In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza began organizing mass demonstrations along the barrier with Israel, with Hamas operatives joining in by attacking Israeli soldiers and trying to breach the barrier. These protests petered out in the following year, achieving little besides a fawning report from Amnesty International, the deaths of over 100 Palestinians, and Jerusalem’s decision to expand the fishing zone on the Gaza coast. A few days ago, Hamas began organizing these demonstrations anew. Khaled Abu Toameh explains why:

The latest attacks on Israelis by Hamas, however, appear to be less linked to Israel, which has taken a series of measures over the past two years to boost the economy and improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Those measures include issuing work permits in Israel for more than 17,000 Palestinians.

Hamas is now sending Palestinians to get killed or injured on the border with Israel because it is apparently upset with its friends in Qatar, the Gulf state that has long been supporting the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot. Hamas is evidently taken aback because Qatar has reduced the monthly financial grant it has been providing to the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip over the past five years.

The controversy surrounding the financial grant is yet another example of how Palestinian leaders (in this instance Hamas) regularly sacrifice their young people for the sake of money. The leaders of Hamas, most of whom lead comfortable lives in Qatar, Turkey, and Lebanon, appear to care little about Palestinians getting killed or injured while attacking Israeli troops. What they do appear to care about is how to enrich themselves and their families and continue the jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel. They also appear not to care if thousands of Palestinian workers are unable to enter Israel every day for work because of the violence along the border.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.