Edward Luce: The Big Geopolitical Beneficiary of What Is Going on in the Middle East Is Putin

KAY: “... Senator King when he had just come back from Israel quite recently saying, look, there are parallels here between Ukraine and Israel. The Russians are basically waiting for the West to lose interest and Hamas is basically waiting for America’s own political divisions to play out in public in such a way that it no longer becomes tenable for the White House to carry on supporting Israel. And it’s interesting to — just to see those divisions in — I mean, Chris Van Hollen who is a supporter of Joe Biden’s, who has been very firmly on the side of the administration on very many issues, still critical of the idea that we should be giving, America should be giving arms to Israel without any kind of restrictions. I mean, Ed, you’ve been writing about this — this idea of the kind of the the links here between Russia and Israel and the United States and how what is happening in Hamas and the impact that is — in Gaza — the impact that’s having on American domestic politics, and how this is just — you know, anytime there are divisions in American politics, it’s a win for who? It’s a win for Moscow.”
LUCE: “It’s a win for Moscow quite right. I mean, the — the big geopolitical beneficiary of what’s going on in the Middle East is Putin, is Russia, it’s diverted attention from what’s going on in Ukraine. It made it easier for him to say that the United States has double standards, that when it comes to Gaza, it turns a blind eye to the mass civilian casualties going on there, keep supplying arms to Israel, but when it comes to Ukraine, it wants the whole global south, the whole world to condemn it. Now, this is a false narrative. But it’s easier for him to make that narrative. And therefore if he, if Putin is the big geopolitical winner from chaos, in the Middle East, Biden is the big geopolitical loser. So the more this goes on on the ground, in Israel, and in Gaza, rather and the more this Rafah operation limbers up to happen, the more Putin is going to be rubbing his hands in glee, and as you know, he’s preparing a big offensive, spring offensive, in Ukraine. And our attention is going to be at least partly elsewhere in Rafah.”