Addressing the Geopolitical Dynamics of the Israel-Hamas War
Source for image: BBC
On Hamas
Early in the morning of October 7th, Hamas gunmen swarmed into southern Israel and enacted a campaign of terror across more than 20 sites that left approximately 1,200 dead, the majority of whom were civilians, and saw more than 240 taken hostage. The attackers killed indiscriminately. In one case, hundreds of Hamas invaders reached the Nova festival, which had gone on through the night, and promptly opened fire on the crowd of young, unarmed civilians, and abducted others. At the city of Sderot, “civilians were shot in their cars or on their feet. They were shot under an overpass and while apparently waiting for the bus.”
Perhaps even more shockingly, the subsequent escalation of the conflict and the ensuing carnage is exactly what Hamas leaders expected: “What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big.” The attack came at a crucial moment in the Middle East—the prospect of diplomatic normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, an agreement that “could upend Middle East geopolitics,” seemed to be a growing possibility. Hamas’s goal in “changing the equation” wasn’t only to escalate conflict with Israel, however. It also aimed to reshape the diplomatic landscape of the entire Middle East by destroying Israel’s relationship to its Arab neighbors. Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told the New York Times, “I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.” It should be evident by now that genuine peace—the kind in which Israelis can live in the Middle East without fear of sudden attack and where Palestinians can live free of destitution under an Israeli blockade—will be impossible to achieve while Hamas rules Gaza. As long as an organization exists that is willing to sacrifice any number of innocent lives, including their own, in the name of the destruction and subjugation of the Jewish people, true peace will never come to pass.
On the Israeli Invasion
The human cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza is staggering. The Gazan health ministry reports that the death toll exceeds 20,000, the majority of whom were women and children. According to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. . . .more journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in every comparable period in the history of our organization.”
Furthermore, acknowledging that Hamas presents a prohibitive obstacle to peace in the Middle East does not mean that Israel has carte blanche to act as it pleases in its efforts to eradicate the terrorist group. As Ezra Klein points out in his podcast episode, “If Not This, Then What Should Israel Do?”, it’s not even clear what eradicating Hamas means. Israel could opt to invade Gaza, destroy the organization and cause mass civilian death and destruction in the process, then leave. But, undoubtedly, this would lead to a reconstituted Hamas or some other Palestinian militant group, of which there are many, reemerging in perhaps an even worse form. A second option would be to install some kind of collaborating Palestinian government, then leave. Yet without backing from Israeli armed forces, this government would likely be deposed by a militant Palestinian force as well. That means the only way to achieve the stated goal of “eradicating Hamas” through military means is an extended Israeli occupation of Gaza.
In no uncertain terms, this path should be regarded as a humanitarian catastrophe. American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan should serve as cautionary tales about the consequences of attempting to occupy a foreign and hostile population. And in this case, the circumstances are considerably worse than Iraq, which had some constituencies, like the Kurds, that were sympathetic to the American cause. In Gaza, there is little sympathy for the Israeli government that has blockaded them for years and now relentlessly bombs their cities. However, to quote Klein, it seems as though Israel is “sleepwalking toward” this option. On November 7th, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced his plan to control the “overall security” of the region for an “indefinite period,” much to the alarm of the Biden administration.
The current conditions of the war cannot be allowed to continue. Israel must restore access to food, water, and electricity in Gaza. Its refusal to do so up to this point constitutes collective punishment, which under international law is a war crime. The Biden administration, to the greatest extent that it is capable, must push for Israel to accept these terms.
On the Future
While it is a colossal understatement to say that the geopolitical condition of the Middle East has seriously deteriorated as a result of the past month, it is not entirely too late to avoid complete catastrophe. The US, the region, and much of the world stands at an inflection point, and the right policy could spell better days for a region and a world that sorely need it.
