Hamas Tried to Drive a Wedge between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Will It Backfire? - William Spaniel

[TexasTowelie]

One of the leading theories for Hamas's attack on October 7 was a desire to end normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If Israel were to engage in large-scale countermeasures, public sentiment in the Arab world, including within Saudi Arabia, would make such an agreement infeasible. Despite this appearing to go according to plan so far, it remains possible that the strategy will backfire. What was originally holding up the deal was Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, which was a key part of what kept the Israeli government's coalition government together. But the attack has put the government on weak footing. As such, the net effect on the long-run normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia remains nebulous.

0:00 The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend?
1:46 Middle East Political Alignments
6:14 The Israeli-Saudi Normalization Process
10:27 The Hold Up to a Deal
12:33 Hamas's Preventive War
14:00 Hamas's Grand Strategic Plan
14:47 How the Plan Could Backfire

[Lithos]

1. Interesting...

Short term - yes
Long term - no

[TexasTowelie]

2. It is to the financial advantage for both Israel and Saudi Arabia to come to an agreement to

establish relations. They will also provide a counterbalance to Iran's efforts to destabilize the Middle East. I agree with your prognosis for both the short-term and long-term outlook between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Good to see your comment and I hope that you are doing well.

[Lithos]

3. Good to see you too!

Doing well, thank you for asking. Hope you are as well!

Definitely agree they view each other as allies and anchor points against Iran. Not sure how much money this would mean for Israel, but Iran is definitely threatening Saudi oil dominance in the Persian Gulf the value of which is well into the hundreds of Billions USD.

I also think the US is a not so subtle actor here as well given the US needs both players (as well as other Persian Gulf countries) to counter Iran as well. And they need our help as well. That is why we're fighting the Houthi in Yemen as well as why Trump assassinated an Iranian General back in his administration. Also why Trump has such a sweet financial deal with the Saudis - he basically has pimpled out the US military to do things the Saudis find too dirty to do. (He leveraged our needs and their needs to skim some money off of the top for himself).

[TexasTowelie]

4. The practice of pimping our military began under George H. W. Bush and the Persian Gulf War.

If my brother wasn't fighting in Iraq at the time, I probably would have joined more protests against the war. Even though I wasn't as liberal then as I am now, the thought of our armed forces being mercenaries was always in my thoughts.

The good news is that my brother went to see someone at the VA a few months ago because he falls under the provisions of the PACT Act. The counseling agent looked at his application from 2018 (the form that neither the VA service agent nor my brother noticed that the SSN was wrong, but I spotted in less than five seconds) when he was denied. They sent in an appeal to reevaluate his claim and he received a 50% disability rating for PTSD and other mental health issues plus they still need to conduct pulmonary tests to see if he receives anything from the PACT Act. Because of the work and effort of Democrats, he received back pay for five years and is receiving a monthly check. However, being ungrateful that he is to the people looking out for his interests, my brother will almost certainly vote for Trump.

As for myself, I am on a roller-coaster ride with the diabetes and anemia. I was always thin, but dropping about 40 pounds this year has left me with skin and bones. The good news was that I finally had a colonoscopy and had good results other than removing a couple polyps. I also had good news from the kidney doctor that everything is still working and I had a COVID booster yesterday.