Amid the horrors of the attack in Israel, it has been common for commentators to talk about the relationship between Iran and Hamas, the Islamist militant movement that is the de facto government in the Gaza Strip. There is a perfectly reasonable concern that Hamas’s performative savagery and Israel’s thirst for vengeance will precipitate a wider conflict. Iran and its friends in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq have all gleefully threatened Israel’s imminent destruction and warned of direct retaliation if Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, orders a ground invasion of Gaza – as, of course, he will.
Iran is undoubtedly important for Hamas, not least for the enormous sums of money it reportedly disburses every year. The pair had a temporary estrangement over Bashar al-Assad’s bloodbath in Syria. But now that they have agreed that the only bloodbath that matters is in Israel, any clouds have cleared.