WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Images of Palestinian militants taking hostages off the streets of Israel have many around the world asking why.
We brought that question to Andrew Miller, a political science professor at Wilkes University.
"I think that it is, in part, because Saudi Arabia and Israel were about to sign an agreement to normalize relations," Prof. Miller said.
Prof. Miller says Hamas and its backers do not favor that agreement.
"Whether or not Iran is involved in the planning of this particular action is a question. But Iran has made no bones about being involved with Hamas."
Miller says groups like Hamas are difficult to deal with; civilian life is not important to them.
"They don't have the sort of ties between the governed and the governors that you might have in a state system."
But that also means the geopolitical impact is generally low.
"They don't have the ability to alter the power structure of the Middle East. They're nowhere near as powerful as the Israeli military."
That's something Miller believes Hamas could be trying to provoke while dampening the favor of Israel around the world.
"That a smaller, less powerful group like Hamas would want from a much more powerful military like Israel is to have Israel overreact, use that overreaction as a PR ploy."
As far as the U.S. getting involved, that's not likely, at least not right now.
"I think we're a long way away from troops being there. I saw the carrier group got sent. That's sort of a standard action when something like this happens to have a presence there in case something happens later."