360° Reactions: One Year Since October 7

Gaza: The Big Picture(s)

By MEP Chair Ambassador James F. Jeffrey

Israel’s Gaza campaign and the heightened regional conflict sparked by Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel may be winding down in intensity but without clarity on when and how it will end, let alone the larger regional conflict, despite the three-phase ceasefire/withdrawal deal on the table since May. 

Given the impact of the conflict as a whole on Israel, on the people of Gaza, on regional security, and on US policy, it is critical to understand the core causes of the conflict.  Leaving aside secondary factors (notably US policy decisions), there are two: Iran’s quest for regional hegemony through war, terrorism, nuclear threat, and Arab state-capture, with growing success these last 20 years, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dating from 1948.

But here, many governments, international organizations, media, and other observers err by focusing on only one of these two causes. Their failure to recognize this two-cause reality hampers understanding of actors’ motives and cripples conflict resolution.

Israel’s determination to crush Hamas permanently and to risk a regional conflagration with Iran and its proxies to restore deterrence, despite international outrage and frequent criticism of the Biden administration, rests on the conviction that it is fighting an existential battle regionally against Iran. The October 7 attack, horrific as it was, could not have toppled the state of Israel. But such an attack, if renewed and joined by Iran and its proxies, notably Hezbollah, might overrun much of Israel before the US could react. Even the current regional conflict, simmering below all-out war, if continued, would sap Israel’s economy, fatigue its military, and isolate it physically (e.g., air travel) and morally from the outside world.

But, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heightens Israel’s dilemma dramatically. Widely held international views blaming Israel, particularly its current government, for the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian issue undercut the otherwise considerable understanding pathy among Arab, European, and American populations and governments for the threat that Iran and its proxies pose on the region. Leaving aside debates over responsibility for the Oslo process’ failure, the reality under international law is that Israel as an occupying state must clarify conditions to end such occupation, and this Israeli government has not. Meanwhile, rage and hopelessness among Palestinians fuel support for Hamas and its rejection of Israel’s very existence. 

The US and most Arab states understand the role both causes play and recognize that solutions, in Gaza or throughout the region, have to deal with both. For example, any solution in Gaza beyond permanent occupation by Israel or return to Hamas control requires an international interim presence. But the key contributors to such a presence, Arab states, demand Israeli movement on the Palestinian question as a prerequisite. Likewise, a longer-term regional alliance against Iran around the Abraham Accords, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, requires Israel to commit to a “pathway” to Palestinian self-determination. 

While this conditionality is well known, less well-known is the need for Palestinians to embrace Israel in its 1967 borders and not dream of litigating anew 1948. That bitter pill may be impossible to swallow, however, without more effective deterrence of Iran, whose ideology of destroying Israel fuels maximalist Palestinian positions.

US policy thus must persuade Israelis to focus not just on the Iranian threat but also on the Palestinians; in return, the international community, Arab populations, and even some Americans must accept the need to contain Iran as a bigger threat to stability than the Palestinian cause.

Lessons Learned and Otherwise

By Global Fellow Ambassador David Hale 
 

Reducing Iran's influence: Iran is at the center of the chaos that is the Middle East today. It may not choreograph every move of every proxy, but it doesn't have to since they all know the script. Since no one else was prepared to deter Iran and rebalance the scales, Israel is doing it for all of us. The next administration will have to define a new policy toward Iran, hopefully one that focuses on pursuing the advantages Israel has created and preventing Iran from regaining the momentum they have had in the region. American initiatives that lack strategies on this score will be doomed by Iranian interference.  

"New Order:" Israel's public and security establishment have a "never again" mindset that will not allow a return to the failed pre-October 7 national security strategies. They are shaping a new way of reestablishing stability and deterrence. However, the title of the highly effective strike on Hezbollah's Nasrallah, "Operation New Order," gave me a slight shudder. The Israelis have every right to demand a new way of defending their country, and are showing how effective a preemptive, technology-driven, espionage-based strategy can be. But if by "New Order" there is an assumption that they can remake the Middle East into something better, stroll back two decades and call a few of Bush '43s advisors, and make new, more realistic plans.  

