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.
I think it’s a very cogent argument, about the timing. There’s a lot of incentives wrapped around the timetable that actually happened, and it behooves every politician to look at the timing, and seeing who benefits. That’s all that really matters on the global scale, who’s benefiting from actions, who’s encouraging those actions, and who’s going to benefit from your actions.