FP This Week October 10, 2023 : Israel's Gaza battle, Iran's role, The geopolitical consequences of the war, İnterview with Aaron David Miller and more...

 

OCTOBER 10, 2023  |  VIEW IN BROWSER  |  SUBSCRIBE

Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City on Oct. 9. Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images

“What are we to make of this shocking event?” asks Stephen Walt in his latest column for Foreign Policy, “Israel Could Win This Gaza Battle and Lose the War.” The scale of the attack  on Israel this Saturday by the Palestinian militant group Hamas has created enormous pressure for Israel to try to root the organization out of Gaza, which is, as Daniel Byman and Alexander Palmer write, “an almost impossible task given Hamas’s deep economic, religious, and social base there.” Especially now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war, the only certainty is that ordinary people will surely pay a heavy price.  Iran’s role in the attack was hazy in the immediate aftermath, though Hamas has now declared that it received assistance from Iran in the planning. Tehran, Danielle Pletka writes, has been encouraging an escalation like this for months—and with remarkable specificity, too. So why wasn’t Israel well prepared? The intelligence failure is compounded by a diplomatic one, in which—as FP’s Robbie Gramer writes—a broken confirmation process has meant no American ambassador in Israel, as well as a host of other missing national security officials stateside. FP’s Michael Hirsh suggests that Netanyahu has been traveling down a road to war for some time. The Israeli leader sought to sideline the Palestinians while wooing the Arab states, Hirsh writes, and now he has created the conditions for the worst Israeli-Arab war since 1973. Even though Israel’s militarized approach to Gaza has been an epic failure, Netanyahu will likely try it again, writes Palestinian political analyst Yousef Munayyer. Munayyer writes that Israeli and U.S. decision-makers face two paths. One is more death and destruction. “The other path requires leaders to demand that Palestinians’ core political grievances, the ultimate sources of violence, finally be resolved.” The geopolitical consequences of the war will be immense. European officials told FP’s Jack Detsch that they fear Russia will take advantage of a two-front war in the Middle East as it continues to wage its invasion of Ukraine. European goodwill is finite, along with ammunition, and then there’s the possibility that the Kremlin will forge even closer ties with Iran amid the chaos. Still, “punishing Iran is not the slam dunk it may seem,” writes FP’s Elisabeth Braw, who details the Islamic Republic’s crucial role in global oil supplies via the Strait of Hormuz. The fact that the United States is deploying a strike group to the eastern Mediterranean, close to Israel, Gaza, and the Suez Canal, adds more uncertainty.  Keep reading FP for more reporting and analysis on Israel’s war with Hamas, and what it means for the region and the world.—The editors

‘Negotiation Is the Only Solution’ Earlier today, FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal interviewed Aaron David Miller on the aftermath of Saturday’s attacks on Israel. Miller, who worked closely with six Republican and Democratic secretaries of state throughout the 1980s and ’90s on brokering Arab-Israeli relations, offered his perspective on Israel’s response, the role of Hezbollah, the situation facing the Biden administration in the United States, and more. Ravi Agrawal: So, given your depth of history in the Middle East, I’m curious whether you see Saturday’s attack as unprecedented. Some U.S. commentators have been calling it Israel’s 9/11. Aaron David Miller: Historical analogies can be very flawed, particularly the comparative issue of what happens in the Middle East to our own politics. I would use 1973 as a sort of point of departure in some respects. The attacks that led to that war were a massive intelligence failure, but it was very much a war on the borders with little or no involvement of the civilian population. And then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had a clear strategy to inflict a limited and specific military defeat on Israel by establishing an Egyptian presence on the east bank of the Suez Canal and then trying to figure a way to convert that—with a lot of U.S. help—into disengagement agreements that would hopefully pave the way for an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. However, what’s happened over the past four days is quite different. It is part and parcel of a long confrontation between Israel and Hamas. I’m not sure where this is going, but it’s clear to me that you have the largest attack on civilians in the history of the state of Israel. Hamas’s strategy is certainly not as focused or as coherent as Sadat’s. RA: Do you see the possibility of a peace process emerging from this attack? ADM: It’s morally and ethically unconscionable for me to say never, and essentially to abandon hope that any crisis, no matter how irrepressible, violent, and bloody, might not offer up a pathway out. Right now, Israelis and Palestinians are trapped in a strategic cul-de-sac. They’ve been trapped there since our effort during the Clinton administration to bring former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, and Clinton together at Camp David, which I helped plan, and was ill-advised, ill-conceived, and ill-timed despite the profoundly good intentions of Bill Clinton, who may have loved Israelis and Palestinians too much. The four missing ingredients that are required to create a negotiation that would end in a durable and equitable solution for Israelis and Palestinians have never been present. For Miller’s proposed four pillars of a sustainable solution and more analysis of this weekend’s attacks: Watch the full recording of his FP Live interview, read the edited transcript, or listen to the conversation in the FP Live channel on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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More Analysis from FP

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

Will Hezbollah Join the War Against Israel?  If the Lebanese group does more than fire a few missiles in solidarity, it would dramatically escalate the current conflict. By Daniel Byman

Can Hamas Be Destroyed? Israel’s goals in its current war may be too expansive to achieve. By Anchal Vohra

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From Around FP The World Bank’s Big Week: This week, observers are paying close attention to the World Bank as it holds its annual autumn meetings with the International Monetary Fund in Marrakech, Morocco. The IMF hopes to reach an agreement on a major plan for reform—which would include scaling up its operations and prioritizing climate change goals. For critics, reform is long overdue. The latest edition of FP’s Flash Points considers, among other things, the bank’s funding model, governance culture, and track record on poverty alleviation, to examine the challenges that the institution is facing and how to fix it. Enabling a Just Transition: On Thursday, during the World Bank and IMF meetings in Marrakech, FP in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund will host a public briefing to advance meaningful dialogue and concrete action to enable just transitions to lower carbon and more climate-resilient economies around the world. This event will explore the policies, partnerships, and financing mechanisms that can more effectively safeguard vulnerable populations through the low-carbon transition and help ensure that the benefits are enjoyed more equitably and at scale. Register here to join the event in person. How to Reboot America’s China Policy: U.S. Rep. Andy Kim says Washington is wrong to see Beijing as an existential threat and should instead take a more “comprehensive approach.” Kim, a Democrat who represents New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, is a member of the high-profile House select committee on China, and joins editor in chief Ravi Agrawal on Friday at 11 a.m. EDT for an FP Live interview. Register here for free, and subscribers can submit questions in advance.

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