The Overlooked Front: Gaza in Iran’s Multi-Front Strategy

The Iranian regime is burning, the Straits of Harmuz about to detonate.

But what happened to Iran's Gaza front?

Khaled Abu Tawmei, have we forgotten about Gaza?

There is an Iranian regime war going on there on Israel's southern border,

and everyone's talking about Tehran, the rest of Iran, the Straits of Harmuz,

the Kars Islands. That's where all the action seems to be. What happened to Gaza?

Isn't it amazing, Dan, that, you know, no one talks about Gaza these days?

Remember, I mean, for the last two years, two and a half years,

we've been all talking about Gaza. The whole focus has been on Hamas,

what's going to happen, Trump's peace plan, the board of peace,

the technocratic government, and then comes the Iran war,

and international attention focuses on Iran and totally ignores Gaza.

Now, what's happening in Gaza is, you know, we are hearing all these reports

about Hamas reasserting its control over Gaza,

Hamas appointing governors, Hamas,

rearming, regrouping, even, you know, sending out its police officers,

and vehicles to roam the streets of the Hanyunas in this case.

But Hamas is actually very happy, you know,

almost talking about Gaza. What happened to the technocratic government?

Where is it? I mean, you know, we don't even hear about it anymore.

And this is something good. In a way, I mean, if you think about it,

the Iran war has eased pressure on Hamas. No one is talking about Gaza.

Okay, it's bad for the Palestinians living in Gaza.

But so now, so far, it seems that, you know,

the international community has forgotten. Now, if this continues then,

it will be a big problem, because you need to keep the momentum.

And if you lose the momentum, then, you know,

you, Hamas will create a new reality. Hamas will emerge as the only functioning

or operating government in Gaza. And that's what we are witnessing right now.

You know, Khaled behind the scenes, I want to help our viewers understand

the cunning of the Iranian regime, total strategy.

You know, Iran is in flames. The roaring lion operation of Israel,

and the, what they call epic fury operation in the United States, working hand in hand.

Very well. They've, they've cut the Iranian regime in pieces.

The ballistic ballistic missile inventory is down to below a thousand from up from 3000.

There are almost no launchers anymore.

Thousands of the regime officers, command structures, operatives have been killed.

So that has been the major theater of war.

But that now we're moving over to the Straits of Hormuz,

where the Iranian regime is playing a very, very high-risk game.

It's called the war of economic attrition.

They don't have many ships left. The United States has sunk more than 90

Iranian ships from mining ships to warships.

But what they can do, what they can do, is throw what remains of their ballistic missiles

one here, another mine explodes there, another rocket here, another drone there,

enough to keep everybody on edge, a war of attrition.

Absolutely, the war of, and now the other war of attrition is in Gaza.

So this is how the Iranian regime works.

This is another Iranian regime front.

People seem to forget that.

They think that Hamas sort of is a discrete war.

Octopus, remember, you used to describe it as an octopus.

Right. Iran has many arms and it operates these, or activates these arms in accordance to

with its interests.

Now it is using hisbalah in Lebanon, and keeping Hamas and the Houthis and Palestinian

Islamic Jihad quiet.

It's like, wait, it's not your attorney yet.

That's right.

Wait.

But you know, the Iranian regime is very cunning, as you said.

I mean, they've always relied on, look, it's a terrorist regime.

And this is what terrorists do, then.

This is very, it's a manipulation.

It's a regime that thinks in a mafia style.

And for them, they know that the longer this continues, time is on, in their favor,

time is on their side.

And it's a war of attrition.

They can drag it on for dozens of years.

There was a statement by Iranian official that, you know, we can keep this going on for

10 years.

We have no problem with that.

They know that public opinion in Israel and in America will not tolerate that.

That people will start running out of patience.

Start running out of patience because if we looked at Friday's gas prices,

they're up in an average of 75 cents a gallon, which is almost 30% from where they were

in the days before.

And oil prices, the per barrel oil prices have gone up over $100 again.

They were back in the 80s.

They go back to 100.

And as you said, very well.

The American people do not have the type of jihadistic patience, thank God, on the one hand,

but on the other hand, this is exactly the nature of jihad is that there are no obstacles

to continuing a war.

