Hamas-Israel war could derail year's worth of US work in the Middle East
It can be said without any exaggeration that the day of October 7 passed in Israel with a feeling of a new, unusual reality. Today, political scientists often come across the expression “new normal” - there is no new normal yet, but a new reality has emerged.
There has not been such a feeling of vulnerability in this state for several decades. The shell of the military mythology that has been created for years around the armed forces and intelligence of this country has cracked. This shell often played no less a role than military expenditures themselves.
The ease with which Hamas forces carried out raids deep into Israeli territory, as far as Ashkelon, led observers to resort to conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, you can try to do without conspiracy theories, although you will have to untangle the tight tangle of interests of different players.
To begin with, you can turn to the chronology of events and the chronology of their coverage, which can provide equally valuable material.
At 6:30, Hamas begins a massive shelling of Israel with unguided projectiles, in Israel they counted 2200, the Palestinians themselves say about 5000 units. Drones towers with automatic installations and video cameras are attacked. Almost simultaneously, over twenty armed groups begin to storm the border fences, including tandems of shooters on paragliders.
The initial breaches in the walls were made quickly with the help of charges; the attackers approached the fortified checkpoints on foot, apparently without much fear of video surveillance. They had a good idea of where the duty groups were during an artillery attack, and also understood that in addition to such groups, the rest of the units were on vacation.
And here there is a rather interesting nuance in the chronology - for some time in Israel they were convinced that they were dealing with a breakthrough of formations with a total complexity of up to 100 people, and smaller numbers were also named - 60-70 people.
Only much later did video footage begin to appear where a crowd with construction equipment was already breaking down barriers, making wide passages through them and literally spreading through them on pickup trucks and motorcycles. Only at ten in the morning does Hamas voice a general call for resistance, to “take up arms.” This is the first act of the drama.
Quite late we see, firstly, the reaction of official Palestine with the speech of M. Abbas, the very cautious exit of speakers from Iran (not from the top officials), expressions of support for Hezbollah, without indicating that verbal support could develop into something more. In Israel itself, the link between attacks and Iranian policies also occurs through third parties on the political spectrum. And this is the second act of the drama.
In the third act we already see the reaction of the Arab countries, quite balanced. Iran's accusations move into the category of statements from top Israeli officials, formalizing Hezbollah's position on entering the war in the event of a ground operation in Gaza. Position of the Biden Cabinet on support.
All this, apparently, means that Hamas did not initially plan an attack of this scale, developing an operation under the guise of “de-escalation” negotiations, with a massive air raid and targeted strikes on border checkpoints. Apparently, the city of Sderot was also part of this operation, which expanded in scale only at 10-11 am.
But the success was so stunning for Hamas that even in Ramallah at first they did not know how to react to it - Hamas took over the agenda completely in the West Bank.
Behind the main groups of trained and well-armed militants, the number of which amounted to 1 thousand people, was already the bulk of Hamas and Palestinians from Gaza and the surrounding area, which until the evening of October 7 almost freely circulated on both sides of the perimeter, gradually going wild, posting footage of equipment, prisoners and many other frankly creepy shots taken as if in the Middle Ages. The level of savagery increased. At the end of the day, fighting continued in 22 border settlements.
It was noticeable that B. Netanyahu could not simply turn all the arrows to Iran right away - consultations were ongoing with Washington, and Iran also did not give Hezbollah any hints about statements about forceful actions for some time.
This all happened through a massive diplomatic exchange, where Qatar, Egypt (as one of the main negotiators on Palestine), Moscow, the Arabian monarchies, and European capitals were linked. And we especially note that we have not heard about Beijing’s position, but in June Xi Jinping spoke directly about the two states and borders of 1967.
Many observers noted that this major act of escalation coincided quite closely with signals about the relative success of the complex negotiation process between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But here we still need to separately understand what success is for each of the parties.
And it seemed logical to conclude that these agreements potentially work against Iran (this is indeed a potential threat), therefore, the origins must be sought in Iran. Israel took advantage of this.
But this would be too convenient a version, if you do not take into account the fact that it was in recent weeks that progress on the nuclear program began again between Iran and the United States, and the rivalry between Iran and the United States in the region is no longer so much military as economic in nature. This is important, since Ukrainian speakers, together with their Western colleagues, are spreading the narrative that this was supposedly not beneficial to anyone except Iran, and where Iran is, there is Russia - then everything follows the proven methodology. It is also important that Ukrainian speakers are frequent guests on Israeli TV. However, footage of Hamas thanking Ukraine for weapons is no longer rare, and Kyiv will have to somehow stop this footage.
B. Netanyahu’s opponents, in turn, put forward an even more interesting version, but in the realm of pure conspiracy theories, that the Israeli prime minister almost deliberately allowed what happened in order to attribute political problems to the war.
