Israel is lagging behind Hamas and its backers in the information aspect of the war, and the aftershocks to the goodwill that Israel enjoys worldwide on the 7 October attack are severe.
The close of next week will determine whether the Israeli Defense Forces’ strategy of steady strangulation of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza is effective rapidly enough to keep international unease over civilian casualties in Gaza contained. If all goes according to plan, within a week IDF control over key chokepoints in the strip will reach a level where substantially more access from Egypt to Gaza could be permitted, so that at least six hundred truckloads and rising of essential civilian supplies come across every day. So far, the strategy worked out by the Superpower that is more and more openly backing Hamas is to attempt to clothe the IDF-Hamas war in religious terms. Such a mischaracterisation has not worked sufficiently to lead to its objective of either making the war spread nor cause mass uprisings in Muslim-majority countries on a scale that would paralyse social order. The swift condemnation by such governments of civilian casualties in Gaza and their united call for an immediate ceasefire has been key in such an outcome. Both Hamas as well as Hezbollah claim to be acting on behalf of a great faith that has well over a billion adherents worldwide, when the reality is that the former is fuelled by Wahhabi ideology and the latter by Khomeinism, neither of which conforms to the precepts of compassion, mercy and beneficence repeatedly found in the Holy Quran. In countries across the world, including in India and the US, the Muslim community overall has distinguished itself by its contribution to national life, a process in which Muslim women are increasingly playing the lead.
AGAIN, A DEMONISING OF JEWS
The Superpower backer of Hamas is expert in misusing social media in democracies so as to fuel hatred, division and violence. A blizzard of AI-generated images and voices have sought to demonise not just the IDF and Israel, but the Jewish people themselves. What is taking place in the 2020s is in a way similar to what took place a hundred years ago in Europe, when versions of the medieval Blood Libel against the Jewish people were endlessly retold to the Gentile public. “Blood libel” is the delusional accusation that Jews killed and consumed the blood of children, besides poisoning common drinking water sources. Stretching its shadow across more than a millennium, such fabrications were instrumental in generating pogrom after pogrom against the Jewish community by those credulous enough to believe the falsehoods being peddled by anti-Jewish extremists. The most horrible of such episodes was the systematic murder by Nazi Germany of five million Jews in Europe during 1939-45. It was after the Holocaust that the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people in what was then undivided Palestine was partitioned in 1948 between Jews and Arabs. Both in 1948 as well as in 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan went to war against the newly formed State of Israel, and in both wars, lost significant chunks of territory to Israel. No government in Israel will agree to cede the territory secured through the two wars, nor will it agree to normalise relations with Palestine unless the security of Israel is guaranteed by the other side not just in word but in fact. A state that denies the right of Israel to exist is Iran under the clerical regime. Since Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran in 1979, Tehran has not just refused to recognize Israel but has been calling for its destruction, assisting terror groups such as Hezbollah and to a lesser extent, Hamas.
Rather than hurting Israel, such a stance has harmed Iran the most, stifling its progress and causing misery to its people. It is therefore no accident that Lebanon (ever since Hezbollah has been a leading part of the ruling coalition) and Hamas-run Gaza have become basket cases, dependent on outside charity for even essential needs. Moderation, inclusivity and strong action against extremism and terror are essential for any country to be prosperous, and whether it be Oman, Bahrain, the UAE and now Saudi Arabia, each is nurturing such an approach to governance, which explains their stability and prosperity as compared to Iran.
The dilemma faced by the Arab moderates is the rising toll of civilian casualties taking place in the confrontation between Hamas and the IDF. More than another week of bloodletting on the present scale may create a situation where it would not be tenable for moderate states to restrain their populations from coming out onto the streets en masse demanding that their governments do more to end the actions being taken by the IDF. This demand will not be heeded until the military capability of Hamas is broken, for Prime Minister Netanyahu has understood the existential nature of the threat from Hamas since 7 October 2023. Once the IDF eliminates the military wing of Hamas, it would serve as a lesson to Hezbollah and other Wahhabi and Khomeinist groups that seek to extinguish the Jewish state to avoid any move that may result in a similar confrontation with a country, whose people bear in their minds the imprint of persecution and genocide against them that goes back more than a thousand years, and are determined to never let such a fate befall them again. At the same time, October 7,2023 is a lesson to deniers of the need for a Two State solution in Israel that such an outcome is the only road to justice and peace.
