EverydaySpy Podcast - Israel vs Palestine: Hamas Declares WAR | EMERGENCY Podcast

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

This weekend, the terrorist group Hamas launched a successful surprise attack into Israel that left the world shocked. While some are calling the attack an intelligence failure, Israel has declared war on Hamas in the Gaza strip. With an active war in Europe between Ukraine and Russia rounding a second year, the Middle East was on the brink of peace. So the question everyone is asking is 'Why did Hamas attack NOW?' Today, we answer that question… Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early morning hours on Saturday, October 7th, Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack into Israel that left the world shocked. When you look at this attack, there are already people calling it an intelligence failure. And what I want to flag first and foremost is that there's not enough information yet to confirm whether or not this was a successful surprise attack on the part of Hamas or an actual intelligence failure on the part of the Israeli intelligence service. In this case, Shinbet, their defensive intelligence service. Most people don't understand how a surprise attack and intelligence failure wouldn't be the same thing.

One of the key things I want to share with you today is the difference between a surprise attack and an intelligence failure, as well as looking into why it was that Hamas chose this day, of all days, at this time in world history, to launch this incredible, a bold invasion into Israel. The first question we need to answer is, was this a successful, surprise attack or was this an intelligence failure? Based on the information that we have at hand right now, it looks like this was actually a successful surprise attack more so than an intelligence failure and I'll tell you why. In order for an intelligence failure to occur, the intelligence leading to a preventative measure must be proven to have been there. We don't actually know whether or not

Israel had presumptive premeditative intelligence to be able to prevent or predict this surprise attack from Hamas. All we know is that the attack happened and Israel and the Israeli defense forces were caught by surprise. Because of that, that suggests that this was a successful surprise attack, which means that Hamas and the powers behind Hamas successfully were able to create and launch an operation in secret. That is the definition of a successful surprise attack, an attack that's created, engineered, and architected in secret and then successfully executed in public. When an intelligence unit doesn't have any insight, because the information has been, successfully kept secret, that is not a failure of intelligence. That is a lack of intelligence.

So what we see here is very likely that Hamas' surprise attack was successful because it led to a lack of intelligence for the Israeli defense force and the Israeli intelligence services to be able to use to prevent and predict the attack. Based on the information available to the public so far, that's very much how this looks. More like a successful surprise attack than an intelligence failure. Now, there's a second element here that we also have to consider. Just because the intelligence services become aware of intelligence doesn't always mean that the policymakers who are in charge of executing defensive measures on behalf of that intelligence actually take the action that's required of them.

So what that means is if Hamas created an attack and if there was intelligence to be gathered, even if Israelis Mossad or Shimbab collected that information, it would still be up to the Netanyahu administration to actually execute defensive policies in enough time to protect the Israeli people. So that's, again, not a sign of intelligence failure if it is, in fact, the policymakers or the administration who is ineffective in executing on the intelligence that they're given. We don't have enough information at this point in time to be understand if intelligence was collected on the attack and if it was, whether or not the Netanyahu administration actually took preemptive action on the intelligence that was collected, or whether that intelligence

sat in a report in somebody's inbox overnight, or if it was ignored, or if it was overlooked. We don't have enough information to confirm whether or not this was truly an intelligence failure, so I want to make sure that you understand as you watch the headlines and the headline news, this is not a proven intelligence failure, and any journalist who claims that it is is just demonstrating that they have no idea of how intelligence actually works. This was for sure a successful surprise attack, and whether or not there was intelligence to be able to prevent the surprise attack is yet to be determined. Now, understanding the intelligence truth of this situation, let's talk about why the timing is so important. Now, I don't think it's really that important

that this happened at an anniversary period of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. I think that that's interesting, and I think that's in line with what you see with many terrorist groups that generally tend to execute operations on anniversaries of other dates. But, more important than that, consider the fact that Israel has been going through some advanced negotiations with Saudi Arabia for normalization of ties between the Israeli or the Jewish and the Muslim or Sunni Muslim world. Now, if you zoom in on the Middle East, you basically have two countries vying for influential dominance in the Middle East. And those two countries are Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran is, of course, Shia and Saudi Arabia is Sunni in terms of the primary Muslim

faith in both countries. Now, Iran is trying to spread its influence and expand the Sunni caliphate across what it calls the Red Crescent throughout the Gulf countries in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is trying to prevent against that by creating a strong base of Sunni support, and Sunni Islam is the same kind of Islam that's practiced in large part by the Palestinians that exist in the Gaza Strip in the West Bank of Israel. So Saudi Arabia has become this strong international supporter of the Sunni Muslim Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. And as Saudi Arabia becomes closer and closer in diplomatic ties with Israel, it actually poses an increasing threat on Iran because the stronger that Saudi Arabia gets and the stronger

that Israel gets, the weaker that Iran looks in the eyes of the world. Now, Hamas, as an internationally recognized and registered terrorist organization, gets funding for its operation from two sources. Its primary source is a group of charitable donations and charitable giving from across the Sunni world. But the second place that it gets its funding from is directly from Iran. Hamas is a proxy force, a tool that's used to execute foreign policy objectives on behalf of Iran beyond Iranian borders. And it does so by using support, financial support and weapons and training that come from Iran, as well as pulling from its own base of charitable donations as a quasi-official quasi-policy-police.

politically recognized group because keep in mind, Hamas is a recognized political party inside the Gaza Strip. So Hamas not only has these registered official ties to the outside world, but it also has these very official ties back to Iran as a terrorist group and a proxy group for executing Iranian foreign policy. So to put it simply, Hamas serves as a proxy force for Iran in executing a protracted conflict for influence in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia. So when you look at it that way, what you see is that Israel isn't really the target at all. What you have here is a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Iran is trying to prevent Saudi Arabia from closing diplomatic ties with Israel.

