Russia practices terrorism just like Hamas – expert interview
Israeli journalist and author of the Voina s Ordoy (War with the Horde) Telegram channel, Sergei Auslander, explained in an interview with NV Radio on Oct. 10 how the intelligence “failure” occurred during the attack on Israel, when the most advanced surveillance systems were disabled, and about the attitudes of Russia, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to the war unleashed by Hamas.
NV: Is the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government beholden to the Israeli society’s desire for vengeance after the Hamas attack?
Auslander: This is a difficult question. The initial state of shock has passed and now society thirsts for revenge. The army also thirsts for blood and revenge.
I’m now in contact with guys from different units, reservists who were called up. They are all eager to rush into battle. On the one hand, we cannot ignore this factor. We cannot now limit ourselves to airstrikes on Gaza and end it there.
On the other hand, we must understand the consequences. The consequences are not well calculated yet.
As for global war, there is a worst-case scenario. Hezbollah is now getting involved, possibly Syria. The United States would enter the war on our side. Iran may be joining. And in the end, all this can turn into something out of this world, the consequences of which cannot even be imagined. This is the most terrible reality. That’s why I still don’t really understand [how the situation will develop].
Unfortunately, we’re still at the beginning of the event. Now all attempts to make forecasts, predict something, are largely unfounded. Because we’re at the beginning of the event and it’s not very clear yet.
So far, task No. 1 is to regain control over the territory and then restore control over the border. And then they’ll decide.
NV: Terrible parallels with what happened and continues to happen in Ukraine can be drawn with the fact that Ukraine also didn’t expect a [Russian] offensive in the south. There was an opinion that the border with Gaza is one of the most protected areas in the world. How is the Israeli society reacting to the national defense being blindsided?
Auslander: Society says it’s some kind of terrible failure. Everyone draws parallels with the Yom Kippur War. But the Doomsday war began on the Golan Heights, far from the country’s heartland, from populated areas. There weren’t hundreds of civilians killed there.
The first days of the Yom Kippur War, until Oct. 7, were considered the most difficult, the most terrible, and the bloodiest conflict in Israel’s history. We lost hundreds killed. But these were all military personnel defending the Bar Lev Line on the Suez Canal, repelling the Syrian onslaught. Everything was clear there: soldiers join the army, realizing that they may die.
But here, dozens of villages were simply captured. They were literally captured. They were completely controlled by terrorists. They killed people sleeping in their beds. Children and women were abducted. Israel has never experienced anything like this before.
Obviously, this is a terrible failure. At what stage did it happen? I think this will be dealt with when the hot phase of the conflict ends. A commission will be set up, as it was set up after the Yom Kippur War. And the commission was looking into what the failure was, who was to blame, and who was responsible.
We’ll have exactly the same commission. It will deal with it. We don’t know what the conclusions will be. Obviously, the bet on technology [to police the border] didn’t work. It turned out that the world’s most advanced protection and surveillance system can somehow be put out of order.
The terrorists have somehow put it out of order. This is absolutely true. This is not a spontaneous action. This is not a terrorist attack. This is a very well-planned and well-executed military operation. It was planned by people who understand this.
NV: Can we talk about a massive cyber attack as one of the reasons for such a tragedy?
Auslander: This is one of the versions. These aren’t mutually exclusive versions. Cyber attack, detonation of barriers, disabling of surveillance systems, massive use of [UAV] copters to drop explosives, and kamikaze drones. All of this brought this system down for tens of kilometers, after which they very quickly captured the Gaza division’s headquarters. This is a territorial division that is responsible for the defense of this sector. Thus, they completely paralyzed the management of troops. There was no one to give orders to. All this caused chaos.
And then everything literally came crashing down, followed by the cascading collapse of the entire system.
NV: It’s not time to talk about whether there is any Russian trace. But Moscow’s reaction is very interesting — it didn’t express condolences.
Auslander: There wasn’t a single word of sympathy. They expressed concern.
NV: Why? What can be controversial when hundreds of young people are shot dead at a festival?
Auslander: Because they’re exactly the same monsters as Hamas. Because the photos of the road from Kibbutz Reim, where there were dozens of shot cars, burnt corpses lying by the road, completely reminded me of the picture of the Zhytomyr highway [in Kyiv Oblast], a sample of February-March 2022. One to one.
I’m not going to say how much Russia did or didn’t contribute to this. But the fact that all this is certainly beneficial to them doesn’t even cause me the slightest doubt.
NV: [Ukraine’s] Defense Intelligence has warned that Russia is now spreading propaganda narratives about Kyiv having allegedly supplied Hamas with Western weapons to attack Israel.
Auslander: Yes, I saw this message. But this is more for internal use, of course. No one here will believe it. For obvious reasons.
But what did I pay attention to? The Ukrainian war has very sharply receded into the background. If yesterday, for example, on Oct. 6, whatever Telegram messenger you opened, everything was about Ukraine, now Israel is everywhere. The attention has shifted. And this is certainly beneficial for Moscow.
As for the Russian trace, I won’t assert. I don’t know anything about it. But I have no doubt that this situation is beneficial to them, and they’ll try to take advantage of it.
NV: When you and I were discussing the protests in Israel against the government’s attempts to take control of the courts, we were discussing whether Israel’s enemies would be able to take advantage of this. Can we say that they took advantage? Can we say that the internal turbulence in Israel was one of the reasons why the enemy dared such an attack?
Auslander: Of course. Our military power hasn’t suffered, but they expected that the reservists wouldn’t go to serve, the army would fight in a slipshod manner, reservist pilots wouldn’t come and there would be no one to fly, etc. It didn’t work out.
We had 300,000 people called up in 48 hours, and the army is already asking anyone not to come who wasn’t called up. Because many people came voluntarily, no longer being in the reserve. Many units are already experiencing overstaffing. Therefore, many are being refused and sent home until further notice. The calculation for this didn’t work out for them.
Just like the whole time of the Yom Kippur War didn’t work out. This was a false conclusion. But we’re now paying the price for this mistake, as so are they, respectively.
NV: There was a diplomatic process between Israel and Saudi Arabia, i.e., about the signing of mutual agreements and the restoration of diplomatic relations. But we saw Saudi Arabia’s reaction. They, of course, refer to the Israelis as the occupiers. Qatar immediately said that “Israel is solely responsible for this escalation.” What does this mean for further developments of the situation?
Auslander: It’s hard to say yet. Israel’s special representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, seemed to say this would in no way affect our signing in Saudi Arabia. However, it looks like it will affect things after all. Because after such a statement, signing a peace treaty with them would be completely inappropriate.
But now, in fact, nobody cares about that. What kind of peace deal with Saudi Arabia when [Hamas] holds 130 hostages in Gaza? We don’t even know their exact number.
Therefore, this conversation can now be postponed.
And in this sense, if it was one of the goals, i.e., to disrupt this signing... It’s clear that Saudi Arabia is a symbol of the Muslim world, with the major holy sites located there. So, they succeeded, yes, no doubt.
NV: And how did it happen that there is a seemingly respectable country, Qatar, where the 2022 FIFA World Cup took place, is sheltering Hamas’ top leadership?
Auslander: Qatar has always supported terrorism. This, in my opinion, is an absolutely open secret. They even had some affairs with the Islamis State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as far as I remember. Therefore, Qatar has its own interests, which it actually defends and pursues.
This is an endless supply of money to Hamas. They brought suitcases of cash there, realizing that this cash wouldn’t be used to improve the welfare of the residents of Gaza, but for well-known purposes.
In general, there is absolutely nothing to be surprised about. This is their policy.
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