Around the time of its intervention in Syria, Moscow began offering itself as an arbiter in the conflict between the Jewish state and the Palestinians, in 2016 offering to host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas for a summit in Moscow. More recently, the Kremlin has been trying to broker an agreement between Abbas’s Fatah faction and the Hamas regime in Gaza, and reportedly had a hand in the rival groups’ joint press conference earlier this month. Oved Lobel comments:

While maintaining good ties with Israel, Russia [has] upped the ante in the Palestinian sphere, hosting a summit in Moscow in February 2019 with senior representatives of all the primary Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Although it failed to force Hamas and PIJ to sign onto its “Moscow Declaration” of Palestinian unity under the [Fatah-controlled] PLO’s political program, it kicked off much deeper ties with all the factions.

Direct contacts with the PIJ, an explicit Iranian terrorist proxy . . . that Russia reportedly once designated a terrorist organization, seem to be an outgrowth of the vacuum left by the U.S. . . . The first open meeting with PIJ leadership occurred in 2018 in Moscow, less than two months after a Hamas delegation visit. PIJ leadership most recently visited Moscow in March 2020, as did the Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Russia has a long history with the Palestinians, using them as terrorist proxies and agents in a variety of conflicts across the world during the cold war. It is therefore well-placed to fill the diplomatic vacuum with their former PLO contacts, including Mahmoud Abbas himself, who was very close to Moscow and allegedly recruited as a KGB agent in the 1980s.

The purpose of Russian moves is not primarily to achieve Palestinian unity under the PLO political program, as it constantly asserts—it knows very well this is likely impossible. Rather, sensing an opportunity to increase influence with all players at the perceived expense of the U.S., Russia is just trying to plant itself in the middle of the conflict and make itself an essential player, as it has done in numerous conflict zones across the region.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”