On Oct. 6, Israel appeared on the cusp of a new era of recognition from the Muslim world, close to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would move it to the centre of a realigned Middle East after years on its fringes. The historic conflict with the Palestinians that had defined its existence for most of its 75-year history appeared to have finally receded into the background.
It all changed on Oct. 7.
Today, after a bloody attack that might have brought it the world’s sympathy, Israel is closer to being a global pariah than ever before. Its Saudi peace deal is on hold. The Palestinian question is again roiling its Arab neighbours. It is in open argument with its main ally, the U.S. And its physical living space has been shrunk by dangers on its northern and southern borders.
In six months, the world has turned upside down for this small nation. On Oct. 7 — or Black Sabbath, as Israelis now call it — the Jewish state experienced a fundamental shock that up-ended its sense of security and belief in the strength of its military. It responded with a heavy-handed invasion of Gaza that in much of the world’s eyes left it the aggressor and its attackers the victims. The resulting isolation could be more of a threat to its future than the attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7.
“Israel’s longevity is in question for the first time since its birth,” said Benny Morris, an Israeli historian. The only time Israel faced a similar existential threat, he said, was in its war for independence in 1948, when it battled five Arab countries and local Palestinian militias.
The outpouring of global sympathy on display after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust has dwindled, having been replaced by images of starving and dead Palestinians in Gaza. Images projected across the world show swathes of the Gaza Strip turned into rubble. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
This week, the killing of seven aid workers trying to feed desperate Gazans appears to have punctured the notion for much of the world that the Israeli military isn’t running amok in Gaza and has caused a rethink by the U.S. about its support for Israel.
Normalisation with Saudi Arabia is on hold, while ties with Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan have frayed. Pro-Palestinian protesters have thronged the streets of Western capitals, at times calling for Israel’s demise. A surge in antisemitism has shocked and alarmed not only Israelis but Jews across the globe. It is all strengthening a feeling inside Israel that the country can only rely on itself.
Israel faces a dilemma where it wants to be loved by the West, but needs to be feared by its enemies in the Middle East to ensure its long-term existence, said Micah Goodman, an Israeli author and philosopher.
“That’s the Catch-22 we’re in,” he said.
Israel, about the size of New Jersey, has had its liveable land space diminished. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Israelis from the Gaza periphery and the northern border near Lebanon have been evacuated from their homes. Many have moved back to communities in the south, but none have been able to return to communities in the north. Many are still living in hotels.
As the war in Gaza drags on, Israelis still don’t know if the worst has yet to come.
The West Bank is on edge. A full-blown war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas and has been fighting Israel since Oct. 8, appears more likely with each passing day. Israel is also bracing for retaliation by Iran or one of its allied militias for a suspected Israeli air strike Monday on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria.
Israel has only begun to feel the economic impact the war is having, as hundreds of thousands of reservists have been forced to leave their jobs to fight in the war.
Amid all this, Israel has achieved neither of its war goals of returning all the hostages abducted on Oct. 7 and successfully routing Hamas from Gaza.
For Israel’s political leadership, Oct. 7 challenged the notion that the conflict with the Palestinians could be contained with a mix of security measures and economic incentives, rather than through a peace accord. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure was marked by the belief that he could continue to divide Palestinian leadership between the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza, thereby avoiding the need to negotiate a two-state solution. Israel believed it could thrive economically, politically and militarily despite a continuing occupation in the West Bank and hostile actors at its southern and northern borders. Normalcy was a promise that appeared to have been delivered but was then shattered.
“This approach collided with a brick wall and proved to be a complete failure on Oct. 7,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute.
All this is taking place as Israelis remain divided over the country’s leadership and the government’s handling of the war. Netanyahu’s right-wing, ultranationalist and religiously conservative coalition is once again under attack by anti-government protesters calling for new elections. Divisions among members of Netanyahu’s own war cabinet over how to give priority to the competing war aims of rescuing hostages and destroying Hamas have spilled into public view, deepening the sense that the leadership is fighting itself while also fighting a war.
All the while, Netanyahu has delayed a plan for who will rule post-war Gaza, saying a Palestinian state is off the table and refusing to work with the Palestinian Authority.
It is adding up to a situation where, despite many tactical wins on the ground in Gaza, a strategic victory for Israel appears far off.
In six months, the Israeli military has seen many tactical achievements. Around 40% of Hamas’s tunnel system has been destroyed, 18 out of 24 battalions dismantled, the majority of rockets destroyed and many senior Hamas commanders killed. Israel now has freedom of action in most of Gaza.
Netanyahu says victory is near, but a majority of the country, polls show, isn’t convinced.
Hamas shows no signs of surrendering. Hamas operatives are able to infiltrate areas as soon as Israeli troops withdraw, a sign that an insurgency is building.
Mounting tensions with the Biden administration are limiting Israel’s options over the final battle for Rafah, the Gazan city that borders Egypt and where Israel says Hamas has four remaining battalions. More than one million Palestinians are sheltering there.
The U.S., however, has warned Israel that it would be crossing a red line if it operates in Rafah without a credible plan to keep the civilian population safe, which U.S. officials say Israel hasn’t presented.
Netanyahu has said that if necessary, Israel will operate in Rafah without American approval.
“If we take Rafah but lose America, we’ve lost the war,” said Goodman.
The Wall Street Journal