President Joe Biden said Friday he thought Hamas was motivated to attack Israel in part by a desire to stop that country from normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia.

“One of the reasons … why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser. The U.S. president indicated that he thinks Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on Oct. 7 because, “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel” and were near being able to formally do so.

Jerusalem and Riyadh had been steadily inching closer to normalization, with Biden working to help bring the two countries together, announcing plans in September at the Group of 20 summit in India to partner on a shipping corridor.

  • halfempty@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Of course. The timing of the Hamas attack seems very likely to be to disrupt the upcoming summit that had been scheduled between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And many were predicting that the Saudis would throw the Palestinians under the bus, in order to secure lucrative oil and weapons deals with the Israelis. Now that deal is off the table. Seems the Palestinians had the choice between genocide by doing nothing, or genocide in retaliation for the Hamas attack.