Despair, dread a year after Hamas attack

THE first anniversary of the brutal and surprisingly effective attack by Hamas against Israel comes with a sense of despair and foreboding. October 7, 2023, witnessed the slaughter of young men and women at a music concert, of residents of Kibbutz Be’eri and Nir Oz, and Jews young and old taken hostage. But after that, it’s been a year of searing images from Gaza, of over 42,000 dead, of dismembered toddlers and grieving families, of caravans of hapless refugees moving from one bombed-out location to the next, of flattened neighbourhoods and a dystopian landscape that defies imagination. It has also been a year that exposed the utter hypocrisy of Western sermons about the sanctity of international law, of a rules-based order. And it’s been a long year that has demonstrated the utter impunity of the powerful and the abject misery of the dispossessed in equal measure.

It’s been a long year that has demonstrated the utter impunity of the powerful and the abject misery of the dispossessed in equal measure.

West Asia today is teetering on the edge of a full-scale regional war, while justice for the Palestinians and security for Israel are more elusive than ever. So much has happened on so many fronts that without unpacking some of the key strands, it is easy to miss the woods for the trees.

Let’s start with Israel. After the shock of multiple military and intelligence failures on October 7, the Israeli Defence Forces, along with intelligence agencies Mossad and Shin Bet, clearly regained their mojo. From the exploding pagers in Lebanon to the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, from the targeting of a senior IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) commander at an Iranian embassy building in Damascus to the use of bunker-busting bombs that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Israel has once again demonstrated its formidable intelligence, technical and military capacity. But the military successes have also given rise to a growing sense of hubris, with some influential Israelis openly advocating a “reset of the Middle East” that would include a regime change in Iran and possibly in Lebanon. Saner voices in Israel do bring up the lessons of history, pointing to the folly of building up Hamas to undermine the Palestine Liberation Organisation, to the painful invasion of Lebanon in 2006, to the deliberate scuppering of the Oslo Accords and more. Their voices, though, are lost in the clamour for retribution. In politics, machismo evidently works and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s approval ratings have shot up in recent weeks.

Iran was hoping for its own reset, having surprised many by electing the relatively moderate Masoud Pezeshkian as President in July with the hope of bringing a semblance of normalcy in the country’s troubled ties with the West. Tehran displayed remarkable restraint after the affront of Haniyeh’s assassination, but successive Israeli provocations have brought the hardliners back to the forefront. They see restraint as an abject surrender and they are baying for retaliation. The missile attack on October 1, 2024, was unleashed at least in part to assuage this lobby. Israel has vowed to respond and is reportedly looking at Iran’s oil installations and nuclear facilities as possible targets. A major attack may well achieve the unintended objective of weakening a moderate government and strengthening the religious hardliners who are among Israel’s most implacable foes.

Hezbollah under Nasrallah was Iran’s most reliable and effective proxy in the region. Over the last two decades, its armed forces had grown to a point that it was virtually a state within a state in Lebanon’s fractured polity. The killing of Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah commanders by Israel in recent weeks is undoubtedly a blow to Iran and the influence that it had so assiduously cultivated in the region. But Israel’s relentless aerial bombardment has already left over a thousand Lebanese dead, many of them innocent civilians. Relief over the emasculation of Hezbollah is offset by outrage over the impunity with which Israel is destroying civilian infrastructure as it targets Hezbollah facilities.

The Houthis in Yemen, another of Iran’s proxies in the region, have emerged as an unexpected actor in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack. Their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have affected global supply chains and led to a costly detour around the Cape of Good Hope. This has raised freight and insurance costs and reduced Suez Canal revenues for the cash-strapped Egyptian economy by a quarter. Asserting their stout commitment to the Palestinian cause, they have also taken a few potshots at Israel and attracted their own share of disproportionate retaliation.

This brings us back to Palestine itself. The International Court of Justice in the Hague, by an overwhelming 14-1 majority, ruled that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem was unlawful and must cease immediately. Israel’s Knesset perversely passed a resolution opposing the formation of a Palestinian state. Proceedings on a second case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza are underway. But that has neither curbed Israel from moderating its military campaign nor slowed down the runaway growth of illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied West Bank that are now incentivised and protected by fanatics like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, key members of Netanyahu’s ultra-right-wing government. They are systematically executing their plans to control all of the land from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea, thereby closing every possible pathway to a two-state solution where an independent Palestinian state can co-exist with a secure Israel. And they make no secret of their designs.

The US avows its commitment to a two-state solution but has done little to prevent its principal ally from demolishing its viability. After a year of feeble protestation over Israeli atrocities, hand-wringing over his inability to control Netanyahu and the continued supply of lethal munitions, President Joe Biden has placed himself in a lose-lose situation. While Netanyahu would clearly prefer a Trump administration that gives him carte blanche to continue on the present trajectory, Biden’s equivocation could lead to the loss of crucial Arab-American votes in a key swing state like Michigan and potentially aid a Trump victory.

Israel’s long-term security will come from establishing a modicum of peace with its Arab neighbours and by accommodating the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinians. The continued use of brute force only plants the seeds of a forever war. But these simple truisms are more elusive than ever.

The outlook on this 7th of October is distinctly gloomy.