Hamas-Israel war: A crisis this broken gov't could never have handled
Israel is in a very fragile place internally, with a government that, at best, is rather unqualified to handle this escalation at this speed with Hamas.
IDF soldiers inspect the remains of a police station in Sderot, which was the site of a battle following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, on October 8. (photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)ByLIAM FORBERG
Saturday morning, October 7. The day of Simchat Torah, the holiday that celebrates the conclusion of the annual Torah readings, and the beginning of a new one. Fifty years and a day since the face of the entire country changed forever in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The war has since become synonymous with being Israel’s largest military and intelligence failure in its history, and a stark reminder that the hubris-like complacency of that time was never to be repeated again. Lo and behold, it just did.
The casualty numbers on either side were unprecedented, especially for such an unannounced blitz, starting from 6:30 a.m. October 7, when sirens were heard. Thousands of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza, hundreds of terrorists broke past the Gaza border through land, sea and air, and rolled into at least 20 communities in southern Israel. The incursion led to the murder of more than 1,400 Israelis, including 26 IDF soldiers, over 2,000 wounded, over 350 seriously wounded, and an undisclosed number of Israeli hostages taken into Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed that over 100 Israelis were captured. The subsequent counterattack from the IDF on Gaza, titled Operation Swords of Iron, led to at least 400 Palestinians killed, and 2,300 wounded.
These numbers are all bound to drastically increase, and change, especially in an age when misinformation, fear mongering, conspiracy theories, and psychological warfare are ushering on either side, and if an attack from the other fronts of Israel, such as the Lebanon or Syria border, will kick off as well.
Hezbollah, despite having sat out on prior armed conflicts between the IDF and Palestinian militants, fired mortars at Israel on Sunday, October 8, and in response, the IDF made a drone strike on its infrastructure in the Mount Dov region.
The Egyptian dilemma is also up for debate, as inflammation will arise from its status as a possible proxy of negotiations for the release of kidnapped Israelis. On the morning of Sunday, the 8th, an Egyptian policeman shot and killed at least two Israeli tourists and one Egyptian in Pompey’s Pillar site in Alexandria.
Israel’s Iron Dome intercepts rockets, as seen from Ashkelon. (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
A rather unannounced player is the West Bank, reports from which mainly tell of protests and celebrations of the incursions, in cities like Nablus, Jenin, and Ramallah, and individual clashes between Palestinians and settlers. But there is a clear Hamas initiative that addresses the West Bank, as head of Hamas’s Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh called on the “resistance” in the West Bank to join the fight, and as implied by the name Hamas labeled the operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
The Middle East has changed, but Hamas's goals stayed the same
It is obvious, however, that this war has been coming for a long time, having been tightly coordinated among many sides and factors in the Palestinian side and its allies. In the midst of negotiations of Saudi normalization with Israel, backed by the US, and a lackluster attempt by the Saudi kingdom to reach a point of Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, an Iranian backing to the offensive attack would also make sense, as they will be looking to derail the process. “All the agreements of normalization that you [Arab states] signed [with Israel] will not end this conflict,” Haniyeh stated. “I am congratulating this great and strategic victory, which is a serious warning to all compromisers in the region,” said Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in a letter to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
However, “Nothing has changed ever in the fundamental perception of Hamas, which is the elimination of Israel,” Harel Chorev, head of the Middle Eastern Network Analysis Desk in TAU’s Moshe Dayan Center, tells The Jerusalem Report. “We were telling ourselves fairy tales about how they can be modernized, how we can contain this issue, buy them with money and working permits, that they’re not different from us mentally, religiously, and politically. The truth punched us right in the face.”
Israel is in a very fragile place internally, with a government that, at best, is rather unqualified to handle this escalation at this speed and has had, and still has, players that are advancing their own personal agendas instead of providing a secure blanket of confidence to Israeli citizens, who are as lost as they can be.
It is an unfortunate – but predictable – shame, then, that it takes this huge tragedy for there to be some semblance of unity within the country. Israelis all over have united in solidarity to provide care and assistance to residents of southern Israel in need of support, such as escapees of the overnight Nature Party: rave in Kibbutz Reim near the Gaza border, which is now considered the biggest terrorist massacre in Israel’s history, with over 250 people killed. WhatsApp groups of communes and individuals who are offering shelter in the North have started; search teams for people who were reported lost have been launched; volunteers are contributing blood, food, and necessity donations; there is a mass calling for mobilization among IDF reservists, despite months of protests and refusals to serve in the wake of the judicial reform; and a broken government is now calling for “unity” at this dire time.
A government that failed to address incitement and escalation in Palestinian fervor, after appointing extremists that helped fuel the conflict. A government that had deflected any responsibility for negligence on previous coalitions and irrelevant side factors to the fact that Israelis are in more danger than ever. A government that made its priorities clear by putting a severe division of the country and a dismantling of the IDF on the back burner is now calling for unity. And it might be the only way for us to move forward.
Head of the opposition and former prime minister Yair Lapid, and former defense minister Benny Gantz have met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the potential forming of an emergency unity government. Gantz has agreed to join, with the intent of establishing a war cabinet, assuming that his party will be given influence in decision-making. Lapid has expressed an interest to join the government on the condition of eliminating ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Unity still has its conditions.
“Netanyahu of today is different from the one we knew 15 years ago – I really do not know what will he decide to do – to stay with his partners from the right wing or to make a shift to the center,” says Prof. Eyal Zisser, vice rector of Tel Aviv University and lecturer in the Middle East History Department.
And at this point, it is unclear where he will go; but no matter what route Netanyahu takes, there will be blood.
Lest we forget, Israel is indirectly partially responsible for the creation of Hamas in the first place. The “non-violent, non terrorist” counter to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and specifically Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, was funded and promoted by Israel in the 1980s. Since then, Israel has turned a blind eye to all the various efforts to fan Hamas’ flame. And it has grown into the firestorm it is now.
And now completely dismantling it could lead to a takeover of other terrorist organizations, considered even more extreme and capable than Hamas’ supposed “small fry” power. That same small fry that shocked the entire country after being severely underestimated.
“The Islamic Jihad is a significant force in Gaza. It must consist of several thousands of militants. Who will take over? That’s a good question. But right now, any option other than Hamas and the Islamic Jihad is better than them. Personally, I’d say the Palestinian Authority, but they have no power to take over the Gaza strip. It will only happen after we do the ‘dirty job.’
“If we think we can deal with the Gaza Strip the same way we dealt with them in recent years, I think Albert Einstein said something about that,” says Chorev. It’s the definition of insanity.
If a UN Commission of Inquiry is what brings the horse to the water, then so be it; but it is only until the horse drinks the water and takes some open, honest responsibility for Israel’s and Palestine’s future that this endless cycle of perpetrating and escalating violence on both sides won’t repeat itself, at least in the near future.
But despite all of that, now is the time to be pragmatic. Help in whatever way we individuals can, suck it up just one more time, and strengthen ourselves instead of knocking the country when it’s already at its lowest ebb.
“My personal view as an Israeli, not as an expert, is that we need to put our criticisms – as fierce as they will be, and as they should be – aside for another time,” Chorev tells the Report. “Now we need to be united.” ■