The outcome of the conflict between Israel and Hamas will influence whether Palestinians and Israelis alike live in countries defined by freedom and tolerance, or by bigotry, violence, and tyranny. Furthermore, these tensions between values exist across the globe and are intricately linked. The United States is now involved in two international wars: one spent preventing Russia’s conquest of Ukraine, and another spent attempting to mediate the horrific violence that has erupted in Israel and Gaza. As Washington Post columnist and CNN political analyst Josh Roglin notes, the two wars are connected in an important way: “Russia, Iran, and Hamas are all working together to wage war against democracies and upend the world order the United States and its partners spent decades building.” Iran is supplying drones to Russia in its war against Ukraine and likely helped develop the drone capability used by Hamas to kill Israeli citizens. That viewpoint was echoed by deputy U.S. national security adviser Jon Finer, who stated that Iran was “broadly complicit” in the attacks against Israel for “having supported Hamas going back decades.” He cited weapons, training, and other financial aid as evidence of that support.
It is crucial for the future of millions of people that these brutal autocracies have as little influence and power in the world as possible. As the Wall Street Journal’s Walter Russell Meade has noted:
[Iran’s] support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria is responsible for many times more deaths and refugees than all the Israeli-Palestinian wars combined. Iran’s support for Hezbollah converted once-prosperous Lebanon into a poverty-stricken Iranian satellite. Tehran’s allies keep Iraq in a state of miserable unrest while Iranian support for Houthi forces in Yemen drove one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of our time.
While denying direct involvement in the October 7th attacks, Iran quickly commended them. And it is clear what Iran hoped would come as a result. According to Meade, “Tehran hoped to disrupt the emerging anti-Iran bloc in the Middle East” and “drive a wedge between the Arabs and Israelis as Arab rulers sought to placate their angry publics by abandoning any plans to work closely with Israel.”
Whether this eventuality will be borne out is at this point uncertain. But it is clear that Israel is currently at risk, due to the carnage it has inflicted in Gaza, of accelerating the development of that very situation it hopes to avoid. Jordan and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors from Israel. In the American-allied gulf kingdom of Bahrain, citizens have protested repeatedly to declare their solidarity with Palestinians, and some have carried signs showing their king holding hands with Netanyahu, accusing him of being complicit in the murder of Palestinians as long as relations with Israel continue. The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, has forecast dire times ahead: “The whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come.”
The U.S. too has become increasingly isolated in its support for Israel. On December 8th, America used its veto power to reject a U.N. security council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The U.S. was the only country to vote against the measure, with Britain and Germany abstaining and U.S. ally France voting in favor. This fraying support comes as concerns grow that the conflict in the Middle East may escalate further, becoming a “petri dish for a new geopolitical trend–endless tests of America’s will and credibility by its adversaries and their proxies.”
There may, however, still be time to reverse course. No Arab state has yet issued a public ultimatum or cut ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia, among other Middle Eastern states, has signaled its intention to work with Jerusalem for a safer region once the conflict has passed, and for the creation of a Palestinian state, as intractable as the issue currently is. This may only be possible if Netanyahu accepts the urges of the Biden administration to pause the fighting to allow for aid to reach Gazans. Otherwise, anti-Israeli sentiment may reach such a fever pitch in the Middle East that peace becomes impossible.
The question of what can be done in Israel and in Gaza is ultimately embedded in the question of what kind of world people will grow up in and what kind of countries they will inhabit. It is wrong that Israelis must live in fear next to a terrorist group with explicitly genocidal intentions toward Jews. It is wrong that hundreds of thousands of children grow up in Gaza without hope for a better life. Israel, the United States, and the Arab states of the Middle East have a chance to establish an agreement that could secure the region against the oppression and brutality of Iran and its satellite groups like Hezbollah and Hamas for decades or generations. To do that, however, Israel must live up to its own identity as an outpost of democracy. It must respect human rights and international law. Netanyahu must reverse the immoral and now ridiculous-seeming policy of diverting money away from the Palestinian Authority and channeling it to Hamas in order to destabilize the Palestinian government, isolate it, and eliminate the possibility of a two-state solution. It must show that it is willing to respect the autonomy and sovereignty of Palestinians in the West Bank. It is exactly this degree of hopelessness that right-wing Israelis hoped to create and which has in part led to the dire situation the region now experiences. If, however, with strong leadership and moral clarity, the United States, Israel, and its potential allies can establish an international coalition committed to the enfranchisement of Palestinians and the establishment of lasting peace in the region, then perhaps the status quo that has prevailed for decades may slowly begin to change.