Russia’s commitments in Ukraine.
Hamas’s vicious attack against Israeli civilians and Israel’s sharp response are likely to mark a point of no return for Russia’s waning influence in the Middle East. Russia-Israel ties had already been strained by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Putin’s response to the crisis in Gaza has likely made things worse. Blaming U.S. policy, Moscow has refrained from explicitly condemning Hamas’s attack. Moscow’s reticence to weigh in on Israel’s side has not gone unnoticed, with a politician from Netanyahu’s party going on Russian state TV to lambaste Russia’s response. While Putin has likely damaged his personal ties with Netanyahu, bilateral relations would likely deteriorate even further if the latter were to leave office as a result of the crisis in Gaza.
Moscow’s past importance as a mediator among Palestinian groups is also likely to dissipate. Russia has refrained from recognizing Hamas as a terrorist group and sought to facilitate reconciliation among Palestinian groups as a key step toward peace and the creation of a Palestinian state. Hamas officials have visited Moscow several times during the past decade, including just last month. But even if Hamas manages to survive Israel’s ongoing ground invasion of Gaza, intra-Palestinian reconciliation may not be a priority for the Middle East peace process in the foreseeable future.
The Israel-Hamas war is also likely to make it more difficult for Russia to navigate regional rivalries, particularly given its warming ties with Tehran. While Moscow would probably prefer to avoid picking a side between Israel and Iran, attempts to maintain neutrality amid sharpening conflict would probably just create friction with both. If forced to choose, Moscow would probably decide based on its view of the impact on the war in Ukraine, the frame through which Putin is viewing all international challenges now. The Kremlin would need to decide whether Iranian weapons are more critical for Russia—or whether the priority is maintaining influence with Israel in order to dissuade it from providing arms to Ukraine.
An escalation of the crisis to a broader regional fight directly involving Iran—which seems unlikely now but remains possible—would make Russia’s impotence obvious to all. Despite its bases in Syria, Russia’s military presence is insufficient to shape events. When challenged in the past, Russia has chosen to back down, as it did in 2018 when the United States launched punitive airstrikes against Syrian targets. Russia simply does not have the leverage to forge a compromise or lead negotiations. Even with states with which Moscow has good relations—Iran and Saudi Arabia—it was Beijing that brokered the normalization of relations between the two.
Certainly, the Israel-Hamas war is a welcome development for Moscow, distracting international attention from Russia’s own war in Ukraine and potentially forcing the United States to make decisions about prioritizing security assistance to Israel or Ukraine. Washington’s full-throated support for Israeli military operations has also created some uncomfortable comparisons with Russia’s own attacks in Ukraine. But Washington’s own-goals with the Arab world or the broader global south do not necessarily accrue to Moscow’s account.
Ultimately, the crisis precipitated by Hamas’s large-scale attack on Israel could help determine the future of the Middle East. Moscow, however, is unlikely to have much of a role in shaping it—if it has any at all. There is not likely to be another Madrid Conference. Whereas Russia was central to the discussions around the Syrian civil war a decade ago, the future trajectory of the Middle East is likely to emerge from the Gaza crisis without any significant input from Moscow.
By Marcia Kramer
Updated on: November 20, 2023 / 5:15 PM EST / CBS New York
NEW YORK — CBS News learned Monday of increased threats of a possible terror attack in New York City as a direct result of the escalating violence in the Middle East.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is already taking action to beef up security and increase staffing of the Joint Terrorism Task Force following a new threat assessment by the New York State Intelligence Center that violence in Gaza is driving chatter about targets in New York.
“I am working hard at the state level with the control I have. I’ll be talking about this tomorrow, about exactly what we’re doing, and how many online threats we’ve uncovered, how many have been investigated, what the outcome is,” said Hochul.
The governor spoke about new steps she’ll be taking to deal with online threats and radicalization, even as CBS News obtained a new threat assessment which points to “an increasing terror threat to NYS.”
The intelligence center warned that the spread of antisemitic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric on social media is fueling an increase in hate crimes targeting Jews, Muslims and Arabs.