EXAPANSION WOULD IMPACT PRICES
Should, as the Superpower backer of Hamas seeks, the conflict escalate beyond the borders of Gaza and into the West Bank and Lebanon, and thereafter Iran, the impact on the international economy will be severe, especially where commodity prices and jobs are concerned. As matters stand, neither Iran nor its proxies are likely to enter the conflict on the side of Hamas, beyond a few subcritical actions. Hezbollah is aware that the Lebanese population has no desire to endure another conflict take place between their country and Israel, a war that would reduce to rubble the already ravaged infrastructure and lives of their country. As for the clerical regime in Iran, it is deeply unpopular with its own people, especially youth in the cities, and could as a result of the ravages of a war with Israel and its allies face a popular revolt similar to that which ousted Reza Pahlavi from power in 1979. It was almost certainly a nudge from the clerics in Iran that made Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah say in his Friday address that neither his organisation nor Iran was at all involved in planning and carrying out the 7 October terror attack, a statement that is almost certainly true. Sources say that it was instead the Superpower backer of Hamas which gave the leaders of the terror outfit the encouragement and intel required to carry out an attack that was nothing short of “twenty 9/11 attacks into one” judging by the relative sizes of the populations of the US and Israel.
The 9/11 Al Qaeda terror attack, which was not immediately followed up by any other strike by that terror group, was a massive terror attack against the US. The 7 October strike by Hamas against Israel was more, it was a declaration of war, as the Superpower backer knew it would be. According to its planners, Ukraine and Gaza are kinetic diversions that would be invaluable in warding off all but limited US military involvement in case public and party compulsions made an assault against Taiwan necessary for the political survival of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping during his third term.
MILITARY WING OF HAMAS MUST GO
The victory of the IDF in its campaign to destroy the military wing of Hamas is needed not just by Israel but by all countries facing a threat from extremist groups. According to sources in Israel, intelligence from the ground identified several of the people in the ambulances that were hit by the Air Force as Hamas leaders escaping to safety in the south. Where Israel failed was in getting such a message about its reasons out on time. The initial silence of the IDF on the reason for such a strike allowed Hamas and its backers to flood the media with images of civilian bodies on the road. There were, according to the sources contacted, indeed civilians interspersed with Hamas leaders in the ambulances, for the organisation routinely uses human shields as a means of protection. Images of innocents who perished in the ambulance attack inflamed opinion against Israel. It was only after the damage to the goodwill enjoyed by Israel was done that the reasons for the air attack on the Gaza ambulance convoy were revealed by sources close to the IDF. Concealing the number and identity of local sources is central in intelligence operations, but in a matter as grave as the Israeli Air Force targeting a convoy of ambulances, the reasons for the same needed to be revealed together with the attack. Where the information aspect of the war is concerned, Israel seems to be lagging far behind Hamas and its backers, and the aftershocks to the goodwill that Israel enjoys worldwide of such an attack continue to be severe.
KINETIC STORM BEFORE THE CALM
Once the hyperkinetic phase shifts to the mopping up phase of the operation, ideally in a week, it would not be too big a risk to permit fuel to be brought in under escort so as to power hospitals, power and water plants. Also needed soonest is a substantial ramping up of deliveries of civilian essentials into Gaza. Which is why the next few days are likely to see a kinetic storm before the calm. Should the period of beginning to damp down hyperkinetic operations by the IDF occur, and the Hamas-IDF war not expand beyond Gaza, the Superpower backer of Hamas will be disappointed, but the world will be spared the consequences of yet another disaster such as the Covid-19 virus and the effects of the prolonging (by a copious supply of munitions to Kiev) of the Ukraine war. As for western sanctions on Moscow, these have been effective only in damaging economic prosperity worldwide and not in the least in getting the Kremlin to end the war. Both the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war have resulted in shock waves impacting especially the poorest in the world. The IDF needs to ensure through timely progress in its current campaign against Hamas that a similar dismal outcome is avoided in Gaza.