In the Arabic media world, a new celebrity has emerged since October 7, getting praise from everyone from professors to pop stars in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere. Hudhayfah Kahlout, known by the nom de guerre Abu Obaida, has served as a Hamas military spokesman since 2006, and is currently the terrorist group’s public face. Rany Ballout explains how he has shaped perceptions of the war:

The hype around Abu Obaida’s broadcasted speeches is vast, with prolific commentary and reactions largely praising him as a savior, with thousands of captions across the web. Arab social media depict people, including children, glued to TV screens awaiting his speeches. Large banners featuring his picture appear in many Arab and Muslim states and cities, such as Beirut, Turkey, and Jordan. His banners have also appeared in soccer stadiums in Tunisia and Libya. . . . As a result, large segments of the Arab and Muslim population embraced Hamas’s information war against Israel, celebrating the October 7 assault as a major military breakthrough.

Given Abu Obaida’s influence, the content of his public pronouncements reveals much about the way Middle Easterners perceive the current war:

Most notably, the speeches themselves remain fundamentally religious. The speeches predominantly frame the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis as a historical and perennial conflict between Islam and Judaism. [They] often refer to the purportedly imminent demise of the Jewish state, with the “al-Aqsa operation” beginning the decisive era of Israeli defeats.

Despite the immense destruction, human toll, and suffering in Gaza, Hamas depicts an effective and victorious battle against Israel; . . . most Arabic media and a majority of the Arab public appear to have subscribed to Hamas’s war narrative against Israel.

Thus, while the West sees the war as a brutal assault by a powerful military on a helpless civilian population, many Arabs have an equally false view that Hamas is waging a successful campaign against the IDF. This perception, Ballout observes, resembles the “delusional portrayals of the previous Arab-Israeli conflicts since the 1950s,” and is apt to perpetuate the cycle of what Shany Mor has termed “ecstasy and amnesia.”

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.