I read last night an article accusing Ukraine of providing weapons to Hamas to be used to attack Israel. The apparent source for the allegations was Georgia’s Republican Congresswoman, Majorie Taylor Greene. Below is the link to her Twitter post.
For someone with a weak grasp of the history and the players in the region the accusations may be believable. But Rep. Greene’s carefully worded accusations have all the hallmarks of a Russia disinformation campaign. If you’ve ever wondered how a small minority centered in Moscow and St. Petersburg could wield power over a nation as large and diverse as Russia, and at one time an empire much larger population wise as the one that included most of Eastern Europe during the time of the communist Soviet Union, this is it. Russia is terrible at most things having to do with running a country for the benefit of their citizens, but Russia excels at getting Russia’s enemies to fight amongst themselves. As an example one need only remember the recent conflict between Ukraine and Poland over low grain prices caused by a glut of cheap Ukrainian grain in Europe caused in turn by Russia making it next to impossible for Ukraine to sell their grain via the Black Sea to their usual customers in Africa and the Middle East. Russia does evil with a purpose and will take full advantage of their evil designs.
So to make sense of Rep. Greene’s claims review the positions of the parties. Russia attacked Ukraine and sought, along with subjugating the Ukraine people and stealing their resources, to oust Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Along with the rest of his nation, Zelensky, who happens to be Jewish, did not bow down to Russia but stood up and fought. And the Ukrainians fought hard for their freedom and Russian domination and beat back the invaders. As the Ukrainians proved their willingness and ability to fight, Western nations, including the United States, have been incrementally providing the Ukrainians with more, and more advanced, weapons.
Russia was being beaten back by the outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainians so they looked for weapons elsewhere. One of the places Russian Dictator Putin found that would supply Russia with weapons was Iran. In this case Iran has supplied Russia with thousands of drones that Russia has used to attack Ukrainian cities and target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Because this is how Russia historically has always fought.
Now Hamas, the terrorist organization which is primarily backed by Iran, mounts a surprise attack against the Jewish State of Israel and a few days later Rep. Greene makes the not so veiled claim that Ukraine is providing those same weapons provided by the United States to Ukraine to Hamas. This claim ignores the fact that Ukraine selling or otherwise providing weapons to Hamas would mean the Jewish President of Ukraine is somehow managing to provide to Hamas weapons that Ukraine desperately needs to a notorious foe of the Jewish State of Israel, and somehow shipping those weapons to Hamas without Israel or anyone else noticing.
Rep. Greene’s claim ignores a more likely and perfectly logical explanation should American weapons be “found” to be in the hands of members of Hamas attacking Israel. This explanation is that those weapons were provided by Russia’s key ally and the main supporter of Hamas, Iran. One doesn’t need to look very far to find examples of Russian propagandists showing off American weapons captured by Russia from Ukrainians. Although relatively small relative to the number of Russian weapons captured by Ukrainians, it has happened and almost always happens during prolonged military conflicts such as the year and a half long Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What better way for Russia to split the Western alliance supporting Ukraine with weapons then for Russia to conjure up from their bag of tricks the notion that those very weapons are being used to attack Israel? What better way to do that then trade some captured American weapons for Iranian drones and then for Iran to provide those weapons to Hamas? Really quite brilliant and history has shown that there are plenty of people who will run with the deception.
This is how Russia rules despite their utter incompetence in actually providing services to and bettering the lives of their people. Russia divides and conquers, and they use willing or unwilling dupes, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, to do the dividing.