Newly uncovered internal Hamas documents confirm a longtime theory explaining the motives behind the Oct.7, 2023 terror attack which kicked off the bloody and grinding Gaza war, which still shows no signs of abating and has resulted in unprecedented death and destruction in the Gaza Strip.
The documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, demonstrate that Hamas leaders had a specific aim of preventing a potential peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia based on the US-backed Abraham Accords. This was speculated about soon after the horrific attacks that also kicked off the hostage crisis.
This is according to minutes from a high-level meeting which cite now slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and which were reportedly discovered by Israeli forces in Gaza tunnels. Sinwar was quoted in the internal papers, which are dated Oct. 2, 2023 - as saying, "There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly."
He expressed alarm that a deal would "open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path."
Indeed the Palestinians have long feared that broad acceptance of the Abraham Accords in the region would leave the cause of a statehood permanently forgotten and sidelined. It would allow for Israeli expansion with impunity, and with no powerful Arab block to resist or raise a voice. It would also likely dry up any funding or weapons support for armed groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
The Wall Street Journal presents the following, quoting notes from the meeting further:
For Sinwar and Hamas, who have called for total destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, this was unacceptable. Sinwar said it was time to unleash an attack that had been in the planning stages for two years.
The goal, he said, is "to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause." He expected to get help from the other Iranian-backed forces of the so-called axis of resistance to Israel.
He called for an "extraordinary act" in order to halt the move toward Israeli-Saudi normalization.
Hamas has not commented on the documents' authenticity, but again, their contents appear fully consistent with concerns voiced by some Palestinian officials long prior to Oct. 7 - that the Palestinian cause would suffocate and die if the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, achieve full diplomatic normalization with Israel.
One year ago, at the tail-end of the Biden administration, the US was still trying to entice the Saudis to sign a deal - even offering help with developing a civilian nuclear program and fewer restrictions on arms purchases in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel.
The US position has long been that a Palestinian state must be born out direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, and not accomplished superficially within an external forum like the UN. But powerful Arab states like Saudi Arabia would theoretically apply immense pressure on the Palestinian side.
Israel for its part has clearly rejected that it will allow for a Palestinian state so long as Hamas still exists, and PM Netanyahu has even linked the more secular-leaning Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to 'terrorism'. He has also rejected a prior US call to allow the PA to take over and administer the Gaza Strip. The reality is that the current Gaza war makes the prospect of achieving a Palestinian state more distant than ever.
And the prospect of Palestinian statehood resulting from some kind of Israel-Saudi normalization agreement based on Trump's Abraham Accords (conceived during his first administration) - which US media reports previously hailed as 'deal of the century' - also clearly seems a pipe dream at this point.
In this regard at least, Sinyar's 'extraordinary act' served its purpose, but the bloody aftermath is thousands of Israelis killed, many tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and wounded, and a region on fire.
