“Al-Aqsa Flood” changed the rules of engagement with the Zionist occupation and the political theatre in the region.
The daring military campaign deep inside Israel that began Last Saturday, October 7, was only because Palestinians are simply fed up.
It is too soon to know how the next few weeks will unfold, However, it is not too soon to be clear that this attack marks the end of a decades-old belief in Israel that Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty could be indefinitely put aside while the rest of the Middle East forged ahead.
Mr Netanyahu’s policy of sidelining the Palestinians has been thrown up into the air by the Hamas assault, and Israel’s notion of being safe by ignoring the Palestinian question or leaving it, on October 7, Hamas managed to trash that notion. That policy is now broken.
Moreover, Israel’s assumption that divide-and-rule between Hamas and the PLO/ Fatah the main Palestinian party in the West Bank would keep the Palestinians weak and that the influence of radical factions would undermine the credibility of moderates as partners for peace, that assumption created a weak and decadent leadership and out of touch in the Westbank. To the contrary of Israel’s fallacy, the Inter-Palestinian rivalry made Hamas stronger and determined to focus its struggle against Israel as the main target. On October 7, Hamas made good on their promises by declaring that Netanyahu’s assumption was deemed null and void. With the “ Al-Aqsa Flood” Hamas is becoming the true voice of Palestinian resistance
The third assumption was that Israel’s normalization and peace treaties with the Arab regimes would strengthen its position and that diplomacy would leave the Palestinians to fester. The United States continues to push for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel despite the conflict. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Israel continues to strive for normalization because it would weaken Iran, the main backer of Hamas and Hezbollah. Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken framed the Israel-Hamas conflict partly as arising out of Iran’s opposition to normalization efforts. Edward Wong, Mark Mazzetti, and Vivian Nereim report for the New York Times.
In his recent analysis of ‘Al-Quds Flood’ attack, Makhoul observed “the loss of balance in the ruling institution and the realization that what happened was a ground shake-off that would overthrow political and military leaders, ravage the entire Israeli system and end the concept of the People’s Army once and for all.” He continued his assertion that because of the unprecedented Hamas incursion inside Israel’s territories, “Israel lost most of the vehicles of its military doctrine.”
In his recent analysis, Amir Makhoul from the Center for Arab Progress for Policies – Haifa observed a total collapse of the foundations of Israeli military doctrine.
For Israel’s military and political leadership, “Anything less than invasion will be a grave mistake,” said Amir Avivi, former deputy commander of the Gaza Division of Israel’s military. “Not doing that will be devastating for Israel’s ability to deter not only Hamas, but the whole region,” he added. James Shotter reports for the Financial Times.
The coming operation against Hamas will only add to the sense that the time has come for a new approach. After Saturday’s bloodshed, Israel cannot wreck Hamas only for it to remain in power in Gaza as if nothing had happened.
However, no simple alternative is on offer. Nobody in Israel seems to ignore the difficulties that lie ahead. Israel military generals are not willing to re-occupy Gaza and Israel’s right-wing coalition has been focused on annexing parts of the West Bank. It will redouble these efforts.
Despite that, hard-headed Israelis will need to grapple with the fact that they must once again start to deal with the Palestinian issue. Israel’s security apparatus needs a counterparty to work with if it is to have any sway over the Palestinian territories. That means it needs a Palestinian interlocutor.
What comes next will depend greatly on who is in power in Jerusalem. For the moment, Israel is pulling together, but it will soon undergo a bitter reckoning that could yet lead to a new coalition or even a new prime minister. If Israelis are to be safe, whoever is in charge will need to stop thinking of the Palestinians as a problem that can be shelved and start thinking of them as people who must be engaged.
“The United States has an interest in calming things down as quickly as possible. That is not Israel’s interest at the moment. Its interest is to reestablish deterrence, and for that, it intends to extract a very high price,” CFR expert Martin S. Indyk says during a media briefing on the implications of Hamas’s attack.
“From Hamas and its backers’ perspective, Israel seemed weak and divided given the months of popular demonstrations against the government over its effort to make critical changes to the judiciary,” CFR expert Steven A. Cook writes in this In Brief.
“[Iran] with its backing of Hamas and Hezbollah has been working to coordinate pressure on Israel, threatening further escalation of the shadow war between the two countries,” CFR expert Ray Takeyh writes in this In Brief.
Where does the crisis go from here? I believe an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza is now inevitable. It will probably come within days. The question is how long it will last and what it can accomplish. Months of urban warfare lie ahead.
Spiraling violence in the Middle East presents U.S. President Joe Biden with five major issues to contend with as the threat of a broader, deadlier conflict looms in and around southern Israel and Gaza.
The escalating violence has also likely jeopardized the progress Biden has been trying to make with Riyadh to strengthen the three-year-old Abraham Accords. In September 2020, the U.S. steered talks that led to representatives from Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain signing the Abraham Accords in Washington DC. Morocco later agreed, with Sudan also signing the declaration but not a bilateral agreement with Israel. The accords made Abu Dhabi and Manama the third and fourth Arab states to recognize Israel, and the accords were intended to normalize diplomatic relations. It stressed “the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence.”
However, the Biden administration has been working to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accord fold, which would stand to be a significant foreign policy win for the administration. However, reports from a Saudi-owned newspaper in the weeks running up to Saturday’s escalation had suggested Riyadh had frozen normalization talks, although this was denied by the U.S. and Israel. But in mid-September, The New York Times reported that Washington was discussing a mutual defense treaty with Saudi Arabia, citing U.S. officials.
“This will slow considerably if not kill the Saudi Abraham Accords deal,” Mara Rudman, a former diplomat for the Middle East under the Obama administration, told The New York Times. Up until October 7, that view it had looked as if Saudi Arabia might join, too. Eventually, it still may, but Hamas has shown that the Palestinians have a say, too. To the surprise of President Biden U S administration and Abraham Accord partners, the “Al-Quds Flood” delivered a major blow to Biden’s $ Netanyahu team’s normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.
The escalating violence has also likely jeopardized the progress Biden has been trying to make with Riyadh to strengthen the three-year-old Abraham Accords.
“It strikes at the heart of key elements for Saudi entry, a pathway forward for Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza,” Mara Rudman, a former diplomat for the Middle East under the Obama administration, told The New York Times.
What happens now? Israel now faces questions over the scale of the intelligence failure that allowed Hamas to stage an attack of this size, which has challenged not only the status quo in the region but also the foundations of Israel’s self-confidence.
It is too early to reach sweeping conclusions regarding the outcome of this unprecedented war, but what is crystal clear is that the fundamental relationship between the Israeli occupation and occupied Palestinians is likely to be altered, and permanently so, because of what took place on October 7,203.
Whatever else emerges from this conflict, one thing will be a new search for answers to the question of how Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace.