Iran places itself at the forefront of supporting the massive offensive launched by Hamas against Israel, its sworn enemy, while rejecting accusations of its direct responsibility for the outbreak of the war.
This support is explicitly illustrated by two huge banners, deployed in the center of Tehran: “The great liberation has begun”, proclaims one of them, while the other shows the black and white checkerboard of the Palestinian keffiyeh gradually covering little the white and blue Israeli flag.
These banners were put up just hours after Saturday’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack took the Israelis completely by surprise.
Iran was then one of the first countries to welcome this “proud operation” launched by Hamas, a movement that Tehran has openly defended for many years, even if their relations have had ups and downs.
“Iran supports the legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation,” President Ebrahim Raïssi declared on Sunday. “The Zionist regime and its supporters […] must be held responsible in this matter.”
Like all Iranian leaders, Mr. Raïssi never mentions the name of Israel, whose existence Tehran does not recognize. This “usurping regime” is “a cancer” which “will surely be eradicated by the Palestinian people,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s highest authority, said last week.
Iran maintained good relations with Israel until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, from which the Palestinian cause established itself as one of the pillars of Tehran’s diplomacy.
Despite their publicly displayed support, the authorities denied on Monday having played an active role in the Hamas offensive.
“Iran does not intervene in the decision-making of other nations, including Palestine,” said diplomatic spokesperson Nasser Kanani. Judging that “the accusations linked to the role of Iran” were “based on political motives”.
High stakes
Shortly before, Iran’s permanent mission to the UN had refuted information from Wall Street Journal indicating that officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, had prepared with Hamas the air, land and sea incursions into Israeli territory.
During his visit to Lebanon in early September, the head of Iranian diplomacy, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, met with leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, reaffirming that Iran “strongly supports the resistance” .
The United States has so far remained cautious, saying that it was “too early” to say whether Iran was “directly involved”, while judging that there was “no doubt” about the fact that Hamas was “financed, equipped and armed” among others by Tehran.
For Iranian political scientist Ahmad Zeidabadi, the authorities “expect Hamas itself to change the situation”. “It does not appear that the Iranians are ready to enter into such a war,” but “they might be interested, at some point, in having their aligned groups like Hezbollah reduce pressure on Gaza by opening a new front” in north.
For this expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the stakes are high for Iran, whose strategy would be strengthened if Hamas succeeded in bringing Israel to its knees. “But if Hamas weakens and all its political, economic and military infrastructures are destroyed, it will be a debacle for the Islamic Republic,” he believes.
Also at stake is the future of the process of rapprochement initiated two years ago between Israel and Arab countries, which is strongly opposed by Iran, Palestinian groups and Hezbollah.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken estimated on Sunday that “part of their motivation” for going to war was probably “to disrupt efforts to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel closer together”.
A close adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, recently warned countries “that think they can solve their problems by normalizing relations with the Zionists” that they “would seriously endanger the security of the region.”
For expert Ahmad Zeidabadi, this question is one of the challenges of the war: “If Hamas is completely defeated, the path to normalization will open because there is no other [solution] practical for Arab countries facing Israel. If he wins, any deal will be in jeopardy for a while.” “In this case, all pressure will focus on Iran’s nuclear program.”