Beware of overreach: Israeli leaders have not identified eliminating Hezbollah as their war aim, unlike their goal with Hamas in Gaza. Instead, they want to restore deterrence and security at the Israeli-Lebanese border to enable the return of over 60,000 Israeli civilians displaced from the north for a year now. Israel's success in destroying Hezbollah's leadership and command control apparatus runs the risk of breeding hubris. A land offensive may be needed to push back Hezbollah fighters and clean out concealed missiles and other military hardware in the south that UNIFIL has ignored, but a lengthy occupation will lead to new sets of objectives and conditions and be a mistake. The IDF's history in Lebanon is one of overreach, best avoided now.   

Nasrallah is dead, Hezbollah is not: Nasrallah was a major factor in building and maintaining Hezbollah as a formidable threat to Israel and others. The decapitation of the organization—Nasrallah and layers of senior leaders—sets the terrorist group back for years. However, it is also a disciplined body with deep ranks of experienced officers, tens of thousands of rank and file, and a devoted popular base among Lebanese Shia. They not only will carry on but seek retribution and repair of these humiliations. No wonder Israelis intend to press ahead. A centerpiece of any American diplomacy now should be to demand Hezbollah disarm, as called for in UNSCR 1701. That may not be likely, but it should be a condition for any US effort to establish peace on the Israeli-Lebanese border.  

Understanding what effective diplomacy, is and what it isn't: In most instances, American diplomacy in the Levant has been most successful when launched just as the combatants can no longer aspire to achieve their goals exclusively through military means and are looking for a way out. It tends to be ineffective when launched beforehand when the United States and external parties may be highly motivated to have a ceasefire, but the parties show little interest. America has spent the past year unable to exert its will on any of the protagonists or demonstrate diplomatic relevance. If Kissinger's 1973 step-by-step diplomacy is a model, remember that he launched it only after Israel had regained its military advantages, not before. American ideas were then relevant to solving the problem for all sides. Moreover, he focused on realistic steps needed to end the fighting, rather than complex and deal-breaking comprehensive solutions before the context was ripe.  

A Region Standing Outside the International Order

By MEP Fellow Marina Ottaway

A year after the October 7 attacks, the situation in Israel and all neighboring countries has worsened and keeps worsening. Gaza has been destroyed, the West Bank is under attack, Hezbollah and Israel are openly at war with each other, the prospects for Israeli hostages held by Hamas are increasingly dim, and the number of people displaced by the conflict is now in the hundreds of thousands. 

Israel, which caused much of the devastation in the name of its right to self-defense, is less safe than ever, and the prospects for Israeli citizens returning to a peaceful northern region in the foreseeable future are virtually non-existent. Attempts at negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza, and more recently in Lebanon, have gotten nowhere, despite the deployment of heavy-duty negotiators by the United States and some European and Arab countries.

There are many complex reasons for the repeated failures, but one in particular needs stressing: The major players in the regional drama do not recognize the 21st-century international order and are not willing to abide by its rules. The best diplomacy can do little when dealing with actors who play only by their own rules.

It starts with the State of Israel. Yes, it is a state, an internationally recognized entity with a seat at the United Nations and in other international organizations, but it does not recognize the legitimacy of those organizations and their right to impose any restrictions on its actions. United Nations resolutions are routinely dismissed and ignored by Israel, and criticism by the International Criminal Court is declared an outrage. None of this is surprising because the state of Israel came into existence in defiance of UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which called for the partition of the territory of the Palestinian Mandate into a Jewish and a Palestinian state.  Nor hasa the State of Israel accepted any other resolution the UN enacted in the following fifty years.

Hezbollah is a non-state actor, considered a terrorist organization by over sixty countries, that has de facto seized control of the Lebanese State. Its actions are not driven by international norms and values but by the logic of “resistance” to the state of Israel (as well as by a degree of pragmatism about how to survive). Hamas is similarly guided by its definition of Palestinian interests.

