The implications of Israel's invincibility being shattered

The brutal Hamas attack has once again shaken Israel's invincibility.

The brutal attack by the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas on Israeli territory took the world by surprise, but those who have been watching the situation closely may have seen it coming. The Palestinians had been talking about a new escalation since last year.

The attack, to everyone’s shock, took place at a time when Israeli strategists were discussing the 1973 Yom Kippur War on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. The Egyptian army in 1973 had surprised Israel by crossing the Suez Canal, conquering the Sinai desert and destroying Israel’s illusions of invincibility that had set in after its convincing victory over the Arab alliance in the 1967 Six-Day War.

It is a matter of investigation how Hamas was able to repeat 1973 by circumventing the best camera, drone and communications surveillance system in the world, and how the famous military intelligence unit 8200 – a unit that can listen to every phone conversation in Gaza – and the Shin Bet were caught off guard.

Middle East Situation Changes

According to David Hearst, co-founder of Middle East Eye, a London-based news website, while there is no doubt that Palestinian civilians will now pay a heavy price for Israel's vendetta, it will not be business as usual in the region. He anticipates a two-front war for Israel if it invades Gaza. During the year, senior Hamas politicians had been visiting Beirut and meeting with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, leading to speculation that they were planning these attacks together.

Andrew Parasiliti, former director of the RAND Centre for Global Risk and Security, said that after the fighting ends, Netanyahu would like to revive the peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, which is in the final stages of negotiations. The US had recently invited Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz to the White House to brief him on the agreement.

Confident that they can strike a deal with their Arab neighbours, Israeli diplomats of late were cutting short any discussion on Palestine in diplomatic talks. Hubris and a sense of invincibility had crept into the leadership in Tel Aviv, and they were unwilling to consider Palestine as an elephant in the room. The situation was further complicated when Netanyahu presented a map of Greater Israel at the General Assembly UN, showing the West Bank and Gaza within Israel's borders.

Echoes Of 1973

A few years ago in New Delhi, David Shlomo Rosen, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland and an official of the American Jewish Committee, told this writer that the Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel was made possible after the 1973 war because the Israelis were depressed.

“Our illusions of invincibility had been shattered. Even though we had won the war, we felt we had lost it. And paradoxically, even though the Egyptians had lost the war, they felt victorious. There was a feeling in Israeli society that we had been abandoned,” he said.

The brutal Hamas attack, which required months of planning, careful training and coordination between different groups, has once again shaken Israel's invincibility.

In the recently published book “Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy” by Martin Indyk, former US ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the 2013 Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Kissinger had advised the US government to come to Israel's aid in 1973 after the Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal and captured large parts of the Sinai Desert to shock Tel Aviv and shake its concept of invincibility.

This led to Israel's willingness to negotiate with its Arab neighbours, resulting in a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, the first with an Arab country, and later the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians.

Can’t Ignore Palestine Issue

The Hamas operation is also a lesson to Arab neighbours and great powers that ignoring the Palestinian question is a big mistake. Kissinger’s words that if you ignore a problem, especially this one, it will eventually blow up in your face have proved prophetic.

In analysing the Hamas attack, it becomes apparent that it was beneficial for a number of players.

For Iran, the Abraham Accord is dead. For Russia, it is a blessing as attention has shifted from Ukraine to the Middle East, and for the US, Israel's invincibility is shaken as the Jewish nation was not responding to Washington's demands, which wanted to make some concessions to the Palestinians before the Abraham Accords are taken to their logical conclusion.

Expecting to stabilise the region, the US was aiming to shift its resources in the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region to counter a rising China. Beijing will thus have breathing space while the US is drawn into the conflict, at least for some time.

In anticipation of a deal, Israel tried to settle more and more Jews in the West Bank to increase the Jewish population before possibly having to agree to some concessions. Now hardly anyone from Europe or other countries will dare to move and live in an unsafe settlement, giving the Palestinian leaders a small victory, though the price will be great in the coming days.

Iftikhar Gilani is a journalist currently based in Ankara, Turkiye. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.