The fact is that over the past year, B. Netanyahu has actually driven himself into a situation of a very precarious balance. In the context of the formation of the “Indo-Arabian” concept of the United States, one of the main problems for the latter was the consent of Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. Riyadh, in turn, prioritized the issue of settlements in the West Bank, as well as the topic of nuclear energy and weapons modernization, which it discussed with D. Trump.
But the fact is that B. Netanyahu’s ruling coalition itself was built around a project of judicial reform, which in many ways was supposed to give his supporters a free hand in terms of settlements.
For obvious reasons, the United States has been and will be against the reform, supporting, albeit not so directly, its opponents. The United States was in a hurry in the negotiations, the shuttle diplomacy of E. Blinken and J. Sullivan gained unique momentum.
But B. Netanyahu’s cabinet in many ways began to consist almost of radicals, as a kind of “gift” to Washington. At the same time, the Israeli prime minister also managed to complicate relations with the Orthodox wing on the issue of military duty - he could not demonstratively reject dialogue with the second part of Israeli society.
Incredible efforts were required from Netanyahu so that, under the current cabinet, which advocates the widest possible territorial expansion, in the conditions of public division, to ensure that Saudi Arabia approves at least framework agreements.
He either slowed down the implementation of reforms, or promised to continue to provide preferences for the Palestinian labor force; progress in the weapons program for Riyadh was discussed. At the same time, the second hand required somehow expanding the settlements in order to stake out as large a piece as possible “in fact.”
As a result, during difficult negotiations, either problems with the Jerusalem shrines or escalation in Janina will arise. The prime minister could no longer step aside, since the opposition would again begin to stir up corruption scandals, and by remaining with the current coalition, every step would become a problem for the United States with its strategic concept. It is possible that the best way out for this leader would have been to resign under US guarantees, but a different path was chosen.
And so, when behind-the-scenes negotiations on normalization with Riyadh began to take some form, in Gaza, seeing the outright passivity of the Palestinian administration in Ramallah, they decided to remind that they were not going to become the losing side and literally went all in. Neither Israel nor Gaza itself expected to see such an organizational gap in border security.
Conspiracy theorists can, of course, reflect on the fact that B. Netanyahu today benefits from a “decisive military operation”, the only problem is that it is categorically not beneficial to the United States, and the Israeli prime minister himself will ultimately face an inevitable and large-scale investigation, exactly in the spirit of assessment in Israel the results of the Yom Kippur War, which just died down fifty years ago.
Now B. Netanyahu finds himself in a situation much worse than six months ago - the demand for the Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip is an act of extreme action.
On the one hand, he cannot help but hit the enclave, since medieval images of violence obviously require retribution, but, on the other hand, he must first of all negotiate the exchange of prisoners and prisoners.
If you hit the Gaza Strip, then where are the guarantees that the hostages will survive, and engaging in an exchange means making concessions on imprisoned members of Palestinian groups and not taking full revenge.
This is not just a fork of decisions, but a fork where each path is an investigation and resignation with the most unpleasant consequences.
A ground operation in the Gaza Strip could indeed fulfill the promise of Hezbollah, which is far better equipped than Hamas and has extensive experience from the Syrian campaign. Israeli sources back in 2020 estimated the number of unguided missiles alone at Hezbollah at 40 thousand, not to mention the presence of more advanced systems.
Actually, the Israeli prime minister’s attempt to shift responsibility onto Iran is needed to obtain guarantees from the United States, which indirectly may try to keep Hezbollah in place. Therefore, in the USA B. Netanyahu was heard, but they said that
“Washington now considers it premature to draw conclusions regarding Iran’s involvement in attacks on Israel.”
It’s one thing when B. Netanyahu deals directly with the Palestinian movement in Gaza, another thing when Iran stands opposite - this is how one can address the United States. Only in Washington they are not happy about this - they were going to deal with Hezbollah’s financial flows, and not fight with it, wasting power resources.
The Israeli prime minister has no good solutions. If only because the population from the Gaza Strip (which is almost 2,4 million people) has nowhere to go except to Syria, Lebanon or... to the West Bank. Entering there with ground forces means getting an operation from Hezbollah, and with the tacit consent of even the Arabian monarchies.
Washington will now, through Egypt and Qatar, make every effort to carry out prisoner exchanges and keep Israel within the framework of air operations and a possible minimum of actions on the ground, while simultaneously conducting substantive negotiations with the Israeli elites about replacing the prime minister, who is entangled in the web of past decisions. Moreover, the first person to take advantage of this aggravation in the Middle East will be J. Biden’s best friend, D. Trump. He is already declaring that everything that happened is due to the generosity of the Democratic Party to Hamas.
It is possible that Washington will actually be able to hold this line by turning on the resources of the UN (where there are unlikely to be disagreements this time). But so far there are all signs that the current cabinet in Israel has decided to go all the way and according to the toughest scenario - the ground operation has been officially approved, and UN forces (UNIFIL) are being built up on the Israeli-Lebanese border. For Israel, this will probably be one of the most costly resignations of senior management in many years, although almost the entire environment will pay for it.
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