By Bahrooz Jaafar
On the morning of October 7, an unprecedented and intricate attack saw Hamas fighters pour into Israel. The assault resulted in the tragic loss of over 1,200 Israeli lives, with hundreds more wounded. Additionally, well over 100 Israelis and others including Americans were taken as hostages back into the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the attacks was blunt: “We are at war.” What motivated this shocking attack, and what lies ahead for Israel and the broader region?
Initial reactions
Across the globe, numerous experts and prominent figures have drawn parallels between Saturday’s Hamas attack and the Israeli 9/11. On that day, the intellectual elite engaged in rapid analysis. To bolster the arguments and implications explored in this analysis, let us consider the insights of three experts associated with the Atlantic Council.
Although violence in the region has occasionally erupted in recent years, according to Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and former deputy US national intelligence officer for the Near East, this is not going to be a small tit-for-tat, the unparalleled nature of the attack will not allow for it. Israeli forces responded with retaliatory attacks on Gaza, and there are fears that Hezbollah will enter the fray from its base in Lebanon. Jonathan mentions that there have been warnings for years about the possibility of a multi-front war, and if this is the beginning of one, many more deaths and destruction may be a possibility above and beyond anything we have seen in decades.
Riyadh may be tete-a-tete supportive of Israel's efforts to fight Hamas terrorists, but the Arab street does not seem to be so supportive, especially as more images of death and despair appear in the media," As Jonathan pointed out. Israel was finally caught on the ropes for the unprecedented attack, which is likely to lead to indictments on the home front. So, the Israeli people are absolutely outraged by the situation, and now many Israelis are struggling to understand how this could have happened!
According to Richard LeBaron, a former deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Israel, the West Bank would be another front in any such war due to the scale of the attacks. There is another fact that we must not forget: the US administration has been trying for years to normalize Israeli relations with Islamic countries without receiving a solution or guarantee for Palestinian rights. As Richard mentioned to us, planning for Sunday's Hamas attack likely began before the Israeli-Saudi talks picked up steam, but they are still intended to send a message to Riyadh that the Palestinian issue should not be treated as just a secondary topic in normalization talks. Because for Hamas, Palestine is the only issue.
While the normalization agreement is an important factor, the main reason behind the attacks, as Richard tells us, is "to draw attention to the fact that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has not been resolved". Not long ago, Hamas believed the situation was significantly worse under the right-wing Israeli government. If the incident has a hundred signs, the first is that Hamas has been able to badly embarrass the Israeli leadership and its military and intelligence apparatus. For Hamas, that may be enough.
The looming conflict is likely to shape the ongoing negotiations between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States on the normalization agreement. Kirsten Fontenrose, a nonresident senior fellow in the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and former senior director for the Gulf on the US National Security Council, indicated that if Hamas, backed by Iran, were trying to derail those negotiations, Israel would close down Gaza with an unprecedented presence and suffocating restrictions. That would be the new baseline that Riyadh would now have to negotiate a way forward for the Palestinians." To maintain the fragile negotiations, Kirsten wants to advise Israel to exercise restraint in responding to Saturday's attacks if it is not careful to hand over the outcome of its agreement with Hamas and Iran to the Israeli military response to innocent Palestinians." Saudi Arabia can't deviate from these actions in order to reach an agreement with Israel.
Drawing lessons from history
Hence, we must borrow at least a lesson from history because Saturday's attack coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. During the 19 days of the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir would have faced the possibility of Israel's destruction. She had to navigate high probabilities, a dubious cabinet, and a complicated relationship with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, with millions of lives at stake. Leadership is a difficult stage, where she would ultimately decide the fate of her nation and leave them a controversial legacy around the world!
Fifty years later, history repeated itself in Israel. Fifty years ago, Israel doubted full U.S. support, and currently, because the Biden administration has loosened its hand to Iran, Israel is a liar in the United States. In 2023, Israel was on the verge of civil war, not civil conflict. Fifty years ago, the Arabs wanted to avenge their previous defeats in 1973 (1948 and 1967). This time, Hamas reminded the world that the Palestinian-Israeli war is not over and must remain a priority in world affairs. The war is 100 years old, but this time it is unprecedented.
Results and consequences
Second, this war will raise energy and fuel prices at the global level. A year ago, on the same date, October 11, 2022, Israeli and Lebanese leaders agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal that will let both countries exploit gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, potentially ending a decades-long dispute over their maritime border, easing growing military tensions, and providing a desperately needed source of income to Lebanon's collapsing economy.
From 2010 to 2023, an energy revolution occurred in Israel as it became self-sufficient in natural gas. In addition to that, Israel has been exporting gas from the Tamar field to Jordan since January 2017, and the Leviathan field started exporting to Egypt in January 2020. The Leviathan deals are considered to be bigger and more significant for the economy. Moreover, there is also the export of Cypriot and Israeli gas to Europe through a 1,900-kilometer underwater pipeline to the Greek island of Crete. In addition, the war will create problems for the Mediterranean waters, which are a strategic route for the transportation of oil, gas, and goods from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and the West in general.
Third, since 1978, whenever Turkey-Israel relations have strengthened or normalized, it has been at the expense of the Syrian issue and monitoring Iran and Iraq. In other words, political, diplomatic, and economic relations between Turkey and Israel have been officially normalized for a year. In 2010, the relationship collapsed due to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's support for the Palestinians and his threats to Israel. Since 2017, Turkey has repeatedly called for the normalization of relations. Therefore, this normalization will be primarily and completely to the detriment of the Kurdish issue in Syria. Then, it will create conflict and instability in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the separatist regions because they have not hidden their concerns that after October 16, 2017, Kirkuk and Sinjar have become part of Iran's strategy and Iranian sovereignty. More clearly, Turkey is interfering in the affairs of the Kurdistan Region by carrying out air strikes against the PKK, but it means Iran, not the PKK. Turkey was the first country with the largest Islamic population to congratulate the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Furthermore, In the 1990s, Israeli-Turkish relations were so strong that they covered every area, including the arrest of Kurdish and PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan with Israeli assistance. In response to this strategy, the PKK and Hamas launched a war inside Turkey and Israel within a week, and both conveyed their messages.
The Bottom lines
This war is a "depiction of power relations in the Middle East", as we call it, or the rise of regional powers as a result of the fading role of a power like the United States. However, most accurately, it is a dangerous geopolitical change caused by natural gas and oil pipelines. The Russian-Iranian bloc is the winner. They laugh under their beards as they turn off the lights of the Eiffel Tower after 11 p.m. because of a lack of energy and higher electricity consumption. Just as in Russia in 2014, because of the Crimean War and its occupation, the Nabucco gas pipeline project defeated the West. Here, the last puzzle is that Iran has succeeded in not killing its soldiers in the Middle East, keeping the wars away from Iran, and making the Arabs its partners in attacking Israel. Will Israel and its allies do the same and take the war inside Iran?
Bahrooz Jaafar holds a Phd in International Relations from Cyprus International University in Nicosia and he is also the founder and head of the Mediterranean Institute for Regional Studies.