Violence in the Middle East is back with a vengeance.
The timing of the brutal attacks by Hamas has been triggered by an attempt to exploit bitter internal divisions in Israel but on a deeper level, the assault has been driven by Hamas’s overlord Iran, a theocratic Shia Muslim state that is engaged in a struggle for power and influence across the Middle East.
Yesterday’s attack was clearly months, even years, in the planning.
Funds to carry it out and the technology for the missiles almost certainly came from Iran, which has proxy forces throughout the region.
The chilling fact is that Tehran’s tentacles are spreading remorselessly as the regime supports other terror groups in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
Iran’s mullahs, reviled by many outside Iran but also by many Iranians fed up with despotism, want to destabilise relationships between the Muslim Sunni world and Israel. Recently, those relationships have been improving.
Iranians attend a gathering in Tehran on Saturday, in support of Palestine after Hamas militants launched a deadly air, land and sea assault into Israel from the Gaza Strip
Iranian supporters of Hezbollah wave Palestinian flags during a celebration of the attacks that the militant Hamas group carried out against Israel
People walk atop the rubble of a tower destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Saturday
Bob Seely is MP for the Isle of Wight
It is in all our interests that the Arab world and Israel settle their differences, as difficult as that will be, not only because that would bring peace, a good thing in itself, but also because we need to reach out to states throughout the world to encourage and support democracy.
Iran is allied to Russia, and Russia is allied to China. All three are profoundly hostile to the West and wish to undermine the international order: Iran by destroying peace between Israel and the Sunni world, Russia by destroying Ukraine and challenging the West through hybrid war, and China by threatening Western interests in the Pacific, particularly by destabilising Taiwan.
Without doubt, Iran’s military development is being helped by Moscow which, in turn, needs Iran’s drone technology and is using hundreds of its Shahed drones to attack military and civilian targets in Ukraine.
Like Russia is doing in Ukraine, Iran-backed Hamas is using medium-range missiles to make life hell for civilians in Israel. This technology is becoming cheaper and more easily available. Every few years, Hamas becomes more sophisticated in its targeting, while the payloads missiles can carry grow larger.
The most worrying danger is that these capabilities will become a threat – not only to life but to Israel itself – especially if Iran develops its own nuclear bomb, which some believe is only a matter of time.
Against this dangerous background, in addition to military capability, Iran and its Hamas proxy have been emboldened by the perception of Western weakness.
This is epitomised by the White House under President Joe Biden, a man whose grasp of policy and mental acuity do not inspire confidence.
The sense of decline that the 80-year-old exudes has been reflected in a series of events: America’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan; the one-sided deal for the release of US hostages held by Iran in return for colossal payments, and the friction in US relations with Saudi Arabia.
Iran sees all this as evidence of Western vulnerability and is eager to test us.
We must not be found wanting.
Any retreat in the face of violence and intimidation would be fatal to our interests and bad for our alliances. Here is what we must do. First, support Israel and ensure that Iran does not succeed in undermining the normalisation of relationships between Israel and other Middle East nations.
Thousands of Iranian people stage a demonstration and carry Palestinian flag in support of Hamas and Palestinian resistance in Tehran, Iran on October 7
Reserve Israeli soldiers line up to register for duty in a northern Israeli town on October 7, after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a large-scale surprise attack against Israel
People standing on a rooftop watch as a ball of fire and smoke rises above a building in Gaza City on Saturday
Second, there must be more – and public – discussion of what happens if, or when, Iran gets nuclear weapons.
Given the evil irresponsibility of Iran’s mullahs, such a moment in history would be massively destabilising in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Saudis would either demand nuclear guarantees or get their own bomb from Pakistan.
Would Europe stand with the US or would Iran’s mullahs be allowed to blackmail the world?
Third, we in Britain must urgently think about missile defence. What we have seen in Ukraine, and now in Israel, is the growing importance of missile defence and the increasing threat from massed missile attack, especially given the new role of drones in warfare.
Finally, we need a much more robust response to Iranian threats of violence in the UK, both against Jewish people and against Iranian dissident groups threatened by intimidation or assassination from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Indeed, our Government should immediately ban the IRGC.
Britain is far from the Middle East, but Cyprus, which holds British military bases, is not. Neither are our allies across the Gulf.
The technology Hamas is using comes from Iran – and Iran has many other counties such as Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in its sights.
Make no mistake, what is happening in Israel and in Ukraine is a grave warning to us.
BOB SEELY is MP for the Isle of Wight.