US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must call for the ouster of Russia from the East Jerusalem-based Middle East Quartet made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to punish apparent Russian complicity in Hamas’ bloody terrorist attack, the worst military incursion and greatest intelligence failure for Israel since the Yom Kippur War on October 6, 1973.
Not only does it appear that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tacitly green-lighted the attacks, which killed more than 700 Israelis and resulted in the capture of more than 50 hostages, but also that the Hamas terrorists received military training from Russia.
According to Ukrainian military intelligence sources, Hamas received training from the Wagner mercenary group of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Redut private army founded by sanctioned Russian oligarch and former owner of the Geneva-based Gunvor commodity trading house, Gennady Timchenko, and controlled by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
On Sunday, Israel officially declared war on Hamas after launching “Operation Iron Swords” on Hamas operations in Gaza and Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon.
The devastating attack seemed to have taken everyone by surprise.
Not even US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, who briefly broke off a meet and greet at an Annapolis Naval Academy event on Friday afternoon for urgent business, seemed aware that a deadly terrorist attack on Israel was in the air.
Officials at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington said they had no information on possible Wagner or Redut involvement in training Hamas militants, while the Russian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mikhail Ulyanov, declined to comment on Wagner and Redut involvement.
Russia has used Wagner and Redut assets in military operations with Iran in support of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Military experts in the US and Europe claim that Hamas’ use of diversionary rocket attacks, combined with drones and surprise ground assault, are all skills learned from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
Another factor pointing to Russian complicity in the Hamas attack was the lack of condemnation by either President Vladimir Putin or even Lavrov of the attack, with the highest-level official, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, stating to the official government news service Tass: “This is a relapse of a 75-year-old conflict. Moscow is in contact with all parties, including the Arab states. We call for an immediate ceasefire and peace.”
Lavrov has publicly met with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh several times, twice in the past year; with the last meeting in Moscow in September 2022.
Lavrov, who considers himself the heir of Soviet diplomacy practiced by Andrei Gromyko and a Middle East expert on the lines of late Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, may have committed his last fatal blunder as foreign minister by not forewarning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the imminent attack by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip.
While it is in Iran’s national interest to carry out any operation that could block US-led efforts to enlarge the Israeli Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, the Hamas attacks are clearly counter to Russian national interest and that of its “partner without limits,” China.
China, which has courted Israel through investing in critical infrastructure such as the Port of Haifa and in Israeli-based VC/PE funds like Catalyst Investments, is loath to see any dramatic spike in crude-oil prices that would dramatically raise the cost of exports. Any surge of oil prices to more than $150 a barrel would undoubtedly trigger a global recession, with the worst impact on China’s already precarious economy.
Netanyahu, and previous Israeli governments, have until now taken a generally neutral position in the Russo-Ukrainian war, arguing that it needed Russia’s help to thwart Iranian-sponsored attacks from Syria and elsewhere. But after Russia’s failure to prevent, and probable complicity in, the Hamas attacks, Israel is now set to become Ukraine’s most important military ally in its war against Russia.
The Israeli Star of David is flying over Ukrainian streets from from Kiev to Kharkiv in a spontaneous grassroots display of solidarity.
However, Biden and the EU can clearly bring home the point that Russia is truly a pariah nation with no business in global diplomacy by kicking it out of the Quartet, the body formed in Madrid in 2002 to advance the Palestinian economy and a two-state solution for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Just as Ukraine has replaced Russia as a de facto eighth member of the Group of Seven, Ukraine can replace Russia as a member of the Quartet, recognizing its successful role in bringing countries such as Saudi Arabia into the Ukrainian peace process, while at the same time Biden can keep his promise that Ukraine will have the same security guarantees that Israel has from the United States until it becomes a full NATO member.