In the western way of thinking, we say, well, wait a second.

Iran's economy is in free fall.

There is no water.

There are people are hungry.

The currency is worth a fraction of what it was worth just a couple of weeks ago.

They don't care.

Exactly.

They don't care.

This is not about filling up the car with petrol.

This is not about material, this is not about an economy.

This is the jihadist mindset that many people in the west do not understand.

And the banner of these jihadis has always been a quote from the Quran that says,

God is on the side of those who are patient.

And you know, this is a very famous verse from the Quran.

They use it all the time, meaning we measure time not by weeks, months.

It could be, you know, 10 years.

It could be 100 years, but if you are patient and tolerant, then you will prevail.

God will help you or will lead you to victory.

And this is what the Iranian regime is relying on.

They know that, you know, people in Israel will start complaining about the economy,

people in America will start complaining about rising prices of the petrol, car petrol.

And they will, you know, they can't fill up the cars.

And as you said, you know, it's gone up by seven dollars or seven cents.

I don't know.

And they understand that.

You don't hear such complaints in Iran.

You don't hear such complaints by the jihadis.

Because if they make such complaints, that means that, you know,

they've undermined the spirit of jihad and that it has been weakened or shattered.

And that's something very dangerous.

So it's time to understand the Arab mindset.

It's time to understand the Islamic culture, the Islamic mindset.

It's really different.

And this is the only way to defeat the jihadis.

If you put yourself in their shoes and then you can, or in their mind,

even, and try to understand them.

Try to look at it from their perspective.

And in their perspective,

of engendering tremendous fear among their home audience is absolutely critical.

And this is why you have said many times on this program that until in Gaza,

until the people of Gaza, two million, a little bit over two million people see

that there's a new sheriff in town, meaning Israel.

Because Israel is the only, I, is the only military power that can neutralize

and eliminate the Hamas, who are today stronger than they were three weeks ago at the beginning.

Absolutely.

Under, right? And right under the noses of the, the very monitoring group that is sitting in

southern Israel at the command of the United States, there's nothing they can do.

I mean, you know, Hamas is on the ground.

The board of peace is sitting in Washington.

The US military command is sitting in southern Israel.

Hamas controls the situation on the ground.

And if you are, call the shots on the ground and if you are in control, you know,

you can do whatever you want.

You can deploy 10,000 police officers.

You can recruit more new members.

You can impose taxes and collect taxes.

You can interrogate people.

You can kidnap people.

You can even execute people.

And you can continue to function as a government.

You can also loot the, or steal the humanitarian aid coming into Gaza and make more money

and enrich yourself and prepare for another round of fighting with Israel.

That's why I keep saying that, okay, the war with Iran is continuing.

But keep your eyes open on Gaza.

Don't ignore Gaza because it's very dangerous.

Hamas can surprise us then.

They're sitting there quiet.

But I don't rule out that the possibility that, you know, in a moment,

if they receive instructions from the Iranian regime, they can launch another surprise attack

on Israel.

So we need to keep our eyes open.

This is exactly the Iranian regime revolution,

is to export the revolution and to mobilize terror proxies around the region.

And this has been less appreciated than it should be.

Gaza is an Iranian regime front.

His Bala Lebanon in Iranian regime front.

Tehran, of course, the Straits of Hormuz,

Karjah Island,

Slipper Sils in the U.S.

Absolutely.

This is the missing link.

We see the individual, so-called individual attacks now on a synagogue here,

it's school here.

This is not coming out of a vacuum.

This is something that is coming as a result of, you know,

someone directing it or someone inspiring it.

Yeah, what people are saying, what is being said in the West in some circles is that,

well, what do you expect?

Of course, they're going to be anti-Semitic attacks because the United States and

Israel have attacked Iran, but it's completely the opposite,

because the Amia Jewish Center was blown up in 1994.

That was several decades ago, if I, my math is correct,

and they also, and they also bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.

Now, this is classic Iranian regime, a terrorist strategy,

is to export the revolution, export terror all over the world.

By the way, the recent attack on a Michigan synagogue was carried out, it turns out,

by the brother of his Bala operative.

That's Iran, so we can expect that mobilization of global terror against,

and it's not because Israel and America attacked Iran.

