The Middle East may never be the same.
JAMES M. DORSEY
OCT 9 2023
Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls Gaza, will likely emerge a victor
regardless of how the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting ends.
Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel, described by some analysts as
the Jewish state’s 9/11, changes the dynamics of Middle Eastern geopolitics.
The brutal attack involved prolonged fighting with
the Israeli military in Israeli towns and cities, the firing of thousands of
rockets at Israeli population centers, the random killing of innocent civilians
in Israeli homes, and the kidnapping of scores of Israeli soldiers and
civilians.
BBC foreign correspondent Secunder Kermani
described sirens sounding off and multiple explosions as he disembarked at Tel
Aviv airport on Saturday.
Like the Turkish assault on Kurdish positions in Syria and Iraq in the wake of the October 1
suicide bombing in Ankara, the Hamas attack and Israel’s retaliatory pounding of Gaza call into question the
sustainability of a regional de-escalation that freezes rather than tackles
perennial conflicts.
Similarly, the attack pours cold water on the
notion of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his ultra-nationalist and ultra-conservative
coalition partners that Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands can be sustained
indefinitely.
On Hamas’ tailcoat, Iran, long opposed to Arab
normalisation of relations with Israel, sees the Palestinian offensive
as vindication of its position.
Only days before the hostilities, Iranian Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cautioned that normalisation of relations with Israel amounted to "gambling" that
was "doomed to failure."
He warned that countries establishing relations
with the Jewish state would be "in harm's way."
Raising the spectre of a wider regional conflict,
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the BBC that the group had direct backing for
the attack from Iran. Mr. Hamad did not specify what
support entailed.
Even if suggestions prove correct that Iran helped Hamas plan and prepare for
the attack, the group would have launched its assault because it served its
purposes rather than serving Iranian interests.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite
militia, bolstered the threat of a regional conflagration by firing rockets at
the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon. Israel retaliated with armed drones.
The Hezbollah attack came after Israeli soldiers
opened fire on pro-Hamas demonstrators carrying the group’s flag on the
Lebanese side of the border. There were no reported casualties.
Meanwhile, a Saudi statement suggested that the
Hamas attack had complicated US-led efforts to engineer Saudi recognition of Israel.
The Saudi foreign ministry recalled the kingdom’s “repeated
warning of the dangers of the explosion of the situation as a result of the
occupation, the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate
rights, and the repetition of systematic provocations against its sanctities.”
The statement indicated that the fighting
reinforced Saudi conditioning of diplomatic relations with Israel on viable steps toward resolving
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Already, the fighting will stop Environmental
Protection Minister Idit Silman from becoming the third Cabinet-level Israeli
official to visit Saudi Arabia in less than two weeks.
Ms. Silman was expected to attend this week’s
MENACW 2023, the Middle East and North Africa Climate Week conference in the kingdom,
one of four Regional Climate Weeks held worldwide ahead of next month’s COP28
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai.
In what diplomats described as an indication of the
United Arab Emirates’ predicament, Emirati officials
insisted that Sunday’s United Nations Security Council discussion of the
fighting would be a closed session rather than a private meeting. The UAE
called for the meeting alongside Malta.
Unlike a private meeting, the closed session
excluded Israeli and Palestinian representatives. It ended without a Council
statement.
The UAE was one of four Arab states to recognize Israel in 2020. At the same time, UAE
officials describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Had there been a Palestinian representation, the
Palestinian voice would have been President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine
Authority, dominated by Al Fatah, Hamas’ archrival, further marginalized by the
fighting.
This weekend, Mr. Abbas was reduced to issuing a
statement insisting that Palestinians had the right to defend themselves
against the “terror of settlers and occupation troops.”
With the perennial potential collapse of the
Palestine Authority, Hamas’ attack strengthens the group in a likely struggle
to succeed 87-year-old Mr. Abbas, who has lost public support.
While the Israeli-Palestinian fighting was likely to
boost popular Arab rejection of relations with Israel, social media responses in Turkey indicated a different sentiment
among one segment of Turkish public opinion.
“Israel is probably more popular than
ever among Turks,” said Turkish Middle East scholar Karabekir Akkoyunlu.
