What do you need to know on the crisis in the Middle East?

Information, Insights, & Implications Amidst the Insanity

This is an excerpt of a forthcoming book on the growing crisis in the region.

Since the attacks by Hamas in Israel’s Southern District on Saturday, October 7, there has been a feeling and reality of an escalating, if not spiraling, conflict and crisis in the Middle East. With an overflow of news, images, and social media, it is hard to understand it all. Fundamentally, the situation is deeply personal for many. And there are far-reaching political implications. Beyond all this, moral considerations are at the core.

LINK: Mideastprimer.com

Up Front

o   The terrorist attacks by Hamas represented the greatest loss of Jewish life in one day since the Holocaust.

o   Gaza is in the midst of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that is worsening daily.

o   These latest developments are part of a complex history – wars, displacement, occupation, intersecting relationships, and long memories – before even 1948.

o   We are just at the beginning, and the fronts to watch are Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen to see how this may broaden.

o   While the United States has led the international community’s response, there are no meaningful efforts for de-escalation; this could be a runaway freight train.

o   The conflict in the Middle East has set alight the political scene in Europe and North America in a way that will affect domestic alignment across left and right.

o   Thus far, the contagion to the Gulf appears limited, and the same is true for global energy markets, but this will change if the conflict extends for months.

o   More critically, the world faces two significant conflicts with global power dimensions (Ukraine and now Gaza); a third could rock the geopolitical map and cause tectonic issues for supply chains, economic disruption, and travel.

o   Private organizations may be tempted to take political stands but should take humanitarian ones.

o   As an individual, you may not know where to turn for news, input, or insights. Things that seem clear one day may not be the next. Consider and speak carefully.

Questions & Answers

1.     What are the latest developments (as of November 1)?

[This will be updated in a subsequent edition, but upon publication, given fast-moving developments, it may be outdated quickly.]

The death toll continues to climb and has reached over 1,400 on the Israeli side and nearing 10,000 on the Palestinian side. While the current fighting is primarily concentrated in and emanating from the Gaza Strip, fighting has spread to the West Bank, and there are ongoing tit-for-tat skirmishes between forces in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. Israel has mandated the mass evacuation of Palestinians from North Gaza as ground incursions intensify.

There is an unfolding and unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Egypt and Israel, in coordination primarily with the United States, reached a deal to open the Rafah border crossing to allow the evacuation of foreign citizens.

On the humanitarian front, Israel, which has been primarily responsible for selling water and fuel to the Strip, has either entirely or intermittently cut off supplies. It has also disrupted telecommunications networks. While the United Nations (UN) is now fully mobilized, and many have responded to calls for aid, very few trucks with needed supplies have been allowed to cross into Gaza. Several organizations are tracking daily the humanitarian situation.  Established aid organization Anera is documenting it in detail on its website.

There has been sustained rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into all parts of Israel since October 7. At times, hundreds of rockets are being fired by Hamas daily, accumulatively having already exceeded prior rounds of conflict. It was not previously thought that Hamas had such an arsenal in terms of quantity and capability. Israel has launched airstrikes with an intensity that outpaces the American campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With regards to most hostages (numbers vary but are somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 individuals, both civilian and military), they remain under Hamas (and some affiliated groups) control, and only a handful have been released or freed. It is assumed, and Hamas has asserted, that the Israeli bombardment has led to the deaths of several of these hostages. How many others have been directly harmed by Hamas during their captivity is unknown, as Hamas has denied access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or any other body.

Diplomatically, officials have made several trips to the region, first by the European Union (EU) President and U.S. President Joe Biden, but also by leading officials from Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been notably engaged across the region, visiting Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. The focus has been on opening a humanitarian corridor and strengthening the hostage negotiations.

Overall, and acutely, the entire hostage situation remains unresolved, and there is growing anxiety in Israel, contributing to anger towards Hamas and Palestinian authorities, but also directed at the Israeli government itself, which, while in a somewhat unity government formation (without the principal opposition leader partaking), remains unpopular. In the Palestinian territories and the surrounding Arab world, sentiment has intensified. The size of demonstrations in places such as Baghdad is beyond anything seen recently.

Finally, the political polarization and charged atmosphere of past years in Europe and North America have also come to affect reactions to the crisis in Western capitals. Protests and counter-protests are abundant, as is inflammatory rhetoric, government warnings, and rising hate crimes. It is, all in all, a multi-faceted evolving situation, day-by-day, with the latest radically changing with each development.

