WarSclerotic

At the start of April, Hebrew media outlets quoted unnamed Israeli security officials as saying the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror faction, whose rocket arsenal is larger even than that of Hamas, was planning a significant attack on Israeli targets.

The information appeared to achieve its goal of discouraging the perpetrators, and no attack transpired. But the fact that Islamic Jihad was reportedly planning an incident that could have hampered Egyptian attempts to restore calm to the Gaza Strip could hint at a wider struggle taking place within Gaza between Egypt and Iran.

Hamas, which rules over Gaza, has reportedly faced demands from Egypt in recent months to decide whether it “takes its orders from Tehran or continues to implement the understandings for calm” formulated by the head of Egyptian intelligence Abbas Kamel.

The clash of interests between these two regional Middle Eastern powers seems clear; Egypt wishes to see Gaza calm, stable and cut off from Islamic State-affiliated terror networks in the Sinai Peninsula, which also threaten Egyptian security as a whole.

Iran sees Gaza as one more base from which it can exercise its radical influence and encourage the growth of a terrorist army that threatens Israel and regional stability.

Iran transfers $100 million a year to the military wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad collectively, according to Israeli estimates.

Boaz Ganor, executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, recalled that with the signing of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Cairo had no interest in retaking Gaza.

Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat “understood the problematic nature of this territory, which is the most crowded in the world, and racked with poverty, fundamentalism and a lack of a sovereign ruler,” said Ganor. As a result, Sadat did not demand a return of Egyptian rule over Gaza, despite the fact that Egypt controlled the territory prior to the 1967 Six-Day War.

“What Sadat understood, [current Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah] el-Sissi also understands, although in a different manner,” Ganor told JNS. “El-Sissi understands that the Strip contains many risks to Egypt within it. Hamas, which controls Gaza, is tied by the umbilical cord to its mother movement—the Muslim Brotherhood—who are Sissi’s loathed and strategic enemies.”

El-Sissi has identified a process of Iranian infiltration into Gaza via its proxy, PIJ, “and is concerned by the growth of a forward Iranian post on the northern border of Egypt,” assessed Ganor.

Another source of concern for El-Sissi is the fact that IS in Sinai is linked to fellow Salafi-jihadist elements in Gaza. These security and political factors, as well as Egyptian concerns over the prospect of a new armed conflict erupting between Israel and Hamas on Egypt’s border, have all led to “massive Egyptian intervention and a will to be active in what is taking place in the Strip,” said Ganor. Israel, for its part, is in favor of this intervention and has even requested it over the years.

Yet Iran is trying to neutralize Egyptian influence in Gaza, Ganor noted, while looking to tighten its links with its Gazan proxies. Tehran is trying to transfer funds and weapons into Gaza. “It also seeks to instruct its proxies to disrupt every process that can lead to calm,” said Ganor.

Tehran’s relationship with Hamas is somewhat more complicated.

Ganor said that “Iran’s influence on Hamas is significant, but much smaller than its influence on Hezbollah. Hamas zealously safeguards its independence and does not view itself as being obligated to Iranian interests.”

The Iranian branch in Gaza

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, described Islamic Jihad as a “kind of Iranian branch inside the Gaza Strip.”

Former Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Salah, as well its current chief, Ziad Nakhalah, are both frequent visitors to Iran, where they are “familiar guests,” stated Segall, a former head of the Iran Branch at the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate.

With Iran training Islamic Jihad fighters in the Islamic Republic, the organization is an “explicit proxy of Iran, in contrast to Hamas, which is under Iranian influence but has its own agenda and is more independent,” he said.

Despite this Iranian influence, Egypt has far more at stake in Gaza, which is at its back door. “Whatever happens in Sinai directly influences Egypt. Iran, meanwhile, is distant, and tries to activate its influence in Gaza by remote control,” said Segall.

He summed up the Iranian proxy strategy as follows: “The more Israel bleeds on its borders, the less it can engage Iran directly.” And the Iranians would like the same thing to happen in the West Bank, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for terror factions there to be armed just like they are in Gaza.

“This is [a] central component in [the] Iranian doctrine. It’s about asymmetric warfare. Gaza, Lebanon and Syria have become part of Iran’s asymmetric warfare doctrine,” said Segall.

Islamic Jihad has used Iranian-made sniper rifles to fire at the IDF, as well as advanced bombs. It manufactures rockets with Iranian know-how – all part of Iran’s attempt to “sharpen its influence and leave its footprint” in Gaza.

Segall positioned Gaza as one layer in a broader “Iranian war, which plays out in other places, including Yemen, where the Houthis operate against Saudi Arabia, firing missiles against it. It is very similar to what is happening in Gaza. The Iranians work with a proxy toolbox against the Saudis, the Egyptians and Gulf states. This is not limited to Gaza.”

While Iran has the power to activate Islamic Jihad to disrupt Egyptian mediation efforts or spark a new conflict, the terrorist group also faces pressure from Hamas, which can force its will on it, including through the force of arms, according to Segall.

“I think that on the day they receive their order from Iran, Islamic Jihad will obey and cash in its checks, which it received over the years from the Iranians,” he said.

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The U.S. Treasury, moving to boost pressure on Hezbollah, imposed sanctions on Wednesday against two people and three firms that Washington accuses of being involved in schemes to help the armed Shiite group backed by Iran evade American sanctions.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was targeting Belgium-based Wael Bazzi because he acted on behalf of his father Mohammad Bazzi, a Hezbollah financier.

OFAC also took action against two Belgian companies and a British-based firm controlled by Bazzi.

In addition, the U.S. Treasury designated Lebanon-based Hassan Tabaja, who it said had acted on behalf of his brother Adham Tabajha, also a Hezbollah financier. The U.S. action freezes their assets and property and prevents U.S. citizens and businesses from dealing with them.