Finally, there is Lebanon, a state that owes its existence to the League of Nations and France and can only survive under international protection. But it also cannot abide by international norms because the so-called state exists in name only, destroyed by internal sectarian and power struggles even before Hezbollah came into existence.

With all actors in the Middle East conflict falling outside the international order as defined by the United States and its allies, it is not surprising that the tools of diplomacy they use in an attempt to bring the conflicts in the region under control have been unsuccessful. Regional actors march to the tune of their drums, and well-intentioned imploration by world leaders are not going to change that reality.

And that is the sad lesson of the Middle East crisis: international norms and principles are only effective with international actors that accept them, just as democracy only works when major domestic actors accept its rules.

Gaza War Dooms Biden’s Middle East Master Security Plan 

By MEP Fellow David B. Ottaway

A year after the onset of the Israel-Hamas War, the Biden Administration’s plan for a new Middle East security architecture anchored in an alliance between the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia is dead for the foreseeable future. Its death is another victim of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to allow an independent Palestinian state as a basis for a solution to the conflict that most countries, including the United States, are demanding.

Before the war started, US diplomats were making progress in nudging Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) toward establishing ties with the Jewish state. Both the crown prince and Biden were talking optimistically about Saudi recognition of, and open cooperation with, the Jewish state. Two of Saudi Arabia’s closest allies, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain had already taken that step in the 2020 Abraham Accords. Biden was enticing MBS with a formal US-Saudi defense treaty to protect the kingdom from its chief enemy, Iran. The Palestinian cause was fading, in the minds of Arab leaders, and Israel was on the verge of fulfilling its dream of winning recognition from the Middle East’s Arab powerhouse. 

The Gaza War halted all this momentum in its tracks, and there is no ceasefire in sight. The Israeli military has occupied all of Gaza and, in the process, killed nearly 42,000 Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters, displaced most of its 2.2 million Palestinian population from their homes, and inflicted massive damage on its infrastructure. This has caused even Arab leaders with no love for Hamas because of its Islamic roots, refusal to recognize the Jewish state, and ties to Iran to harden calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Nowhere is this shift in the attitude of Arab leaders better on display than in Saudi Arabia. In an interview with Fox News on September 20, just 17 days before the Hamas attack, MBS went out of his way to deny reports that US-led negotiations over Saudi normalization of relations with Israel were in trouble. To the contrary, he said, “every day we get closer” toward what he called “the biggest historical deal since the end of the Cold War.” He made no demand for a Palestinian state as a precondition, just that Israel “ease the life of the Palestinians.”

On September 19  of this year, he delivered quite a starkly different message at the annual opening of his kingdom’s consultative Shoura Council. The Palestinian cause was “at the forefront” of Saudi attention, and he was working tirelessly to see the establishment of a Palestinian state. And, he warned, “We affirm that the kingdom will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without that.” He thanked the 143 countries that had already recognized a Palestinian state and urged others to follow suit.

If Saudi Arabia hews to this precondition, then the new Middle East the Biden administration has worked tirelessly to birth seems doomed, at least without a radical change in Israeli thinking and government.

The US Enabled a Middle East Bully

By Global Fellow Joe Macaron

One of the collateral damages of the Gaza conflict is the US global leadership. In the past year, the Biden administration was unable or unwilling to tame an out-of-control Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has gone beyond the retaliation to the October 7 attacks on the Gaza Envelope of southern Israel. Netanyahu compared it to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, and the Biden administration has understandably embraced that; however, this worn-out argument has unleashed a beast that is undermining US interests and failing to secure Israel in the long run.

Netanyahu is switching from one front to the other: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Yemen with no internal or external constraint on his actions and the disproportional killing of civilians. The Biden administration has initially advised Israel to agree on a ceasefire in Gaza and move to the second level of targeting Hamas commanders. Netanyahu did neither; instead, he initiated another conflict in Lebanon with a death toll exceeding 1,000 since September 23, where not more than 3% of them were Hezbollah commanders.

