In January 2021, on the heels of Joe Biden’s Presidential “victory” and in the thick of the Covid smokescreen—Israel agreed to move defensively from EUCOM (European Command) to the umbrella of CENTCOM (US Central Command), enabling Israel’s “operational collaboration” with other Middle East partners. The move would obviously also expose Israel’s vulnerabilities to its other Middle East partners—perhaps conveniently so.
““The realignment, announced by the [US] Defense Department in January, strengthens the strategic US-Israeli defense relationship and offers opportunities to deepen operational collaboration between the Israel Defense Forces and CENTCOM’s many partners in the region,” CENTCOM said in a statement. . . .The US Central Command’s area of responsibility stretches across the Middle East to Central Asia, including the Persian Gulf region, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Fast-forward to October 7, 2023 and Hamas’s “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”. . .
Amir Taheri, an Iranian-born columnist for the Saudi publication Asharq Al-Awsat weighed in:
“Major-General Yahya Safavi who wears the lofty title of ‘Senior military Advisor’ to ‘Supreme Guide’ Ali Khamenei in Tehran, says Hamas planned the attack over two years with a view to divert Israeli attention from Gaza and make a surprise attack possible. He does not say whether Iranians were involved in the planning but drops hints that they knew about the plot.”
That would mean beginning in 2021, when Israel switched from EUCOM to CENTCOM.
Taheri says further:
“Reports that cannot be independently confirmed suggest that Hamas, again using a convoluted network of informers, provided ‘valuable intelligence’ to Israel on Islamic Jihad and embryonic groups in the West Bank, reinforcing the narrative that Hamas was trying to build a new persona as an embryonic state rather than a guerrilla group.”
Despite Gulf Arabs for decades outwardly championing the Palestinian cause and vocally outraged now about atrocities in Gaza—political players in these countries are also tired of ongoing Palestinian problems and appear more concerned about ensuring a productive post-fossil-fuel economy that looks to China as well as Israel as partners in a successful pivot.
The timing of Israel’s 2021 move from EUCOM to CENTCOM looks completely suspect, with the Biden administration’s ham-fisted prints all over the death of innocent Palestinians and Israelis, whatever the body count turns out to be. . .
OSCILLATIONS 