KUALA LUMPUR (Politics Now!) - Out it drips. Now it appears it was none other than U.S. president Joe Biden who gave US$6 billion to Iran, who in turn gave the money to Hamas who used it to attack Israel.
"Thanks to 'Sleepy Joe', Iranian assets worth over US$6 billion were unfrozen recently, thus allowing Iran – a staunch rival of Israel – to fill its coffers and to fund the terror group," wrote the Finance Twitter news portal.
The money held in South Korea was released as part of a deal struck by the clueless and incompetent Biden to free five U.S. citizens detained in Iran.
The US$6 billion was then transferred to an account in Doha, Qatar. Of course, the Biden administration denies that the money was payment to release the American hostages. It has claimed that it was payments made by South Korea to Iran to buy oil in recent years.
However, the White House contradicted itself at the same time, also saying the money in Doha is meant to be used for solely humanitarian purpose.
"Clearly, the Oval Office lies through its teeth as it could not get its story straight about the prisoner deal," said Finance Twitter.
Not surprisingly, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi put an end to U.S. nonsense by saying his country would spend the money “wherever we need it”.
The spotlight now swings over to the hapless Biden. Given that the U.S. State Department had previously revealed that Iran provides some US$100 million a year to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, he cannot now pretend to be a virgin on his wedding night and claim innocence he never expected Iran would use the money to fund Hamas.
"Facing a defeat in the Ukraine War, President Biden too needed a war to divert attention from his foreign policy failure, which has so far burned tens of billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine," said Finance Twitter.
"The U.S. and its allies could use the new conflict in the Middle East to quietly pull out assistance for Ukraine in order to save face. Zelensky might need to negotiate with Putin for a terrible deal."
EVERY REASON FOR MOSSAD TO PRETEND TO BE SLEEPING
Israel has its own geopolitical reason to start a war with Hamas - just as the U.S. had motives to try to trap Russia into a prolonged proxy war in Ukraine.
It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that Tel-Aviv was looking forward to Hamas’ attacks. The leadership of Hamas has been inciting Arab Israeli citizens to fight back. More importantly, Tel-Aviv has been looking for opportunities to launch air strikes against Hamas bomb-making facilities and the homes of senior militant commanders.
Therefore, it begs the question – was there really a sudden breakdown in the Israeli intelligence service? It’s hard to believe that Israel did not take seriously Hamas’ threat after the terrorists fired 2,900 rockets back in 2021. Even if its invincible intelligence somehow malfunctioned and its surveillance drones were on holiday, the U.S. military intelligence would have picked up chatter about the invasions prior.
After all, for nearly a year prior, the U.S. and Western officials saw the signs of Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Pentagon also knew how the head of the Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was assassinated after his plane crashed. Chances are both Israel and the U.S. knew about Hamas’ plan to launch the massive attacks, but kept quiet and allowed it to happen.
NETANYAHU & BIDEN - FROM FAILED PM & PRESIDENT TO WARTIME LEADERS
Domestically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose approval rating plunged to 38%, needed a new war to boost his popularity. Thanks to Hamas, he succeeded in using the Israeli version of 9/11 to unify the country behind him, with even the Opposition declaring their support. The citizens’ movements that have been opposing Netanyahu’s justice reform since January have now also committed their support for him.
"Overnight, he transformed from a failed prime minister to a wartime leader. By drawing Washington into the war, Israel may expand the war to include Iran, which directly supports and sponsors Hamas." the report continued..
"In the same breath, ahead of the presidential elections in 2024, Joe Biden has his own political reason to support and provide Israel with more arms and ammunition."
BIGGEST LOSER HAMAS & THE PALESTININAN PEOPLE?
The loser in the whole carnage seems to Hamas.
Nobody thought the Hamas fighters would be bold enough to launch an invasion against the “Land of Israel”, let alone infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land and sea. The massive number of rockets had overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome Defence Shield, while the storming of Hamas gunmen caught the country off guard on a major holiday.
On the first day alone (Saturday, Oct-7), at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 wounded as Hamas terrorists rampaged through Israeli towns – the deadliest in 50 years. The security breach was not only a humiliation, but threatens the very existence of Israel in the Middle East.
But this was not a conflict or “a special military operation” seen when Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022. Instead, this appears to be a well planned strategy to capture Israeli citizens. Taking a page from Washington’s playbook, the Hamas mission was to capture as many Israel people as possible.
More than 100 Israeli and foreign national hostages, including women and children, have been taken into Gaza by Hamas. The Hamas plans to use the captured Israelis to strike a deal for the release of Palestinians in Israel’s prisons. If Joe Biden willingly gave away US$6 billion in exchange for 5 Americans, just imagine how much Hamas could extract from Israel.
To get an idea how valuable Israel prisoner is, an Israeli soldier – Gilad Shalit – was exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in 2006. Today, the number of Palestinians behind Israeli bars is about 5,200, including 36 women and 170 children. Hamas is betting Israel will be more than happy to exchange 100 of its people with all the Palestinian prisoners.
But the volatile group might not get the prisoner exchange it had hoped for. In fact, Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, most likely won’t be able to govern the territory again after making the strategic blunder of butchering some 900 Israelis and some other nationalities indiscriminately.
The hostages included those from Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Paraguay, Nepal, Thailand, Germany, Britain and the U.S., among others. Worse, the State Department revealed that at least 11 American citizens have been slaughtered. In addition, 12 Thais, 10 Nepalis, 2 Ukrainians, a French, a British, a Cambodian and some Germans have been killed.
Essentially, Hamas – biting off more than it can chew – has declared war on many countries.This makes negotiations complicated and will cement Hamas as a terrorist group not only in Israel, but also globally.
"Now that the world has watched how Hamas provoked Israel for a war by butchering unarmed women and children, Israel can legitimately enter Gaza to hunt and bomb the terror group to oblivion," claims the Finance Twitter report.
DECLARING WAR ON IRAN THE NEXT
Iran has long been using Hamas to test the vulnerability of the Israeli military’s cutting edge air defences – the Iron Dome, Arrow 3, Barack 8 and David’s Sling. While the Iron Dome is used to knock down short-range missiles from the Gaza Strip, the Arrow-3, launched in 2017, forms the uppermost layer of Israel’s multi-layered defence system to shoot down ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) outside the atmosphere.
According to some reports, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah were also concerned about Biden administration’s effort in brokering a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthiest Arab state. By sparking a new war with Israel to sabotage the peace plan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the region will be forced to take sides and it looks a given no Muslim nation in the region will want anything to do with the U.S. for now.
Finally, what happens now to nuclear-power Iran? It has long been the thorn in Israeli and U.S. eyes and it now looks like it will be dragged into a war with the duo.
Will the U.S. and Israel launch a joint strike at Teheran and carve up the spoils?
Israel forces are already mobilizing a mind-boggling 300,000 troops and reservists plus tanks and armored personnel carriers near the border with Gaza – suggesting a ground assault is imminent. Whilst best friend the U.S. has ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to move to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
It is also telling that Netanyahu has advised Israelis to prepare for a long war that will shift to “offensive” operations soon.
This has terrible implications not only for Iranians and West Asia but also for the entire world. Some of the richest oil fields belong to Iran and sky-high oil prices and inflations now looks set to ravage the world for longer than expected. - Edited by Wong Choon Mei, Politics Now!
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