Luciano Mondino holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and international relations from the Catholic University of La Plata (Argentina) and a master’s degree in international politics from the Complutense University of Madrid. He is an international analyst specialising in the Middle East and Israel.
What is your assessment of the Iranian attack on Israel?
Iran’s recent attack ended in a resounding defeat for the Islamic Republic, which attempted to overwhelm Israel’s defences by launching tons of explosives in the form of suicide drones and short- and long-range missiles.
The collaboration of Saudi Arabia and Jordan in Israel’s defence awakened what could be Iran’s worst nightmare: that the Sunni Arab countries take the Abraham Accords seriously and understand definitively that Israel is the only one in a position to put the brakes on the Iranian expansionism that threatens Israelis, but also Sunni Arabs.
The only one responsible for bringing the Middle East to the brink of the abyss is the Ayatollah regime, which since 1979 has imposed a very repressive theocracy at home and abroad. Since that year, Iran has been seeking to eliminate Israel, something that has increased in the last six months from Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the leaks in the West Bank. For Iran, the worse the better, and this is an important key for Israel to evaluate a response that was unavoidable and which has shown that Iran is weak and has no good defence to deal with (let alone prevent) the Israeli air strike.
Many, including in the West, argue that the Iranian offensive is a response to Israeli attacks.
The war did not begin with the Israeli military operation in Gaza, let alone the elimination of senior Quds Forces commanders in a building next to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, on 1 April. For many years Iran has been calibrating attacks through its proxies aimed only at eliminating as many Israeli civilians as possible and spreading psychological terrorism against Arab countries that are realising that normalisation and peace with Israel, despite the Palestinian cause, is the only way to free themselves from the Iranian threat.
Do you think there will be a new direct confrontation?
I don’t think so, because in the sizing up of forces between Tehran and Jerusalem the situation returned to a sort of status quo, as it was before 1 April: avoiding direct confrontation between the two, Israel fighting Hamas in Gaza and Iran encouraging its proxies to attack Israel.
Has the Iranian attack been a determining factor in the change of position in the United States regarding military aid to Israel and also to Ukraine?
As I pointed out earlier, the Iranian attack showed that the Abraham Accords are more alive than ever. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia also collaborated in the defence of the Jewish state. This was a wake-up call in the US: not only because it showed that Iran was willing to escalate the conflict, but also because Israel could start to gain margins of autonomy and find greater support in Sunni Arab countries than in the Biden administration. This may also explain why the U.S. has now reversed its position and, unlike three weeks ago, supports military intervention in Rafah, south of Gaza. The dimension that the White House now takes is that there is an operational axis between Russia and Iran, united more by their isolation than by ideological twinning, which could irresponsibly lead to a major security crisis in the run-up to the US election race.
Prior to this attack, the Islamic State provoked a massacre in Moscow that represents a new internal and external front for Russia. Can this attack have any repercussions for the war in Gaza?
The Middle East is a web of countries that move in blocs and alliances, which are often very unclear. And that is why we see Hamas condemning the Islamic State attack in Russia after committing a similar massacre, using the same modus operandi, on October 7. It should not be forgotten that jihadism is an ideological current inherent to the Islamic world and that it attacks, just as it did on October 7 in Russia, in Paris, in Madrid, or in Argentina, but the Hamas jihadists are allies of Russia. Israel has to look askance at all these alliances, and that is why its support for Ukraine has so far been limited by its own defence interests, which I think is right and proper. Israel is very clear and shows, inwardly and outwardly, that it privileges its security at the regional level. The point of greatest concern for Israel is Syria, a very fragile country that is vulnerable to Iranian interests, which operate there through Russia. As long as the balance is maintained, the situation in the Gaza Strip will not change.
And can protests against Israel in Western countries or calls for a ceasefire by some governments alter the course of events in the Gaza Strip?
I don’t think they can save Hamas, because in governmental and military terms, it is in tatters. In five months, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have smashed them to smithereens. Plus, the psychological impact of the seizure of their parliament and government buildings by Israeli soldiers. So I see the possibility that anyone can give them political and public support as very limited.
There is a type of war that is manifesting itself today, which is the existential war. It is not a war between two armies; it is a war between the army of a democratic country, whose armed forces are subject to the decisions of a government, and a parliament in which Arab and Christian minorities are represented. Israel, although the bête noire of progressivism, is the only [Middle Eastern] country where this diversity is respected, and this has an impact on its military decisions. Israel is a democracy facing a terrorist group that does not comply with any international norms, because for Hamas, this would be unnatural. If Israel had not been a democratic country, the war would have been resolved on October 8 because the IDF would have wiped out everything.
Joe Biden’s administration is also critical of the military operation in Gaza. Is there a risk of a rift between the U.S. and Israel?
