Tactically their October 7 attack was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
To answer the question, what they think would happen: Their October 7th attacked achieved everything they wanted.
KSA and Israel we’re coming to an understanding and treaty, that was against the interests of Iran who is in a power struggle with the KSA.
After their attack, it is now politically impossible for the KSA and Israel to have a treaty. That alone justifies this entire conflict from their power politics perspective
They never had any hope of inflicting damage on the Israeli government. They clearly don’t care about their own civilian casualties. In fact The worst the reprisals the better for their recruitment and funding efforts.
Probably not directly related to the rationale for their attack, but it got them some ancillary support, it removed Russia’s aggression from the news media cycle. Which probably got them some favor in those circles.
From a media perspective, this has been a massive Boone for their campaign. They more or less had disappeared from international headlines for the last 10 years. Now everybody is talking about the genocide, and the ethnic cleansing. They’re going to pay very dearly for it, but that’s more media attention than they’ve had for a decade.
Ok yes I can follow that. The cynical thing is that in none of the reasons the Palestinian people are central. Those are victimized by both the Israelis and Hamas, following this rationale.
An extra cynical level is that the wished of the extreme right Israelis and Hamas are the same. To keep this war going indefinitely, not matter the cost of human life.
In what kind of setting would this be proposed? ‘listen we might invite genocidal terror on our own people, but Russia needs some radio silence and we crave media attention’ and everyone involved going like ‘that’s absolutely worth it brother’.
Maybe I’m too naive, I cannot see the tactical gain in that perspective. Thanks though, for good counter points. It helps me trying to make some kind of sense of this.
It’s straight Machiavelli politics.
I highly recommend you read, or listen to, The Prince by Machiavelli. It’s a very short read, but helps you get in the right frame of mind for this type of politicking