What most are watching for is if this conflict will expand in full scope beyond the boundaries of Israel & Palestine to the wider region. Thus far, some attempts have been made to avoid this, by Iran and America notably towards one another directly. It is nevertheless a tinderbox, and an errant strike by an Iranian proxy force in the region leading to significant U.S. military casualties could set everything alight.

The fog of war is alive and well, and claims and counterclaims abound, particularly regarding the full nature of the October 7 attacks and the more egregious casualty events in the Gaza Strip. These discussions are somewhat irrelevant. The Hamas attack was barbaric. Israel is killing countless civilians. No one story can change that. Unfortunately, parsing details from thousands of miles away is a fruitless exercise in the fog of war.

What will be more pivotal is a significant escalating event in which propaganda may incite a broadening of the conflict.

2.    How did this recent crisis start?

This recent crisis started with the barbaric attack by the terrorist group Hamas, which also controls the Gaza Strip and administers the government there. That attack was unprecedented in its nature, scope, and loss of life in the entire history of the conflict for the Israeli side. This event, of course, cannot be disentangled from the broader situation and interconnected conflict that now spans decades. 

The Hamas incursion was carried out in a very calculated way on October 7, 2023, 50 years to the day of the Yom Kippur War, which is considered within Israel as the most significant military failure in its history. In that War, the national armies of Syria and Egypt launched a surprise attack, which, while eventually repelled, forced Israel to the negotiation table for the first time and resulted in significant military casualties and damage. Only through American re-supply of munitions and military equipment did Israel regain the upper hand in that round of conflict. It subsequently led to the eventual resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

The October 7 operation required careful planning given its scope, estimated to go back at least two years. That would mean while ongoing factors were exacerbating the situation, this act was pre-planned and was fully intended by Hamas to occur. The planning would have also required significant materials and technological support. While this would have come from Iran, it is unclear to what extent they played a part in operational planning. There also appear to be other military capabilities deployed that had previously not been thought to have been possessed by Hamas. Did this come from Russia? The black market? Former ISIS fighters? This is not yet clear.

The attack itself was sustained and multi-pronged. It continued for seven hours without much interruption, and this has raised significant questions and red flags about the failures on the Israeli side. There was a complete breakdown due to Israel’s political situation, where street protests were trying to overthrow the government in the weeks before the attack. The government and intelligence services had a severe communication issue. After the attack, it has been alleged that there may have been warnings about a pending attack that were either ignored, missed, or dismissed.

Much has already been written about the nature of the attack, and the details are better described elsewhere. However, it is essential to understand some aspects that have created a new national trauma in Israel. It was the single biggest loss of Jewish life in one day since the Holocaust. Here is a brief overview of what happened:

o   Rocket attacks – Hamas and other groups coordinating with it launched a barrage of rockets, numbering between 3,000-5,000, primarily toward Israel’s Southern District, and concurrently, a public statement announced ‘Operation Al Aqsa Flood’ began.

o   Paragliders – An unknown number of Hamas militants used motorized paragliders to fly into Israel, including towards a rave, where there were estimated to be hundreds of casualties.

o   Border incursions - Both Hamas and other plainclothes partisans (maybe to be used as an excuse later to sidestep responsibility) crossed through the border fence, which had been partially dismantled by explosions and bulldozers in certain areas.

o   Marine landing – At Zikim, there was a marine landing of several boats from Gaza that also facilitated the incursion of militants, who then went deeper into Israeli territory.

o   Massacre at rave - Many young people were hunted down as they hid and ran. Many hostages were attendees of the rave, which was held near the border. Given the nature of the assault, it appears that this was a planned mass casualty event by Hamas.

o   Attack on local areas – Organized assaults were taken against local towns (Sderot, Okafim), kibbutzim or moshav(Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Be’eri, Magen, Sufa, Nahal Oz, and Netiv Haasara), and military bases (Bahad 4, Re’im), many of which were temporarily under the control of Hamas.

These were, again, mass casualty events, but attention was given to ensuring hostages were taken. Significant battles also occurred in beach areas, police stations, and street-to-street. Military hostages, which represent an unknown number of the total, will be used as leverage to release Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in negotiations.