“The expansion of Israeli operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and increase in civilian casualties raises the likelihood that violent extremist threat actors will seek to conduct attacks against targets in the West, with New York State being a focus. Terrorist messaging has placed focus on attacking ‘soft targets’ such as protests, group gatherings, and other public events,” the report said.
Last week, Hochul earmarked $2.5 million to add additional State Police investigators to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York City, Albany, Buffalo and Rochester.
“We are working with all law enforcement, federal, state, and local, statewide. These are not just New York City events,” said Hochul.
“Our most immediate concern is that violent extremists, individuals or small groups, will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “That includes not just homegrown violent extremists, inspired by a foreign terrorist organization, but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities. We’ve already seen that with the individual we arrested last week in Houston.”
The number of bias incidents investigated by the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force increased by 124% in October, led by a 214% spike in anti-Jewish incidents.
Marcia Kramer joined CBS2 in 1990 as an investigative and political reporter. Prior to CBS2, she was the City Hall bureau chief at the New York Daily News.
First published on November 20, 2023 / 4:46 PM EST
© 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
Hamas’s surprise October 7, 2023 terror attack, in which over 1,400 were brutally murdered and another 241 (at last count) taken hostage, will go down in infamy. As Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashal boasted on October 26 on Egypt’s Sada Elbalad TV, the Russians told him that this attack would be taught in military academies.[1]
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, everyone, including military experts on TV, were quick to comment on its primitivity, pointing to the use of bulldozers, trucks, and motorcycles to break through the border barrier,[2] and the use of motorized paragliders to bring in terrorists with automatic weapons[3] as well as dune buggies.[4]
But as the initial fog of war lifted, it became clear that Hamas did not just get lucky with this attack. It had been training for it for years,[5] including in Iran.[6] There are also unsubstantiated reports that Hamas received training by Russian forces – or even possibly by the Wagner group. Anonymous sources were cited as saying that some Wagner members had been involved in the military training of Hamas fighters, and that a company seeking applicants for positions “in Africa and the Middle East” had offered positions to other Wagner members.[7] Other reports suggests that some of the weapons used by Hamas on October 7 came from Russia,[8] and still other reports that Russia is providing Hamas with Western weapons captured in Ukraine.[9]
Hamas delegation, headed by Hamas political bureau head Isma’il Haniyeh, in Moscow, September 11, 2022 (Source: Thecradle.co/articles/hamas-delegation-lands-in-moscow-for-official-talks#google_vignette, September 11. 2022)
Russia’s support for a designated terrorist organization, Hamas, in its attack on Israel makes sense. Russia has no qualms about maintaining good relations with other state sponsors of terrorism, as indicated most recently by its strategic summit with North Korea in September.[10] It was also one of the first countries to accept the credentials of an Afghan Taliban envoy, in March 2022.[11] Russia also maintains a close alliance with Iran, which is Hamas’s main supplier of weapons and diplomatic support. It provides Iran with intelligence and weapons in Syria as well as “digital surveillance capabilities” to suppress internal dissent at home, and in return Iran gives Russia drones, artillery shells, and ammunition for use against Ukraine and has built a drone factory in Russia.[12]
A bonus for Russia in its alliance with Iran is a close relationship with Iran’s terror proxies. In recent years, it has had contacts, meetings, and more with the Houthis in Yemen, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and Shi’ite militias in Iraq.[13] It was also reported this week that the Wagner group, which is now controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is planning to send air defenses to Hizbullah, which would complicate Israel’s ability to defend its cities from Hizbullah missile attacks.[14] Following the killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia lost the use of its own unofficial proxy to do its dirty work, but now Russia has access to Iran’s proxies.
