I always say I don’t want to comment on fast-moving current events, and I always say I don’t want to comment on other countries’ politics, especially ones I have never been to and have no connection to, and most especially Israeli politics. But I have thoughts, you don’t have to read them and here they are:

1. My heart goes out to all the human beings suffering in this conflict.
2. What could be the motive of the Hamas leadership and fighters responsible for this attack. One story could be that they are angry about the expanding settlements and other perceived losses of human rights and dignity, and that they feel they have exhausted all political recourse and only violence is left to make their point. Maybe this is all there is to it.
3. But…assuming Hamas has some rational political aims, it is hard to imagine this furthering those aims. It seems more likely to embolden the most conservative parties in the Israeli government, and to rally to Israeli public and international governments to support them even more than they already do.
4. I have heard suggestions that the political aim could be to stop the Israel-Saudi Arabia diplomatic normalization process. Iran would gain from this. But if there is even a hint that Iran was involved in planning this attack, if anything it seems more likely to accelerate that process after an initial pause.
5. Which brings me to Iran. This just seems extremely risky for them. Reports are that their leadership has “publicly praised” the attacks. Maybe they have to do that for domestic political reasons. But again, if there is even a whiff… the Israeli right wing could use this as their excuse to attack Iran.
6. The Israeli government has repeatedly said “they will not allow” Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. How close are they to obtaining a nuclear weapon? Very close, it would seem. If the Israeli government can find some evidence that Iran was behind this attack, it would seem to give them the justification they need for a military attack. And it might just bring enough international opinion to their side, or at least keep it on the sidelines, to allow them to do it.
7. If someone were to want to fabricate evidence that Iran was involved…well, before 2003 I might have said that was far fetched, but it is hard to imagine more flimsy see-through evidence than the W. Bush administration came up with against Iraq in 2003. And that was adequate to justify a mostly unprovoked invasion of a sovereign UN member nation at the time.
8. Am I saying this was a false flag attack? No, as much as I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, I won’t say that without evidence. I’m just saying that false flag or not, partisans are smart enough to take advantage of something like this to justify their preferred course of action.
9. So…it would not surprise me if Israel attacks Iran in the coming weeks or months. And it would not surprise me if the U.S. supports that or at least remains silent. It would surprise me if they joined in, but in the end that seems unnecessary. An the major players in the region of Egypt to Saudi Arabia to the UAE will probably be just fine with it too, whatever they say in public.