Mr. Akkoyunlu attributed Israel's popularity to Israeli support
for Azerbaijan against Armenia, rising anti-Arab sentiment in Turkey, and Arab countries normalizing
relations with the Jewish state.
That did not stop many Turks from marching in Istanbul this weekend to support the Hamas
attack.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted Hamas
leader Ismail Haniyeh in July and has allowed the group to operate.
However, unlike Arab statements that blamed Israel for the violence, Mr. Erdogan
offered to mediate between Israel and Hamas.
The fighting risks, at least in the short-term,
stiffening Israel's refusal to entertain steps that
would enable the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel or a viable one-state solution,
even if the Netanyahu government, the most ultra-conservative and ultra-nationalist
in Israeli history, becomes a victim of renewed violence.
Israeli reticence will be further reinforced by
likely increased violence on the West Bank, where Palestinian militants resisting Israeli occupation
are certain to be emboldened. Militants called this weekend on Palestinians to
fight Israelis in their West Bank towns.
Some Israeli sources suggested that Israel's focus in the last year on
Palestinian resistance in the West Bank had led Israel to pay less attention to Gaza.
More than 50 years after initial Egyptian-Syrian
advances in the early days of the 1973 Middle East caught Israel by surprise, the Hamas attack has
put a dent in Israel’s image of military superiority
and prowess.
In addition, perceptions of Israeli weakness may be
reinforced once the guns fall silent, with the country likely to be wracked by
assertions that the Hamas attack was an intelligence and operational failure.
Nevertheless, Israel would likely benefit from an
international community breathing a sigh of relief should the Netanyahu
government, too, pay a high price with its possible demise.
No Israeli government has survived longer than six
months in the aftermath of a major war like the 1973 war or the 1982 Israeli
invasion of Lebanon.
Even so, the Hamas attack is likely to impact
Israeli public opinion. On the one hand, it is expected to harden attitudes
towards Palestinians, reinforced by Hamas' brutal attacks on innocent civilians
and abuse of soldiers.
On the other hand, Israelis will probably have less
confidence in Israeli security. “I’m worried. I can’t believe what happened. I’ve
lost confidence,” said an Israeli woman in a text message.
Mr. Netanyahu has sought to capitalize on the
hostilities and unprecedented losses suffered by Israel at the hands of
Palestinians, -- reportedly 600 dead, including 26 soldiers, and more than 2000
wounded at the time of this writing – by inviting opposition leaders Yair Lapid
and Benny Gantz to join an emergency government.
Mr. Lapid said in a statement that Mr. Netanyahu
would have to ditch his far-right and ultra-conservative coalition partners in
forming an emergency government.
The prime minister “knows that with the current
extreme and dysfunctional security cabinet, he can’t manage a war. Israel needs to be led by a
professional, experienced, and responsible government.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s invitation came as the fighting
temporarily eased the prime minister’s immediate domestic concerns.
The rocket attacks and fighting in Israeli towns
and settlements close to Gaza ended, at least temporarily, nine
months of mass protests against Mr. Netanyahu’s judicial changes.
It also halted protests by military reservists,
including fighter jet pilots currently striking Gaza,
who had earlier refused to report for duty because of the judicial
changes.
Israeli ultra-nationalists and military commanders
warned that the reservists’ protest would weaken Israeli military readiness.
On Saturday, Israel called up reservists for a
possible ground invasion of Gaza after Hamas took scores of
Israeli soldiers and civilians hostage and transferred them from Israel to Gaza.
Israel may take heart from the
unconditional US and European support, fuelled by Hamas’ Islamic State-style
brutality, in public statements after the Hamas attack.
However, reality is very different behind the
scenes, according to US and European diplomats.
Mr. Netanyahu has not endeared himself to Western
leaders by heading a government that has expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank; tacitly endorsed increased anti-Palestinian
violence by Israeli settlers; violated fragile understandings on the Temple Mount or Haram-ash-Sharif, a site in Jerusalem holy to Jews and Muslims; and
responded brutally to Palestinian resistance.
In addition, Mr. Netanyahu has embraced nationalist
and far-right European leaders, who look more favorably at his policies than Western
Europeans, the European Union, and US President Joe Biden.
