Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Newsmax on Monday that the Hamas militant group's Saturday attack on Israel could have been an attempt to disrupt the emerging U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
"They see this sort of Saudi-Israeli deal coming together and one of the best ways to disrupt that or try to disrupt that is to create a situation in which Israel is seen in the Arab world as out there killing innocent Arabs and that that will somehow create pressure within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and make it impossible for them to reach that agreement with Israel," Rubio said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record with Greta Van Susteren." "So, I think part of their strategy, in the short term, is to disrupt that from happening."
Rubio also said that Iran, which is widely believed to have helped plan or finance the surprise attack, shares a goal in common with Hamas.
"They have different agendas to some extent, but ultimately what they share in common – Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran – is they all want the destruction of the Jewish State," he said. "Hamas' stated goal – their mission statement – they're pretty explicit about it. They want to drive every Jew out of the Middle East. They want a new Islamic fundamentalist Palestinian state that stretches from the Mediterranean all the way to the Jordan. That's their goal. That's why they're involved, and they share that with Iran."
"So, what Iran gains is they want the destruction of the Jewish State," he continued. "They want to drive Israel because they want to be the dominant power in the region. They want to be the dominant power in the Middle East. That ultimately brings them in conflict with Saudi Arabia, but their most immediate target is to drive the Jews out of the Middle East, and they have that objective in common."
The Florida Republican said that "Israel will not be defeated militarily" and the goal of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah is not necessarily "the military defeat of Israel."
"Their goal is to obviously erode Israel's military capability, but ultimately to collapse Israel's economy from within," he said. "They love to hear that airplanes are not flying. They love to hear that the Israeli markets are way down. That's what they want. They want Israel to become a place that no one wants to live, and no one wants to do business and no one wants to visit because it's too dangerous, it's too unstable, it can't defend itself, it's under constant attack. Their goal is the collapse from within, not the straight-up military defeat."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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