U.S. support for Israel is historic, and I believe it is unwavering. One particularity of the United States is the continuity between its governments and its state policies, which are historical. Since the mid-20th century, the United States has played an unquestionable role in the international order and continues to play a fundamental security role in the Middle East. One of those state policies, which are unwavering in their politics, is Israel’s existence and right to defend itself. Regardless of the Biden administration, which today is going through an electoral process in which Donald Trump is beginning to gain preponderance among Republicans and in the presidential race, and a Democratic Party with a strongly anti-Zionist and antisemitic left wing. Bernie Sanders is one of the biggest exponents of criticism of the existence of the state of Israel, and we see that the Democratic Party also fits into these domestic and national electoral calculations.
We are not in this scenario, but what would an Israeli defeat imply?
If we define this as an existential war, the loser disappears. The disappearance of the state of Israel means the disappearance of 10 million inhabitants, almost three million of whom are Arab Muslims. It is often assumed that in Israel 100% of the population is Jewish, but this is not the case; almost 30% is Arab, and there are other minorities such as Christians. And all of them are also under threat. On October 7, Hamas kidnapped and murdered Muslim Arabs, and some are still in their power. It would also have an impact on all Arab countries, which have become even more divided since Iran began its nuclear arms race. If the Islamic Republic obtains weapons of mass destruction, these weapons are not only intended to target Israel but also all Sunni countries that have established relations with the Hebrew state and are therefore traitors to the cause.
Some political leaders, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, advocate a ‘two-state solution.’ Do you think this is a viable proposal?
The basic problem is that people do not want to recognise the existence of the state of Israel. In fact, the idea that Hamas and other Arab countries advocate is not a Palestinian state that coexists with Israel, but a Palestinian state that replaces the Hebrew state. It is not a territorial issue; it is a question of survival. There is a very important part of the Arab world that has understood that peace with Israel is what will help it prosper and maintain its internal security, but, on the other hand, there is another part that, like Hamas, only wants Israel’s destruction. Because, let’s not fool ourselves, the anti-Zionist discourse is in reality an antisemitic discourse, and the end of Israel means the disappearance of the Jews from their ancestral lands.
Leaving aside the war scenario, where Israeli superiority is manifest, the war of public opinion has shifted in favour of Hamas. What do you think is the cause?
It is a complex scenario. On the one hand, Israel has resigned itself to the media issue because it knows that everything it does will be questioned. This is a consequence of being a democratic state fighting an asymmetrical war with a terrorist entity that is also the government of the Gaza Strip. Because it must be remembered that the Palestinians voted massively for an organisation that, in its founding charter, wants the disappearance of Israel.
What Israel is saying is that what happened on October 7 cannot be repeated. Even if this were merely a territorial issue and not an existential one, what example would we be setting? What message would we be sending to other terrorist groups? To achieve a state, you can carry out a massacre like the one on October 7. That you can kill 1,200 people, rape women before and after murdering them, and kidnap 240 people to get a state. It is irrational and very dangerous. There is a very great lack of awareness on the part of the Western political leadership in a West that has no politicians of reference in terms of strategy.
Kissinger’s latest book talks about strategy and the latest political leaders in the West, and that book made me think about the lack of leadership that has a long-term strategic vision and can understand how Russia, China, or the Islamic world is acting today. Much of that lack of leadership is intoxicated by propaganda and misrepresentation. It is curious how progressivism sees a danger and a threat in Israel that it does not see in Islamic jihadism, in Russia, in Cuba, or in Venezuela. This information war is conditioned by all this and has its front in world public opinion, where this discourse escalates directly into antisemitism and has resulted in all kinds of violence. When the media repeat the information provided by the ministry of health of the Gaza Strip, they are repeating the data of Hamas, which is one of the actors in the war and which is very conscious of the use of information as a weapon. It is an information war that they are winning with the support of the Western media.
How will this war end?
Internally, Israel will have to face a new political scenario, and, in fact, there is an internal weakness that has delayed many military decisions, also due in some cases to caution about the position that France or the United States might take on the conflict. In my opinion, I don’t think the U.S. will take a stand against Israel because it knows that the reason the West is spared from being the direct target of Islamic jihadism is Israel, which is on the front lines of the battle. And regardless of whether there is dissent in the West or positions such as that of Pedro Sánchez, there is no doubt that support will continue.
Militarily, Hamas is finished. Of the 24 battalions with which Hamas started the war, in which its military and governmental power resided, only six remain: four are in Rafah and two in the refugee camps. The Rafah operation is extremely critical because of the number of people there, and we will see how this operation is dealt with, possibly by separating areas and moving people from one area to another. This is how it was done in northern Gaza, because the IDF seeks to drive civilians out of the combat zones, while Hamas, on the other hand, needs as many dead as possible to use them as a political and media weapon in its information war. A weapon that is then disseminated by Russian and Iranian media, such as HispanTV, which serves a narrative that is also repeated by many Western media outlets. The military victory is certain, but the media victory is still a long way off.
