The Hamas Attack Has Changed Everything
The starting point for the new Middle East will be an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, not an Israeli Embassy in Riyadh.
By Steven A. Cook via Foreign Policy
OCTOBER 9, 2023
This was not supposed to happen. Israel’s vaunted military and ruthlessly efficient security services had Hamas bottled up in the Gaza Strip. Sure, every few years there was a conflict that followed a similar pattern: a provocation, Hamas rocket attacks, Israeli air strikes, Egyptian mediation, and then quiet again. Meanwhile, Israel’s diplomatic achievements piled up as it expanded its circle of peace to include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. Until a few days ago, Washington was debating when Saudi Arabia and Israel would normalize relations.
That was when people began getting news alerts on their devices informing them that Hamas had invaded Israel, killed many civilians and soldiers, and had yet to be subdued while a salvo of anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 rockets rained down on Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Tel Aviv.
By now, whatever has been said about Hamas’s “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” as this latest assault has been dubbed—that it’s unprecedented, a quantum leap, Israel’s 9/11—has become cliché. However folks want to describe it, it should be clear that the merciless lethality of Hamas’s invasion of Israel has—at the risk of another cliché—changed everything. The familiar pattern of Israel-Hamas conflict is now something of the past. There is simply no way the Israeli government will not unleash the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the Gaza Strip on the ground, in the air, and by sea to destroy Hamas and, in the process, kill or capture leaders such as Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif.
As a result, the issues that the world of Middle East experts, punditry, and officialdom was concerned with just a week ago—Israel’s eligibility for the U.S. visa waiver program and the prospect of Saudi-Israeli normalization—suddenly seem irrelevant. The starting point for the new Middle East will be an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, not an Israeli Embassy in Riyadh.
This parlous state of affairs is only really a surprise because bad assumptions about the region hampered a clear view of the Middle East’s complex political dynamics. This is particularly acute when it comes to the Palestinian issue and its alleged diminution in parallel with the march toward regional integration, the idea that the problem is Israel’s occupation, and the persistent belief—despite so much evidence—that U.S. diplomacy can alter Iran’s behavior for the better.
Take each one in succession. First, although some Middle Eastern governments want to establish ties with Israel, the issue of Palestinian rights has not lost its importance for the vast majority of Arabs who view normalization dimly. Lost in the miasma of violence in recent days is the fact that Israel has occupied the West Bank for 56 years and, along with Egypt, maintains a cordon sanitaire around the Gaza Strip. Prominent features of life for Palestinians in these areas are violence, dispossession, and dehumanization.
Under these circumstances, there are few Palestinians who regard resistance as illegitimate. This was perhaps best articulated in a media interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, who is neither aligned with Hamas nor its political rival, Fatah. Without explicitly condoning or condemning Hamas’s rampage throughout southern Israel, he focused on what he sees as Israel’s culpability. He told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the Hamas attack was a reaction to a host of actions, including settler attacks on and evictions of Palestinians in the West Bank; attacks on Muslim and Christian holy sites by Israeli extremists; and Israel’s normalization with Arab countries, which Barghouti characterized as an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “liquidate” Palestinian rights and the Palestinian cause.
It was likely hard for many viewers to hear at a moment when the full horror of the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians was coming to light, but Barghouti accurately characterized the situation for many Palestinians.
Now that war has broken out, it has brought into sharp relief the fact that the Palestinian issue is not just a “checkbox” ahead of a Saudi-Israeli signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. Security, rights, and justice for the people in the West Bank and Gaza remain critical pieces of the normalization that so many Israelis want.
To their credit, U.S. President Joe Biden and his advisors understood this and pushed the Israelis to take the issue seriously. Still, in Washington, until Saturday morning there was an overall sense that the primary obstacles to Saudi-Israel normalization were not the Israeli occupation and Palestinians’ lack of rights, but rather a radical far-right Israeli government and a toxic Saudi leader who was unworthy of the goodies the White House was willing to offer for coming to terms with Israel.
Those may be valid reasons to be skeptical of a deal, but it’s clear that, now especially, Arab countries will not be able to move forward with normalizing relations with Israel so long as the Palestinian grievances remain unaddressed.
Second, anyone attuned to the issue will have seen placards at pro-Palestinian rallies that declare “End the Occupation!” The underlying assumption is that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the end of the blockade of Gaza will go a long way toward ending the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
That seems unlikely, but also beside the point—because when Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, affirms that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood aims to end the world’s longest occupation, he does not mean the 56-year occupation that began with Israel’s victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. He means the occupation of what he sees as the land of Palestine—to include Israel. This is something that Palestine’s supporters would rather be left unsaid; or, when it is raised, will protest that the Hamas Charter was revised in 2017 to soften the group’s view of Israel. That is hardly the case, however. Article 18, for example, states:
The following are considered null and void: the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate Document, the UN Palestine Partition Resolution, and whatever resolutions and measures that derive from them or are similar to them. The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah [global Muslim community]; it is also in violation of human rights that are guaranteed by international conventions, foremost among them is the right to self-determination.
It also states, “Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.” This should bring into sharp relief Hamas’s goals. Taking over towns in Israel, rather than targeting settlements in the West Bank, belies the apologists’ claim that Hamas aims to liberate the Gaza Strip and West Bank only.
So yes, the occupation as understood by the international community is a problem, but it is not the problem. For Hamas, the problem is that Israel exists. And although the vast majority of people in the Arab world do not subscribe to Hamas’s methods, if some of the polling on normalization is any indication, their view of Israel as illegitimate is not dissimilar from Hamas’s own view. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has thus laid bare a problem at the heart of all the talk about a new integrated Middle East: Without justice for the Palestinians, the support for normalization is thin at best.
Third, the notion that the United States can coax changes in Iranian behavior through diplomacy is misguided. It remains to be seen to what extent Iran had a hand in Hamas’s infiltration of Israel, but there are tantalizing signs that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force played a role.
That group’s commander, Gen. Esmail Qaani, met with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah in the spring to encourage coordination among the groups and attacks on Israel. Hamas leaders have also said publicly that Iran provided weapons, money, and equipment for Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The sophistication of Hamas’s operation and its stunning change in tactics also suggest the possibility that the group received outside assistance. And the Iranians have warned countries against normalization with Israel, a clear confluence of interest with Hamas.
If the Iranians had a hand in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, it should bring an end to the assumption that both Democratic and Republican administrations have held that, with Iran, “good will begets good will.” There is very little evidence of this. Instead, the Iranians pocket U.S. goodwill, regard it as weakness, and pursue their goal of undermining the regional order, including by confronting Israel.
Now, in response, the Israelis are laying siege to the Gaza Strip in order to destroy Hamas. It will be a long, hard fight, as the Israelis acknowledge. Given the scale of Hamas’s attacks, Israel will likely have unusual amounts of leeway from the United States, Europe, and even some of its Arab partners to achieve this goal—despite what will likely be an enormous loss of civilian life.
But then what? The Israelis have been trying to offload the Gaza Strip for decades. They were even willing to give it to Yasser Arafat. Given that there are no good options, the Israelis may now find themselves occupying the same territory they withdrew from almost 20 years ago. Even if they do not intend to do so, Gaza is a trap. This will surely set back normalization in the region and much else. Victory to the Iranians.
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