The two men and three businesses were targeted for sanctions under U.S. regulations aimed at suspected terrorists or those who support them, the Treasury said in a statement. Hezbollah is considered a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.

“The Treasury is relentlessly pursuing Hezbollah’s financial facilitators by dismantling two of Hezbollah’s most important financial networks,” Treasury Undersecretary Sigal Mandelker said in a statement.

“By targeting Hassan Tabaja and Wael Bazzi and their European-based companies, this administration is continuing to disrupt all avenues of financial support relied upon by Hezbollah,” he said.

The U.S. State Department earlier this week offered a reward of up to $10 million for information that could help disrupt Hezbollah’s financing.

The move to boost pressure on the group comes at a time of growing U.S. concern about its role in the Lebanese government. Hezbollah’s regional clout has expanded as it has sent fighters to Middle East conflicts, including the war in Syria, where it supported President Bashar Assad.

“If Israel bombards our airport, we will bombard its airport; if it strikes our oil facilities, we will strike its oil facilities,” Saab reportedly said while touring his country’s southern region that borders Israel.

Saab also ruled out the possibility of Israeli starting a war with Lebanon, claiming that the Lebanese military has the deterrence power to prevent it.

In February, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard expressed concerns over Hezbollah’s growing role in the country’s new cabinet, adding that the Iran-backed organization continues to make its own “national security decisions” that “endanger the rest of the country.”

The U.S. views Hezbollah as a terrorist group, but is a strong supporter of Lebanon’s national army, supplying it with arms worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. In mid-February, the American Embassy in Lebanon said the U.S. had delivered laser-guided rockets valued at more than $16 million to the Lebanese army.

Richard said last year alone, the United States provided more than $825 million in assistance, an increase from the year before.

On Monday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that if Israel wants to wage a war against his terrorist organization, which is based in southern Lebanon, it will need to launch a ground invasion that it currently isn’t prepared for.

“I am leaning toward the conclusion that Israel is unlikely to carry out a war on Lebanon. I personally think that it is unlikely they will do so because… its home front is not prepared,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

Iran’s top diplomat said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s aim “is to bring us to our knees to talk” – but national security adviser John Bolton and key U.S. allies in the Mideast want “regime change at the very least” and the “disintegration of Iran.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he doubts Trump wants conflict because the president ran on a campaign promise “not to waste another $7 trillion in our region in order to make the situation only worse.”

But Zarif said what he called “the B team” – Bolton, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed – is trying “to push Iran to take action” as a pretext for “crazy” and “adventurous” U.S. actions.

“President Trump has a plan, but he’s being lured into not a plan but a trap,” Zarif warned in a question-and-answer session at the Asia Society. “It will cost another $7 trillion and even a greater disaster.”

Zarif said “it’s not a crisis yet, but it’s a dangerous situation,” adding that “accidents, plotted accidents are possible.”

The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on Iran, including on its energy sector, last November, after pulling America out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.

The U.S. designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group earlier this month – the first ever for an entire division of another government – added another layer of sanctions to the powerful paramilitary force, making it a crime under U.S. jurisdiction to provide the guard with material support.

On Monday, Trump announced the U.S. will no longer exempt any countries from U.S. sanctions if they continue to buy Iranian oil, a decision that primarily affects the five remaining major importers: China and India and U.S. treaty allies Japan, South Korea and Turkey.

The move is part of the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that aims to eliminate all of its revenue from oil exports which the U.S. says funds destabilizing activity throughout the Mideast and beyond.

Hours before Trump’s announcement, Iran reiterated its long-running threat to close the Strait of Hormuz if it’s prevented from using the crucial waterway in the Persian Gulf –through which about a third of all oil traded at sea passes. The U.S. Navy has in the past accused Iranian patrol boats of harassing American warships in the waterway.

“We believe that Iran will continue to sell its oil,” Zarif said when asked about the waivers and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.

“We will continue to find buyers for our oil and we will continue to use the Straits of Hormuz as a safe transit passage for the sale of our oil. That is our intention and that is what we believe will happen,” he said.

“But if the United States takes the crazy measure of trying to prevent us from doing that, then it would be prepared for the consequences,” Zarif said.

What does “prevent” mean?

“The B team wants the United States to take crazy measures. And it won’t be the first time that the United States has taken adventurous measures,” Zarif replied.

The Iranian minister said he thinks Trump wants a deal “but I think he’s doing the wrong thing” by maximizing pressure, stressing that “Iranians are allergic to pressure.”

Addressing Trump, he said: “Try the language of respect. … It won’t kill you, believe me.”

Zarif said he came back to the Foreign Ministry after resigning because “we diplomats never give up hope.”

“I don’t think anybody would envy my position, particularly when I have to deal with the B team,” he said, adding to laughter, “I wish it was the A team at least.”

“I have to do whatever I can to prevent conflict, to see if we can resolve conflict peacefully, diplomatically,” Zarif said. “And I have a lot of hope.”

Zarif also commented on other world issues, such as Iran’s own fight against the Islamic State group.

“ISIS has been airlifted from Iraq and Syria into Afghanistan. You see one example of it unfortunately in the barbaric attack on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka. But unfortunately, the people of Afghanistan are seeing incident after incident, terrorist attack after terrorist attack by ISIS … in order to create the sectarian war that ISIS has been looking for … since 2002.”

Regarding the U.S. election in 2020, Zarif said: “Believe me, we have not invested in a 2020 Democratic victory. Some people believe that we are looking for a Democratic victory. Democratic governments have been as hostile to Iran as Republican governments. … It’s just waiting for the White House to become rational, with a Republican or a Democrat.”