They were doing it from the, right from the outset,

from 1970, they came back in 1979 with Ruhola Homani came back from Paris,

but in the 80s, there were lots and lots of attacks against America in Saudi Arabia,

and around the globe.

Unfortunately, Dan, there are many people in the West, especially the new generation.

They're sitting there and thinking to themselves,

oh, what did we do to anger these people?

Oh, we must have done something bad to them.

That's why they're angry.

That's why they're waging Jihad.

They don't know that Jihad is something deeply rooted in you.

It starts, you know, the moment you are born, when you go to kindergarten,

it's what your parents tell you, it's what the environment.

This is a Jihad. The Jihad is there.

The Jihad does not come in response to a provocation here or there.

The Jihad is there because you, the non-Jihadis, the non-Muslim exist.

You are the target of all of this, and it's time to tell the West to change this mindset,

to look at it as something deeply rooted in this culture and in this mindset.

Absolutely.

It's it's this is at the JCFA Jerusalem's Office of Security and Foreign Affairs,

where you're playing such an important role in helping educate the United States and the Western

Alliance as to what Jihad is and why it is so critical to understand the enemy that we are

facing, Khalid. We've been saying this in our private and public conversations for years,

and now the time has really come because Jihad is exploding on the shores of Karjalan,

on the shores of the Iranian regime, and on the shores of the Gaza Beach,

and in Lebanon. And so we really have to be very clear from Jerusalem.

The middle of the Middle East has to what this Islamic warfare is and how it works.

I will just point to the fact that our other dear friend and colleague, Dr. Harold Rhodes,

is updating his book on Islamic warfare after October 7th to to real in English,

in order to really parse out and and clarify what Islamic warfare, what Jihad is, why it's the

long war and and how the West, you know, how Israel and the West can win, but it takes patience

and determination. It's and it's a long slog. It's not a solutionist approach to anything.

And you know, those of us in the West were especially in Israel's, a very solutionist society.

Look at our high tech, look at our high tech field where it's really not only startup nation,

it's solution nation. And the nature of Jihad is 180 degrees different from solution oriented

just society. I mean, sadly, Israel ultimately paid the heavy price on October 7th because Israel

thought that, you know, if you improve the economy and if you give issue more work permits and if

you don't provoke them, quote unquote, and if you allow humanitarian and medical aid into Gaza,

and you even send suitcases full of cash into Gaza, then you've that's a solution. They don't know

that that's okay. You know, it's a it's a short-term solution, but the G, that does not extinguish

the fire of Jihad. The fire of Jihad is there. Hamas was not created to provide jobs for unemployed

Palestinians. Hamas was not created in 1987 to build hospitals and schools. Hamas was created to

wage a Jihad holy war to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamic state. And that's why

I keep repeating, go read the 1988 Charter of Hamas. You will see that in the first paragraph,

it states, or probably in the second paragraph, it clearly quotes the founder of Muslim Brotherhood,

Hassan el-Banna as saying, Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam obliterates it,

just as it obliterated others before it. This is a very powerful statement. All you, I mean,

you know what, this statement alone sums up the whole issue of Jihad and that's what it's really

about and that's not forget. These words were said in the past century. They were not said because

Gaza blockade. They were not said because of the occupation or because of settlements.

They were actually said 1928, Hassan el-Banna found the Muslim Brotherhood and begins to issue these

types of status. That was a hundred years ago. And his voice, his teachings, his spirit is still

there. And it's even growing. That's what we need to understand very much. And it was also

very much based on Hajj min al-Hussaini, the first Grand Mufti appointed by the British,

first Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. And Hassan el-Banna came just less than a decade later.

And then, you know, we had his father was Saeed Kutub, who became even more

militant. And I would say that Saeed Kutub was very much a progenitor, not only of the more

militant understanding of Muslim Brotherhood, of what they call the Qwan, but of Hamas. He was a

father of Jihad. Saeed Kutub was a father of Jihad, the old Jihad and modern Jihad.

He inspired El-Qaeda, he inspired ISIS, he inspired Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,

go to their statements, read their literature, read their charters. And you will see that Saeed Kutub

was the role model for them, every word he said. So very interesting point that you're bringing

up here. And I want to create a direct line, an ideological strategic line for our viewers here.

