Hamas is now rated as the world’s second-richest terror group, just behind the oil-soaked Islamic State. It has amassed its wealth through smuggling, donations large and small, and protection rackets. Nor have its leaders missed the opportunity to line their own pockets. (The extensive holdings of Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas, include several high-rise buildings in Qatar.) Ultimately, according to Moshe Elad, the terror group’s fortune is the product of a political culture of corruption and patronage:

The race to obtain powerful positions in the Palestinian Authority began in 1994, with the implementation of the Oslo accords. The government that emerged from that process looks more or less like that of most Arab regimes: it is centralized and corrupt, it lacks effectiveness, bribery plays a very important role in society, and nepotism is prevalent, with just a few families or relatives benefiting from state monopolies on basic services and commodities. . . .

By June 2007, after Hamas took over Gaza through a violent coup, more significant amounts of money began to arrive from the same Islamic countries, reflecting the donors’ desire that Gaza should be run according to Islamic sharia law. A huge fundraising campaign was also launched in Western countries, mainly the United States and Europe, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars that passed through the hands of Dr. Mousa Abu Marzook, the chair of the Hamas political bureau at that time.

According to a Texas federal court record from 2003, Abu Marzook was convicted of illegal funds transfer to every single district in the West Bank, from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south. Beginning in the 1990s and during every fiscal year, he has transferred millions of dollars, claiming that these funds were for welfare and relief projects while in fact they have been used to compensate suicide bombers’ families and to rehabilitate wounded and invalid terrorists.

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.