Thus, Russian support for a Hamas attack on Israel, if merely tactical, is logical. As Sergey Mardan, a former Putin advisor who is now a Russian media propagandist, recently wrote on his Telegram channel: “This mess is beneficial for Russia because the globalist toad [i.e. the U.S.] will be distracted from [Russia’s war in] Ukraine and will get busy trying to put out the eternal Middle Eastern fire. Iran is our real military ally. Israel is an ally of the US. Therefore, choosing a side is easy.”[15]
Dr. Vladislav Inozemtsev, MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project Special Advisor and Founder and Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies, laid out a four-point explanation on reasons for Russian support of Hamas. He wrote:
“By attacking Israel – with or without Moscow’s advice or assistance – Hamas opened a new front against the West in what Putin believes is the ongoing World War III. This attack is beneficial for the Russian ‘national leader’ in several aspects.
“First, it leads to refocusing of the U.S. and European attention from Ukraine to Israel, and (as Putin hopes) to a decline in the Western assistance to Ukrainian army that may allow the Russians to stop Ukraine’s counteroffensive and recapture the strategic advantage.
“Second, Putin of course dreams of a new migration ‘earthquake’ that can send millions of refugees from the Middle East toward the borders of the European Union. It is widely known that Palestinians are not welcomed by their fellow Arab neighbors and would most probably seek asylum in Europe.
“Third, the Israeli ground operation may create a huge wave of support for ‘innocent civilians’ in Gaza adding to the ‘global South’s upheaval’ that Putin awaits, as he positions himself as the leading ‘anti-imperialist’ figure.
“Fourth, Putin wants to broaden the widespread confrontation with the West, hoping that the clash between Hizbullah and Israel may bring Iran into the expanding quarrel and therefore destabilize the entire region…”[16]
Still, much remains in question surrounding Russia reactions to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. Russia’s official response was not only slow in coming, but was notably muted and failed to explicitly condemn the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in an October 9 daily briefing: “We believe that the situation should be brought to a peaceful resolution as soon as possible, as the continuation of such a spiral of violence is fraught with further escalation of the conflict.”[17] On October 11, President Vladimir Putin said only that both sides should “minimize or reduce to zero” civilian casualties.[18]
Russia – which on November 1 reportedly carried out its heaviest shelling of Ukrainian communities to date[19] but received little media attention for doing so – is continuing to benefit from the attack as the world’s attention has shifted from Ukraine. Even if it is not being said openly, some of the same governments that have supported Ukraine militarily, first and foremost the U.S., now could be moving Ukraine to the back burner and focusing on supporting Israel. Although NATO has promised that the war in Israel will not impact support for Ukraine,[20] for the U.S. this is less certain.[21]
A week after its attack on October 7, Hamas thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his statement, saying: “[We] appreciate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position regarding the ongoing Zionist aggression against our people and his rejection of the Gaza siege, the cutting off of relief supplies, and the targeting of safe civilians there.”[22]
Regarding accusations that Hamas had received support from Iran in planning and preparing for the October 7 attack, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated strongly that charges that Iran backs Hamas are “provocative,” adding that Iran is “demonstrating a very responsible, balanced position.”[23]
As a month has passed since the Hamas attack and more information has been revealed about Iran’s involvement in it, there is no longer any question that it provided Hamas with funding, weapons, and training.[24] It is also more likely that the Hamas attack was part of the growing Iran-Russia strategic partnership, more details of which will emerge over time.
Top Russian officials have been meeting with Hamas leaders – who are designated terrorist by the U.S. and other countries – for years, and there have been many such meetings in Moscow in the past two years in particular. The Russia-Hamas relationship began in 2006, with Putin’s congratulations to Hamas for its election victory in Gaza. Details about these meetings, and reviews on Hamas’s regular communications with Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the Duma are detailed in this report.
Hamas’s reciprocal relations with Russian government and military apparatuses go deep. As the Doha-based Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mash’al said, “Russia has benefited” from the October 7 attack “because we distracted the U.S. from them and from Ukraine… The Russians told us that what happened on October 7 would be taught in military academies.” Mash’al also said that this was Russia’s opportunity to abolish the American monopoly on the world. It should be expected that as the war continues, Hamas will continue to be supported by Russia.
This report highlights Hamas officials’ statements about the Hamas-Russia relationship, including in personal meetings, prior to and following the October 7 attack, as well as Hamas officials’ statements about Russia’s reaction to the attack, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Hamas-Russia relations overall.
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