Forming an emergency government would ease Western
criticism of Israeli policies.
Distressing images from Gaza could counter that as Israel continues with its devastating
bombing of Gaza, which has killed at least 300
Palestinians and wounded nearly 2,000 others in less than 24 hours.
Nevertheless, Hamas may have miscalculated by
counting on Mr. Netanyahu's strained relations with his Western partners,
leading them to take a more even-handed approach to renewed violence.
Selfies of Hamas fighters lynching the corpses of
killed Israeli soldiers, reports of killings of Israeli civilians in their
homes in towns near Gaza, and the parade of the dead body
of a German tattoo artist buried the slim chance of a more nuanced Western
attitude.
Even so, a Middle Eastern diplomat argued, “The
Middle Eastern paradigm has changed. Everyone is forced to recalibrate. Hamas
shattered perceptions. The Middle East may never be the same.”.
“Shock” is scarcely
adequate to describe yesterday’s
assault on Israel by
Hamas, the militant Palestinian organisation that controls the Gaza Strip.
Fifty years and a day after another surprise attack, by Egypt
and Syria,
began the Yom Kippur war, and on the day of another Jewish festival, it has
left at least 600 Israelis dead and hundreds more injured. The Palestinian
raiders have also taken dozens of hostages, whom (as
we report today) Hamas will want to swap for its own prisoners. “They were
hunting for civilians,” Robert Albin, a philosophy professor living in Sderot, just a kilometre from the Gaza
border, told our sister publication, 1843 magazine.
Israel’s
retaliation has been swift: air strikes on Gaza
have killed at least 313 Palestinians and a much larger operation is planned
for the coming days. Israel’s
troops are still striving to drive militant fighters out of areas seized by
Hamas. How or how soon this latest war will end no one can tell. As our
leader published today says, Hamas must be made to pay for its
atrocities. But it is also clear that Binyamin Netanyahu’s long-pursued policy
of ignoring Palestinians’ aspirations to sovereignty is in tatters. The Economist
It comes after nearly two decades of the US and world leaders overlooking the more than 2
million people living in Gaza who endure a humanitarian nightmare, with its airspace and
borders and sea under Israeli control. The attack comes amid an ongoing failure
to grapple with the dangerous situation for Palestinians in the West Bank where Israel’s extreme-right government over the past year
has escalated the already brutal daily pain of occupation. Instances of
Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers antagonizing Palestinians through
violence are on the rise, from the pogrom on the city of Huwara to
a new tempo of lethal raids on Jenin.
Israeli government ministers have been pursuing annexationist
policies and sharing raging rhetoric; both incite further
violent response from Palestinians and appear at a time when new militant groups have
emerged that claim the mantle of the Palestinian cause. The now-regular
presence of Israeli Jews praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one
of Islam’s holiest sites, have further pressurized the situation. A Hamas
commander cited many
of these factors in his statement.
But the ongoing reality of the
occupation has not featured prominently in US or Arab leaders’ engagement with
the region in recent years, even as circumstances for Palestinians worsened.
But
negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been frozen
since 2014 under President Barack Obama, and most Palestinian analysts at this
point acknowledge that US administrations since President Bill Clinton have
engaged in a failed, asymmetrical
process that never would have allowed for the conditions of
an independent, sovereign state of Palestine.
And so the symbolism of Hamas
breaking through Israeli security barriers and wreaking havoc on Israel — including the kidnapping of at least one Israeli soldier as
well as civilians — will resonate across Palestine, the
Arab world, and beyond.
Israel’s conflicts with Hamas, along with the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel
conflict, have largely been rocket and artillery exchanges. Even in decades of
large-scale Arab-Israeli wars, the battles were fought outside. “No Arab army
has entered the territory of Israel since the 1948 war,” the preeminent Palestinian scholar Rashid
Khalidi of Columbia University told me. “This is a huge strategic surprise.”
Israel and the United States have wished away Palestinians. The terrible bloodshed of
today’s attacks underscores the cost of doing so.
https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907912/israel-palestine-conflict-history-explained-gaza-hamas