Netanyahu’s discourse and policies are putting the Middle East in a perpetual security competition where Israel does whatever is necessary to ensure its self-defense while maximizing its force with an ambitious agenda to change “the balance of power in the region for years.” It was enough to watch Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly to detect an egomaniacal discourse that is taking both Israel and the US on a dangerous path. This overconfidence in Netanyahu’s discourse would not have existed without the air power dominance that the US provides; however, the Biden administration has yet to use this leverage of military aid to constrain Netanyahu. 

The US is now perceived as complicit with Netanyahu or unable to influence a key ally. Beyond the immediate ecstasy of killing Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, Netanyahu has no clear plan or exit strategy, neither in Gaza nor Lebanon. The Biden administration is enabling a bully by providing the tools and protection. The excessive use of force will not secure the long-term stability of Israel nor sustain a moral and effective US global leadership.

Iran’s strategy for a year at least has been to intimidate the US military so Washington can exercise enough pressure on Netanyahu to agree on a ceasefire in Gaza, which was the safest path for the Iranian regime to avoid a direct confrontation with Israel. However, the Biden administration has conveyed a clear message to Tehran not to attack American assets on the assumption that the US is committed to Israel’s security but is not directly involved in the conflict in Gaza and beyond. However, it seems Netanyahu is pulling the US into a regional conflict rather than maintaining the stance from the first Iranian attack last April when Washington acted as a global leader managing the conflict between two regional powers. The US wants Iran to stay idle as Israel goes after its proxies one after the other. Dealing with the threats of the Iranian regime and its proxies requires a long-term strategy because mass killing would only produce a radical generation in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond. Guaranteeing the silence of Arab autocrats is not enough to secure a long-term resolution of the Arab conflict with Israel.

In an insightful analysis in Foreign Affairs last August, Richard Haas argued that “America needs a playbook for difficult friends” and that Washington should have an independent policy when it disagrees with an ally as a subtle way to show objection without damaging the relationship. The US should claim back its leadership role in the Middle East and send a clear signal that there is daylight between American and Israeli interests and that the US commitment to Israeli security is not a blank check. The Biden administration’s blind support for Netanyahu is unprecedented and setting a dangerous precedence. The damage to US image and interests in the Middle East should not be underestimated, and the long-term game is the most effective one; there are no quick fixes to the threats of the Iranian regime and its proxies.

The War Protects an Unpopular Government

By Global Fellow Guy Laron

The most surprising thing about the year that passed since October 7 is that the processes this event put in motion are still ongoing. The regional war that many diplomats and pundits warned us about has already begun. Since October 2023, Israel has been at war with Iran and Iran’s allies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. European and American officials have been hard at work, shuttling between Tel Aviv and various Arab capitals in order to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Yet it persists and, in several ways, it has escalated. 

In the coming years, many explanations will be proffered for the regional war of 2024, but one of them must revolve around Israel’s domestic politics. The current government’s approval ratings took a nosedive after 7 October and have not recuperated since. The Netanyahu government remains unpopular to this day, despite a string of daring operations in Lebanon in the past two weeks. As a result, his government fears that a lull in the fighting would be used by the opposition to call for an early election in which the government is bound to lose. 

Because the current coalition was seeking to enact far-reaching changes based on a slim majority —such as weakening the judiciary, exempting the ultra-Orthodox from military service, and expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank—it brought against it a broad range of civil society organizations. These have put together massive rallies calling on the government to resign. However, the momentum of the protest movement has slowed down considerably since the beginning of the military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The more recent attack on Hezbollah’s leadership has had a similar effect. People are less inclined to gather in public squares when they worry about missile attacks. Young protesters gave past rallies a lot of energy, but they cannot do that when called to do reserve service at the front. 

Thus, Netanyahu and his partners have an incentive to perpetuate the war. The war allows the government to pursue its radical agenda, to suppress the protest movement, and to advance its control over key institutions such as the police and the public broadcasting service. As long as Netanyahu remains in power, this state of affairs will continue.

The views expressed in these entries are those of the authors and do not express the official position of the Wilson Center.