They're even though the Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni organization, and Hassan el-Banna was a

Sunni leader in Saeed Kutub, there's the father of Jihad as a Sunni. There is a line that passes

from there through Hamas, which is a Sunni Jihadistic organization. And I urge everyone to read the

1988 charter. But as you just said, that inspired strategically, ideologically, religiously,

El-Qaeda itself. There's not a big, big difference between global Jihad, of El-Qaeda and the

Muslim Brotherhood, right through the offices of Hamas. Who was one of the founders of Hamas,

the cleric from Janine, who helped write the 1988. Asam, Sheikh Azam, Abdullah Azam, El-Qaeda.

He was the founders of El-Qaeda, and he was a Palestinian. And he was the mentor of bin Laden,

mentor of bin Laden, until they fell out, until they fell out. But you know, again, what we are

seeing, or what we have been seeing over the past century or so or even more, is an unholy alliance

between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Jihad. They can disagree on so many issues, they can disagree on

the, you know, on religious issues, they can, but when it comes to non-Muslims or Israel or America,

the literal satan and the big satan, they agree on all of these things. That's very important to

they're ready to put their differences on the side. Otherwise, why would Iran, a Shia country,

support Hamas, a Sunni organization, because they have a common goal in this case. They did not do

it because they love Hamas, or even because they love the Palestinians, by the way. That's number one.

Number two, there's something important we need to draw from the current crisis or war in Iran,

which is, look at the reaction of the Arab countries. I'm a bit disappointed. I mean,

they're being attacked and, you know, okay, they're issuing statements and all that, but I don't see

any active response. Can you explain that a little bit more, Khaled? I have some of my ideas,

but I want to hear your ideas. Khaled, what accounts for the collective hesitation of the Arab Sunni

establishment to avoid joining President Trump, whom they respect and they honor and they need,

they're dependent on him. I'm talking about Saudi Arabia. I'm talking about the UAE has been very

good since October 7th, but neither they are keeping a low profile. Exactly. What accounts for the

low profile now? Because they're being attacked. All the Sunni countries have been attacked,

including Oman and including the UAE, including Saudi. I would attribute it to the fact that

the Arab leaders, especially those in the Gulf, are afraid of being depicted or shown or appearing

as if they are part of an Israeli-American Zionist crusader alliance. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know,

this is a very serious charge. Yeah. And these Arab leaders, I mean, they're aware of the

sentiments on the Arab street. Oh, that the Arab street is much more radicalized against Israel

against America. They also hear voices in the West that are against this war. So they say,

why should we? The Arabs join a war that many Americans and many Westerners are opposed to.

So the Arab leaders are walking a tight rope. They're very careful in what they do. And I believe

number two, they're probably afraid. They don't know how this thing is going to end. They don't see

that Israel has defeated Hamas. They see that Hasbullah is still there. They see that the Iranian

regime is still there. So they're very careful. And I think they're doing the right thing, by the way,

they don't see Israel and America headed towards a decisive victory. What happened to the decisive

victory with Hamas? We were told three times that Hamas was defeated. And now we are sitting here

two and a half years later and talking about how Hamas is reasserting its control over Gaza.

So the Arab leaders are actually doing the right thing. They're looking after their own interests.

And I think this is something very important. And this will have an impact on the future of

any arrangement in Gaza, because if they're not helping you in Iran, they're not going to help

you in Gaza. They'll say, you are weak. You didn't achieve your goals. And you will see that

the stabilization forces, the international stabilization forces are not going to work. And you

will see that the board of pieces are not going to work. It will all just remain ink on paper.

And the winners are again the terrorists Iran and its proxies. And that's very bad. What I hear

you saying, Khaled, is that in confronting jihad requires the West to use overwhelming power,

which they are. I mean, you see Secretary of War Hegseth is in his rhetoric and in America's

military actions are using it. I think even more power than they mobilized in the 2003 war against

Saddam Hussein. And then it's not only about power. It demands unity. It demands a clear common

definition of your goal. But if you are going to a war and you haven't defined the goal,

you're not openly stating, this is a war against jihad. It's not only about the Iranian regime.

