Oddbean new post about login | logout Does anyone have any insight about why Hamas is launching mass attacks? Usually it's more the fringe groups like Islamic Jihad who do this, but Hamas is more like a government of a state. Why would it risk everything now? Replies that mock or make light of people getting hurt will get you a block btw.
@b870d4c8 Leadership went inexplicably to Moscow a while back. Now we know why.
From what I can see so far, the Israeli settler far-right are currently launching a minor uprising of their own against Israel - and now the Palestinian far-right in the form of Hamas say this is a reason for them to attack Israel as well.
@b870d4c8 https://estatements.unmeetings.org/estatements/10.0010/20210924/7gIp44D6mxWV/8xz66G7sjKRg_en.pdf That explains much of the Palestinian leadership’s views. They gave demands in 2021 and said they would take action in a year if those went unfilled. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War 50th anniversary of this war. I’m not an expert on the region, but I’m guessing they gave it a year then started planning for a symbolic date.
My baseline assumption is this is nothing to do with any major powers, not Russia, not Iran, but mostly about internal Hamas dynamics. However if Israel decides to link these thousands of rockets to Iran, this could have major power implications, leading to a general war in the region.
@b870d4c8 One thing to consider is funding. In the past, Hamas has done smaller-scale stuff of this nature when they've been cut off by one country or another, in a bid to get someone to pay them to stop, basically. This happened after Iran cut ties when Hamas backed Sunni rebels in Syria, for example, and Egypt eventually bribed them to stop. Alternatively, a financial backer could have persuaded them to attack as part of some larger geopolitical "chess", but only Putin would be that stupid.