For a state that has experienced many tragedies, Oct. 7 will long be remembered as perhaps the darkest day in Israel’s history. Israelis from across the political divide marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ terrorist attack into southern Israel with sadness, mourning and reflection on Monday. Israel, meanwhile, is a state at war with multiple enemies across the Middle East — a war that may only enlarge as Israeli officials prepare to strike Iran in retaliation for Tehran’s ballistic missile attack a week ago.
Oct. 7 has proved to be an inflection point for Israel. Decades of Israeli policy were overturned virtually overnight. The previous playbook of periodic airstrikes and indirect de-escalation accords has been shredded, replaced with a full-throated Israeli assault on Hamas with the aim of eradicating it entirely. The Israeli-Lebanese border, relatively stable since Israel and Hezbollah ended their last war in 2006, was again viewed by the Israeli security establishment as a crisis in waiting. Like a football coach that relies on the running game, Israel is now relying almost solely on military force to solve its Hamas and Hezbollah problems.
Gaza, the Palestinian enclave hugging the eastern Mediterranean, is a wasteland. Israel has struck more than 40,000 Hamas targets over the past year, killing thousands of its fighters, degrading the group’s military capability and doing significant damage to its underground tunnel network. Hamas leadership has been put under significant pressure, and Yahya Sinwar, the man calling the shots in the organization, has been on the run for about a year. Israel’s top military brass is playing up the tactical accomplishments, claiming that Israel has defeated Hamas’ military wing.
Israel, however, hasn’t found a way to translate its tactical prowess into strategic gains. Gaza is now an ungovernable territory, trapped between the remnants of Hamas and ordinary people who are just trying to survive. A few ugly pictures don’t do justice to the extent of the physical destruction in Gaza — close to 42,000 Palestinians have been killed; families have been displaced multiple times and there isn’t enough humanitarian relief to go around.
According to the United Nations, it could take up to 15 years before all of the rubble is removed. Reconstruction costs are in the tens of billions of dollars.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can brag about giving Hamas a bloody nose and keeping his job, notwithstanding the massive security failure that occurred on his watch. But with those exceptions, accomplishments are few and far between. Held captive by his extremist ministers to maintain his government — some of whom have openly talked about expelling Palestinians from their land — Netanyahu is reluctant to do anything to rock the boat. Staying in power is his top priority; everything else comes second. If that means refusing to put forth a viable postwar plan for Gaza that would maintain a semblance of stability, setting unattainable wartime objectives or keeping the remaining Israeli hostages in limbo, so be it.
Netanyahu also appears perfectly fine with his present war goals: Annihilate Hamas and bring the rest of the hostages in Gaza back to their families. On paper, both sound reasonable. In practice, they are contradictory. Success with one makes success with the other more difficult. Negotiating a deal to get the hostages out requires Israel to sign a cease-fire deal with Hamas, the very group Israel vows to destroy. Meanwhile, trying to destroy Hamas threatens the lives of the remaining hostages. In September, six of those hostages were executed in cold blood by Hamas as Israeli forces were closing in. Netanyahu is either oblivious to this dynamic or still genuinely believes he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, despite a year of evidence to the contrary.
Israel is rubbing up against the same problem in Lebanon. Hezbollah, the strongest faction in the small Arab country, was always viewed by the Israelis as a threat. But after the trauma of Oct. 7, the threat was magnified. Hezbollah began sending rockets into northern Israel a day later, ostensibly in support of Hamas in Gaza. For months, the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah was contained to the Israeli-Lebanese border area and settled into a somewhat predictable affair, with rocket fire being responded to by airstrikes — and vice versa.
This is no longer the case. Concluding the situation in northern Israel was unsustainable, the Israeli government escalated the fighting last month and declared war on Hezbollah. Weeks of heavy airstrikes on Hezbollah positions throughout Lebanon have hit the group hard. Hassan Nasrallah, who turned Hezbollah into the world’s most powerful nonstate actor, is dead and buried. The Israeli military has invaded the country, even as its troops remain tied down in Gaza reinvading the same neighborhoods in a perpetual game of Whac-A-Mole.
The last year has reflected poorly on the United States as well. When all is said and done, President Joe Biden’s administration will be remembered as an ineffectual, impotent actor incapable of using the leverage it had to achieve its own objectives — namely, the prevention of a regional war that might force the roughly 40,000 U.S. troops based in the Middle East into the fray.
Netanyahu clearly feels the same way. Understanding that he has a virtual blank check from Washington, the Israeli premier has repeatedly undermined U.S. diplomatic initiatives in Gaza and Lebanon. The pattern is well established: The U.S. wants one thing, Israel does the exact opposite and the U.S. quickly comes around to supporting it. Israel, the junior partner in the relationship, is calling the shots. And Washington seems perfectly fine with following dutifully.
One can only hope that the coming year isn’t as depressing as the first.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
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