The Iranian regime is just a symptom of this whole thing. This is a war against jihad.

Jihad represented by the mullahs in Iran. Jihad represented by its proxies. Jihad represented

by Muslim brotherhood, by the schools, the madrasas in Pakistan. It's all over. This is how we

should look at it. And without being unified, without presenting a unified position, without

in the West. In the West, I'm talking about the West. And without showing that you know where you

are, where you are headed, you know, you're not going to win because your adversary will see you

as being weak and confused. And they are betting on time also. They know that time is on this,

they say, look, Trump will go in a year or two, in two years, he won't be here. So another

administration will come. It will probably be, you know, a different administration from a different

party. And then, you know, we go back. That's why the West has to be very clear. This is not

Israel's and America's war. This is the war of the West. It's a war of the West, not against the

Iranian regime. This is a war against jihad. Jihad. It's a war of civilizations. You can call it.

It's whatever you want. But it's, I call it a war against jihad. I don't even think it's a war

against similar or a clash between civilizations because the other side is not a civilization.

Yeah. They didn't. It's Hanyal called them barbarism. Okay. This is a violent cult. This is a

terrorist, you know, death cult. Death cult. It's about death. I mean, there could, how many people

did ISIS kill? How many Muslims did they kill? They've killed these terrorists have killed more

Muslims than they have Westerners. So from there, you should start thinking, if they are doing this

to their own people, well, you know, when it comes to the cathartz, the infidel, it's going to be

worse. And that's why this is an all-out war. It's time to mobilize all the Western forces. I mean,

I'm even surprised that moderate Arabs and modern Muslims have not openly joined, you know,

the US is really war. I'm more shocked that, you know, people in the West and Europe have not

come forward and said, okay, now we want to be part of this. You know why? I want to give you a

Western reading of why the West has not fully joined it because the Palestinian issue has become

such a meme. It's become such a phenomenon, a psychological phenomenon, a political phenomenon

that people are saying, if I back America and Israel against Iran, I'm associating myself

against two powers that have not allowed the establishment of some Palestinian state, especially

even after October 7th. And therefore, until the Palestinian issue is solved, how can I align with

these two powers against Iran, even at the expense of almost 50,000 Iranian innocents who were

mass murdered by their own government and 500 to 600,000 that were wounded by their own government

should even in the face. These two powers, Dan, they just mentioned, Israel and America, I have done more

to promote a Palestinian state and help the Palestinians achieve statehood more than most of the

Arab countries. How many offers were there from Israel? How many times did the US

until recently talk about the two-stage solution? Even the Trump plan, by the way, from October,

the Gaza peace plan, it talks about, you know, pathway for a statehood. So it's not that, you know,

this is what the West needs to understand, that this is not about the Palestinian issue. Stop

using the Palestinian issue as an excuse. There is a bigger problem than the Palestinian issue,

it's called jihad. I keep stressing it during this talk. We are talking about jihad. And yeah,

okay, it has infiltrated the Palestinian issue through Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad, but

let's not ignore the larger picture. And the larger picture is that we are facing a global jihad.

A jihad that is targeting, not only Israel, it's targeting the US, it's targeting,

you know, Europeans is targeting all non-Muslims. And this is something very critical that we have

to, you know, put inside our mind. And, you know, this is one of the goals of this program

to explain them at least to the Arab world, to the Western world, to bring the mindset, to talk

about these issues that many people do not want to pay attention to. It's not enough to read an

article on the Wall Street Journal written by, you know, an Arab academic sitting in Washington,

or you need to see what is really happening on the Arab and Muslim street and what is happening is

that there is a jihad. And this jihad is now spearheaded by Iran, previously was spearheaded by

El Qaeda, then by ISIS. It keeps popping up, it keeps exploding in our faces in different forms,

but it's there. Once it's Hamas, then it's Islamic jihad, then it's ISIS, then it's Syria, then it's

Lebanon, then it's Hezbollah. And we need to be united in order to fight this. If you are not united,

you're going to lose. And I'll just put an exclamation point in that and thank you, because I think

you said it perfectly. Khaled Abu Tawmeh, my longtime colleague and friend, this has been a very

important lesson. The first of many, I hope, in exposing jihad. Thank you.