Iran and Islamic Jihad
In the convoluted puzzle of the Middle East, each movement of the actors involved responds to a specific interest that corresponds to a strategy to achieve their own objectives
On too many occasions, the use of force and its deadly consequences for people weaves a curtain that manages to hide the real reasons for delicate political decisions, executed by those who wield the weapons. The deaths of Palestinians in Gaza from Israeli attacks as part of Operation Dawn are deeply regrettable, but we should not think that this is just a show of force as Israel's constant strategy for survival. Many crises have been provoked by the actions of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, financed, controlled and directed by Iran.
The arrest of a senior leader of the organisation in the West Bank by Israeli forces corroborates the well-known and serious threat to stability in the region, namely the extremists' ambition to seize power in the area and unseat the Palestinian National Authority. The power struggle between the Palestinians of Al-Fatah and those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad is nothing new. For years, the struggle has been going on daily to the point of making negotiations with Israel unfeasible because there are so many Palestinian interlocutors with different interests, many of them dictated by the Ayatollahs' regime in Tehran. It is clear that someone is supplying hundreds of rockets to Islamic Jihad which are fired at Israeli cities with the aim of provoking a harsh retaliation that would reinstate the Tel Aviv government as the aggressor and responsible for the death of civilians.
Iran is currently negotiating the possible resumption of the international table on its nuclear programme and is demanding the lifting of political, economic and trade sanctions. Meanwhile, the enormous positive consequences of the Sunni Arab-Israeli understanding of the Abraham Accords are growing and multiplying, reaching all sectors of the societies behind it. Iran is trying to break this understanding and its best weapon is the rocket attack on Israel to provoke the ensuing response and use the usual demagogy to cast doubt on countries that collaborate with the Israelis.
It is the script of a sad movie that we have seen too many times in the region and that only harms the Palestinians themselves, manipulated by Iranian-driven terrorist groups who use violence to try to achieve their own interests. The Palestinians do not deserve this torture and, by the way, when will there be elections in the West Bank and Gaza?