Oil flows between Hamas and Iran

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is affecting the entire Middle East region and world geopolitics, leaving states dumbfounded at the atrocities committed by both sides, and once again giving rise to those feelings of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia with incidents of violence in different places around the world. Hamas is a political party and a terrorist organization, recognized as such by the United States, the European Union and Israel. However, the ongoing war is much broader than just the actors involved: Israel is supported primarily by its historical ally Washington and the states with which it has engaged in economic and trade relations. Hamas is supported by Iran and is attracting the attention of several Arab states that have always had the Palestinian issue at heart. In fact, Palestine, the territory on which Israeli attacks are being perpetrated, is seeing the deaths of thousands of people, mainly children, daily.

Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic resistance movement, حركة المقاومة الاسلامية) was founded after the outbreak of the first intifada by Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric who grew up as an activist in the local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization of political Islam that originated in Egypt in the 1920s. In 1988 Hamas set as its goal the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine.

Since the 1980s Hamas has been supported by Tehran diplomatically and financially, as have several other militias and political movements, including that of Syria's government of Bashar al-Assad. In fact, the 2020 U.S. Department of State report stated that Iran subsidized all Palestinian armed groups with about $100 million a year, as well as an estimated $200 million a year for Hezbollah, Lebanon's Shiite Islamist, and anti-Zionist paramilitary organization.

Tel Aviv - Tehran, a shadow war

Under the Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979), relations between Israel and Iran were far from hostile: Iran was on the United Nations committee to find a solution to the dispute between Israel and Palestine and had proposed establishing a state with Arab cantons and Jewish cantons inside. Tehran had supported Israel even after 1948, in which Israeli territory was recognized and did not take sides in the face of the Nakba, or ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and dispossession to the detriment of Palestinians. 

The situation changed when Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister of Iran in 1951 and nationalized the country's oil company, which was monopolized by the United States and Britain, severing ties with Israel as well, as a victim of Western interests. Washington staged a coup regaining control of the country, and ties with Tel Aviv grew to the point that Iran became Israel's main oil exporter, with the construction of the related pipeline connecting the two countries (Trans-Israel Pipeline).

Upon the arrival of the new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Persian vision changed radically in an Islamic and anti-Western direction. From that moment, Iran began supporting the so-called axis of resistance, which is a network of political and armed groups throughout the region of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, also including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Movement for Islamic Jihad in Palestine (DIJ). Likewise, Israel has supported groups against the Iranian establishment such as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an opposition organization to the regime, and armed Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Tensions between Tehran and Tel Aviv have continued with a shadow war, in which there have never been any declared or claimed attacks.
For example, staying on the energy theme, Iran's nuclear program has been criticized by Israel for making military as well as civilian use of it, and physical and technological sabotage of nuclear power plants in Iran has occurred. Equally, Israel has accused Iran of sending drones on Israeli oil tankers and other digital attacks, in addition to accusations of illegally possessing undeclared nuclear weapons.

What about oil?

Oil is one of the most valuable commodities traded on international markets, and its influence in the political and economic sphere is widespread and globally recognized as a crucial tool in defining relations between countries. Indeed, black gold is both a source of cooperation and tension, influencing foreign aid flows and military alliances.

The link between oil and international security is very subtle and allows for so-called petro-aggression, in which oil revenues enable petro-state leaders to easily provoke conflicts through their use of oil export revenues.
A petro-state is defined as a country where more than 70 percent of revenue comes from black gold and gas exports, on which the economy is dependent. Some petro-states still use their wealth to finance certain state and religious radicalisms in the world, a mechanism referred to as petro-insurgency, as is conceivable for Iran.

In fact, the axis of resistance supported by Tehran moves on two tracks: the first is solely political support for the Palestinian cause, while the second is support in material terms, such as weapons, drones, and ammunition. Very often, this material comes to Palestine through underground tunnels in the Sinai, used by various terrorist groups for illegal trade in arms and people.

The financing of armed groups is facilitated by the difficulty of accurately tracking the financial flow from oil revenues, which are the main source of revenue for many states in the region. This lack of transparency greatly complicates the attempt to identify the financial movements of each state in the complex geopolitical chessboard of the Middle East.

A possible energy embargo

Petro-insurgency is far from a new phenomenon, with Iran and Saudi Arabia historically funding Hamas against Israel. However, the recent escalation in the Middle East has also involved Qatar and Turkey, both supporting the Islamic Resistance Movement.

This intertwining of strategic, energy and military interests could take the form of an energy embargo against Israel, with Iran and Qatar as oil exporters and Turkey serving as a transit territory for the pipeline from Azerbaijan to Tel Aviv (Israel in fact supported Baku in the recent Nagorno-Karabakh dispute and supplies 70 percent of the arms). In fact, the concept of an embargo, in this case of arms and ammunition, has already been called for by an Arab-Islamic summit held in Riyadh on November 11.

In this light, an interesting energy power dynamic in Europe is also looming: Turkey seems to be aspiring to a leading role as a gas exporter by offering itself as a security guarantee for European countries in place of Israel, with which it had been forging several energy agreements for more than a year.

What is more, from a strategic point of view, Iran holds one of the most important choke points (or bottlenecks): the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passage for trade and energy supply. Indeed, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iraq export oil through this point, just as Qatar uses the strait to export LNG, of which it is a global exporter.

If the conflict were to extend to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, trade and oil prices would soar dramatically causing significant damage to Israel and the international trade-energy economic landscape.

Translated by Denise Praticò. 

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