And in order to do that, they know that they can use their proxy weapon, Hamas, to create conflict and chaos in between Gaza and Israel, which is going to force Netanyahu and his right-leaning, very conservative political base, to attack and incur vengeance back into Gaza Strip, which means they are going to take the lives and intentionally attack Sunni Muslim Palestinians that exist in Gaza. And in so doing, they're going to cause a rift between Israel and Saudi Arabia. As real as the deaths are on both sides. And as of this recording, there have been hundreds of Israelis lost and hundreds of Palestinians lost in just the first few hours of this conflict. But in hearing Netanyahu and his administration come out and say that this

is officially a war, Israel has declared war as a result of this conflict. In just a few hours, that shows that there is long-term consequence. There will be continued aggression as Israel seeks vengeance for the attacks that happened on Saturday, October 7th. That promise of continued violence is going to continue to push a rift between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which benefits Iraq. That's what is really happening here. That's the true reason why Hamas invaded Israel. Hamas knows that they don't have a chance in invading and taking land in Israel. That's why the troops that went in, the gunmen that went in, were numbered in the dozens, not in the hundreds, not in the thousands, in the dozens. And their strategy was to go into Israel, to kill people in the

streets, and to actually kidnap individuals to take them back for ransom purposes in the Gaza the strip. Hamas has no intention of going in and taking long-term land from Israel. So that means that this entire attack was created as a ploy simply to instigate an Israeli response. Why would they want an Israeli response? Why would they want to invite the kind of aggression that they're going to get from Israel? Because keep in mind that Israel has superior firepower, superior weapons capability, superior training, a superior military force. So they will be able to wreak actual hell on earth in Gaza in response for this attack. So what did Hamas really have to gain? It wasn't about Hamas gaining at all. It was about Iran gaining by increasing the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Israelis, now why is this so important? The Israelis have expanded their relationships, their diplomatic relationships across the Muslim world. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have joined and recognized officially diplomatic ties and diplomatic relations with Israel. That has never been seen before, ever in the history of the Middle East, and it just happened within the last two years. Saudi Arabia and Israel are on a similar path to being able to close that gap and have the same kind of positive diplomatic relations. The only two countries who are still on the outside of that are Qatar and Iran. So Qatar and Iran are still holding strong to a very conservative Muslim stance that prevents any kind of recognition of the Jewish state. What you see here is a

jockeying of power in the Middle East. They're choosing their time to have this conflict very much so with an eye towards the United States. In the last week, the United States has had major turmoil. The Speaker of the House has been ousted from his office after barely closing a continuing resolution that kept the federal government alive. And even then, that continuing resolution included two important budgetary constraints. First, the U.S. budget is only really allowed to continue until mid-November, less than 30 days from today. And second, that budget included no provisions to support Ukraine and their continuing conflict in Europe. That means the United States is not at liberty to provide funds for the current

war between Ukraine and Russia in Europe. So now that there's a new war in the Middle East, our continuing resolution essentially means that the United States is hamstrung and cannot provide financial support to the war between Israel and Hamas. Now, of course, there are still ways that the executive office and the president can work around those restrictions, but the American people, going into a voting year where Biden is suffering from very low approval ratings, are going to be watching very carefully to see what does President Biden and President Biden's administration choose to do to support Netanyahu, who is a known conservative leader in what is essentially a a lopsided, one-sided attack against the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.

It's common knowledge in the international community that there is no way to compare the military force, the training or the investment, the money behind the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli IDF. There's no way to compare the two. For the IDF to attack Hamas, it's going to be a bloodbath in the Gaza Strip, which is going to cause a humanitarian issue around the world. When you start to look at how the future this conflict will play out, and what it means for Saudi Arabian and Israeli relations, as well as Israeli and American relations, you start to understand exactly why it is that Iran sanctioned a surprise attack by Hamas across the border into Israel, even though they knew that Hamas did not have a fair shot at actually

being able to continue a protracted war. What we are going to see play out in the coming days and weeks is going to be an absolute international travesty. We're going to see chaos between Israel and Saudi Arabia. You're going to see tension between Israel and the United States. You're going to see a bloodbath between Israel and the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip. And you're going to see outrage from multiple countries all throughout the Middle East. At a time when the whole world has been focused on a war in Europe, we are all about to see that the conflict in Europe is just a microcosm of multiple conflicts happening around the world. At a time when influence is shifting away from democratic powers and more towards strong authoritarian regimes.

I will be paying careful attention to what happens between Israel and the Gaza Strip in the coming days and weeks, and I know you will be too. And I plan on giving you any insight and any geopolitical truths that I see that nobody else is talking about. If you want to stay ahead of the conflict, keep your eyes on Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, because that's where the real conflict is. Hamas is just a proxy, a decoy, just a tool. They don't have the authority or the funding to be able to execute this on their own. What they are doing is enabling the foreign policy of Iran to be able to affect ongoing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And whether or not Iran is successful, Israel is successful, or Saudi Arabia is successful is yet to be seen. If you like what you saw here today, go ahead and hit the like button, subscribe, share with a friend. We've got to get this information out there. If I gave you a new way of looking at this conflict today, go ahead and hit the subscribe button, give me a like, share with a friend, and make sure you stay tuned because we have more yet to come. I'm