How Could This Have Happened… and What Now?

“We are at war!” 

Israeli PM Netanyahu, October 7th.

Virtually 50 years to the day from the 1973 Yom Kippur attack, Gaza-based Hamas mounted an invasion of Israel that no one expected. Hundreds died on both sides. Missiles and artillery rained down against each other. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system was taxed to the max. Ground invasion forces from Gaza marched into Israeli territory, taking hostages presumably to be used as human shields to protect Hama targets. How could the Israeli military be caught so off-guard? “American officials said Saturday they received no warning through intelligence that Hamas was preparing to attack Israel, leading to confusion among some at how Israel failed to detect signs of the rocket assault.

The capability of Hamas to coordinate terrorist attacks on Israeli towns without detection has raised concerns about technological blind spots for US intelligence officials, a senior US intelligence official told CNN…. “[T]here was no tactical-level intelligence that alerted US officials that an attack of this size would happen on this day…. The question for US and Israeli intelligence officials now is whether there were indicators that were missed – or whether Israel and the US failed to collect any information that would have helped predict the assault.” Kevin Liptak, CNN, October 7th.

“Using rockets, paragliders, motorcycles, pickup trucks, and boats, Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip launched a coordinated attack that showed an unexpected level of sophistication. .. Israeli forces appeared to be caught completely by surprise as Hamas militants in Gaza used bulldozers to tear down the security fence with Israel and streamed into the country.

“Clearly this was a well-planned operation that didn’t just emerge overnight and it’s surprising it was not detected by Israel or any of its security partners,” said Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington. ‘It’s hard to think of a security failure of this magnitude in Israel’s recent history.’” Dion Nissenbaum For the October 8th Wall Street Journal.

Pledging a “mighty” retaliation, Netanyahu faced a public crying for revenge, even as the public protests against Netanyahu’s rightwing goals to emasculate his nations judiciary now supported a powerful military Israeli conquest of Gaza. “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” promised the Prime Minister. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country’s retaliation would “change the reality on the ground in Gaza for the next 50 years.” Most of the Arab world reversed their lockstep pro-Hamas stance and pressed for both sides to stand down and find a peaceful solution. Even Palestinians in the West Bank, likely to feel Israeli restrictions to increase by reason of this attack, did not mass rally in support of the Hama attack. But Israelis seemed to want to destroy Gaza, once and for all. IDF commanders likewise pledge to leave “no hostages behind.”

The issue of war crimes, particularly relevant against Hamas’ taking civilian hostages and targeting non-military targets, raised it ugly head. Just as Saudi Arabia was about to accept a Biden-administered peace agreement with Israel, the Gaza assault made that reality impossible… for now. In my teenaged years, living as US Diplomat’s son in Beirut, it was hard not to notice that Palestinians, not particularly liked by locals, were kept in harsh restricted camps and used as political pawns by the region’s aspiring dictators. The big regional Arab attempts at pushing Israel back into the sea in 1967 and 1973 achieved the opposite effect: Israel gained territory, including Palestinian territory in Gaza and the West Bank.

Rejecting the internationally supported two-state solution established in 1992, Benjamin Netanyahu and his rightwing coalition crushed Palestinian hopes for self-rule, a lesson that depressed West Bank residents but empowered Gaza militants. There is no question that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) will prevail militarily, but what exactly would they do with Gaza? Even a brutal conquest will not extinguish the local hatred of Israel occupation. Local sabotage will not end. Volatility will not subside. Gazans speak of a revolution for independence and self-rule; Israel describes the attack as sheer terrorism.

Palestine may just rely on its major supporter, Iran, as the Arab world seems to have backed off, the possibility of regional conflict is very real. But as New York Times writer Steven Erlanger (on October 8th), Israel has a big probem: “Unlike the series of clashes with Palestinian forces in Gaza over the past three years, this appears to be a full-scale conflict mounted by Hamas and its allies, with rocket barrages and incursions into Israel proper, and with Israelis killed and captured.

“The psychological impact on Israelis has been compared to the shock of Sept. 11 in America. So after the Israeli military repels the initial Palestinian attack, the question of what to do next will loom large. There are few good options for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has declared war and is being pressured into a major military response…

“Given that scores of Israelis have died so far and an unknown number have been taken hostage by Hamas, an Israeli invasion of Gaza — and even a temporary reoccupation of the territory, something that successive Israeli governments have tried hard to avoid — cannot be ruled out... As Netanyahu told Israelis in declaring war, ‘We will bring the fight to them with a might and scale that the enemy has not yet known.’” As the Biden administration pledged full support for Israel, Republicans lambasted Biden’s policies towards Iran and touted Mr Trump as “Mr Israel.” Whatever happens, we are all at greater risk, and the world faces yet another war. So many will die, be injured and be displaced… a sad reminder of the cost of invasion for all sides.

I’m Peter Dekom, and a war in the Middle East will be a major foreign policy football further polarizing the great American divide.