Throughout the attack, Hamas also damaged houses and vehicles and left fighters behind for continued skirmishes (and who knows what else). The group absconded by the end of the day with the approximately 200 hostages brazenly across the border. The best overall map of the day’s incidents is captured here.

On that long Saturday, although the Israeli government was still in disarray, a counterattack and assault on Gaza started the same evening and has continued since, mainly from the air.

3.    What was the other immediate context?

This attack, of course, did not take place in a vacuum. There are a number of contemporaneous developments to take note of.

o   Netanyahu government: Before the recent round of hostilities, the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in peril after nine months of street protests. It was deeply unpopular, facing significant issues from the American Jewish diaspora and related organizations and even pressure from the Biden Administration. Whether it would fall or not was unclear, but for the first time, perhaps existential divisions were appearing in Israel.

o   Abraham Accords: The Abraham Accords, first seen as a sideshow by some mainstream commentators, was taking a very central role in the discussion of the conflict. While the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Morocco were not necessarily parties to the conflict, the agreements were seen as shifting the dynamic of the region. The question, though, was, would Palestinians be the afterthought?

The Accords focused on economic and security interests, and there was nothing tangibly to be gained for the Palestinians themselves. For Israel, that seemed to be in its interest as they were able to maintain the status quo in the occupied territories and still expand their relations in the Arab World.

The more recent talks with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) around normalization, facilitated by the Biden Administration, were very advanced. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia did move the Palestinian issue closer to the forefront. This was an irritant to both the Netanyahu government and perhaps Hamas. For Israel, the purpose of Gulf normalization was to ‘skip’ normalization on the Palestinian issue. For Hamas, any deal with Saudi that concerned the Palestinian issue would empower their rivals in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

o   Iran-Saudi rapprochement: During the pandemic, there was an uptick in conversations between Iran and Gulf states soon after Biden took office. Realizing that the Biden Administration would seek to bring the Iran deal back in some form, the Gulf states sought to alter the strategic threat from Iran through its direct engagement. This initially involved the United Arab Emirates, but then Saudi Arabia, through mediation by China, had a breakthrough with Iran. Today, there are normalized – not perfect – relations between the two parties. In fact, during the recent crisis, the first-ever call was held between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi.

o   The situation in the Palestinian territories: The situation in the Palestinian territories has remained volatile, and in recent months, there have been exacerbating tensions, notably in the West Bank. Also, in East Jerusalem, which is under full Israeli administration, there were rising clashes. While the Palestinian territories can always seem restive, it appeared that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was anemically moving along and that Hamas was ‘quiet’ on the Gaza front.

As for the overall status quo on the ground, it should be clear that the Israeli government continued to control almost all aspects of the West Bank and has had an ever-expanding settlement presence. The Palestinian Authority effectively administers municipal areas in parts of the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, from a day-to-day scenario, Hamas has had administrative control (in municipalities). The border with Egypt, Rafah, has strict procedures but, in some respects, represents an ‘international’ border for Gaza; the Erez Crossing with Israel opened semi-frequently for limited purposes. Israel still controls the sea area.

The slow suffocation of the occupation and siege are hard to capture as they are not sudden events. Instead, there is a day-to-day accumulation of humiliations, checkpoints, confiscations, house demolitions, harassment incidents, arrests, shootings, and overall deprivation. While there was relative quiet in the sense of no active conflict, it was by no means a resolved situation. The Israeli NGO, B’Tselem regularly documents this slow accumulation of incidents on its website.

o   Role of Hamas: Since the Netanyahu government came to power, it appeared the status quo with Hamas since the last 2021 round of fighting was holding. Hamas had maintained its leadership in Doha and was increasingly focused on ‘economic’ issues. In coordination with the Israeli government, the number of permits had increased to 25,000. There was zero indication that an escalation was afoot.

In 2023, before October 7, the total casualties reached over 200 in the Palestinian territories, with a large share in the West Bank. There were some notable rounds of rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, mostly involving Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Overall, from a military standpoint, the situation was relatively quiet. However, there was an eery feeling that the status quo was at a breaking point, given the lack of discernible process towards any improvement of the Palestinian situation.

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END OF EXCERPT

FULL LINK: https://issuu.com/2040world/docs/middle_east_in_crisis

Middle East in Crisis & Conflict - A Primer (2023)