In some ways the war in Israel and the neighbourhood is about as important as the war in Ukraine. We know that the war in Ukraine involved two superpowers and no European/Western nation, big power is directly involved here.
Israel, however, is an American-Western enclave in Asia. The US and the Western alliance have all sworn to protecting Israel and the Israelis themselves are quite well equipped to not just fight back, but to also launch war on Hamas, which is not a state.
This story will stay with us for quite some time. That’s why it’s important for me to compartmentalise what I’m going to speak about.
So for today, I would say, let’s look at five questions: what happened; two, what went wrong; three, how did Hamas justify this; four, what’s the global reaction, where India stands; and five, what may happen? Now, these are five good questions.
Also Read: Israel is angry, Netanyahu poised for Gaza invasion. But there are limitations to military power
What went wrong with Israel’s defences
The first question, we know what happened. All of you know what happened, Hamas invaded the Israeli mainland. These are not settlements, Israeli settlements, Jewish settlements on the West Bank. This is the Israeli mainland. Israeli mainland as Israel inherited in 1948, it is that mainland.
So Gazans broke through the wall of the fence that the Israelis have built along their border with Gaza. It’s a very expensive barrier. It cost more than a billion dollars and given how small the geography is, how little the distance is, it’s a lot of money.
The Gazans broke through it or came over it in hang gliders or in some cases, motorised gliders. Many came in through the tunnels that they’ve been building. And many then once they had got the breakthrough, many then drove bulldozers into the fence and broke it and came across it.
This came on the day of the big annual festival in Israel. Everybody was essentially asleep. And the very formidable Israeli army, the intelligence agencies, were taken by surprise.
That’s what we know. Then we know that some of these glider-borne terrorists reached a rave festival that was taking place, killing a lot of people there who were just dancing, enjoying themselves. They were not expecting to be attacked. Also, these attacks took place in the area of Israel where security is not that heavy because people are not expecting to be attacked in these areas, Jewish settlements on the West Bank, for example, people are armed. Not in this area, because this is the Israeli mainland.
WATCH Hamas terrorists indiscriminately shoot at bathrooms during the Nova Music Festival.
This just shows you that Hamas does not care who—they just kill. pic.twitter.com/Ve0u9HRLWT
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 13, 2023
So this is what happened. And then we know the Israelis have been retaliating since then. Now the question is what went wrong because the whole world lays such a store by Israeli intelligence, Mossad, Israeli armed forces. How could this have gone wrong? Because Israelis know that they live in a tough environment.
The fact is that Israelis have forever been fighting wars for their existence in the region. And, I’m not even taking you back to the 1960s or the 1950s. But say, look at the last 20 years — 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2022. That is when trouble took place at Al Aqsa Mosque following which there were lots of attacks on Israeli settlements.
Also Read: 2-state solution for Israel-Palestine: History of the idea, Netanyahu’s stance & India’s position
What went wrong with Israel’s defences
For a country in that situation and for a country which takes pride in producing the best technology in the world for intelligence, espionage, surveillance. How did they go wrong? I’m leaning on top award-winning Israeli journalist and commentator Nahum Barnea.
Nahum Barnea is writing in a paper called Yedioth Ahronoth. And he says that four blunders have taken place. One is intelligence failure. Two, the border was breached. Because after all, you have this fence with all these protections. Three, how did Hamas manage to take hostages back into Gaza; how were they not stopped before that? And four, why were Israeli defence forces so slow in their reaction?
And then he explains, first of all, he says, intelligence ignored many warnings that existed even earlier. So he says, first of all, intelligence failure lies in the fact, not because Hamas was so clever, but because there were many indications. Just as it happened in 1973 Yom Kippur war, that there were many indications that Egyptians may be launching an attack.
Israeli intelligence dismissed it as just idle training. If people are training to use hang gliders or motorised gliders, you would normally think what are they planning, right? But in this case, Israeli intelligence probably concluded that this was just idle training. This will not lead to anything.
In fact, Yedioth Ahronoth article says at 3.5 billion shekels, it’s a very expensive fence. It’s sensors above it, under it, on it, and around it. The important thing is it’s an unmanned fence because you rely so much on technology and alarms. The belief is that if anybody tries to cross it, touch it, come near it, there’ll be an alarm and somebody will immediately take action. That is excellent as long as you are only seeing a threat from the odd infiltrator or a group of terrorists, maybe 4 or 10 who are trying to cross the fence and come in because even if they cross it, you can catch them somewhere. You are not prepared for large masses of people coming in on their own vehicles or bulldozers and crushing this fence. That’s what happened.
That is the first two failures, the intelligence failures, the indications were there, but everybody thought it was just idle training and two, how the border was breached.
So Nahum Barnea also points out to the fact that so many of these people came in and the IDF seemed to be in such deep sleep and so complacent that these terrorists are walking around one of the big Israeli army tank bases as if it was their own. You’ve seen those pictures of Hamas having taken away an Israeli main battle tank. And then I quote from Nahum Barnea: “I suddenly felt like I do not live in Israel, which I am proud of, but in Somalia.”
These are very strong words. So what went wrong? Second question is answered with these four failures that we just described for you.
Also Read: Palestinians stuck between ‘Islamic & Jewish fundamentalists’, says Palestine activist
How did Hamas justify attack & motivate cadres
Third question, how did Hamas justify this and motivate people? Because after all these people coming in would have known that chances of their going back alive or going back as free people are very poor.
Some went back with hostages. Yes, they escaped. And for how long do they live? I don’t know because the Israelis are raining hell over Gaza now, but Hamas had a war cry and that war cry we understand from the name that they chose for this operation: ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’.
Al Aqsa is the name of the mosque in East Jerusalem. Al Aqsa is the third holiest place for Muslims. Now Al Aqsa has been in the news over the past two years.
Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian Muslims break out routinely at Al Aqsa but in the last two years, 2022 and 2023, in the month of Ramzan, clashes have been really bad. It was because of anger over Israeli action at Al Aqsa that Hamas was able to motivate their cadres. And that’s also one of the reasons Hamas and its operations are finding such wide support in the Islamic world.
If you go to social media and you see pictures of Israelis who have been killed, who have been maimed, who have been taken as hostages, who are being beaten, dragged by their hair, women being dragged by their hair and taken as hostages. Immediately the response you get from social media from critics of Israelis that see this is what the Israeli armed forces have been doing to unarmed devout Arabs, including old women, children in Al Aqsa Mosque.
There is a difference of degree but when passions are hot, nobody looks at nuance. So that is how Hamas has been able to justify it to the larger support base of Palestinians across the world or the larger community of Israeli critics across the world, and also to motivate their own cadres.
In our Episode 744, that was almost three years back, we had explained to you what Al Aqsa Mosque is and what is the complexity of East Jerusalem. That is when the Sheikh Jarrah riots had broken out.
Now, I will once again explain this to you because Al Aqsa is so central to this. Al Aqsa is not close to where Gaza is. In fact, I will share with you a map that my colleagues have drawn that tells you the map of Israel where Gaza is located and the respective range of many missiles that Hamas has.
This also tells you where East Jerusalem is. So Al Aqsa is located there. Jerusalem was divided in 1948.
In 1948, there was a war between the Jewish settlers who were coming in at that point, mostly from Europe because they were escaping the Holocaust and they had been promised a country of their own. So at the conclusion of that war, Jerusalem was divided, West Jerusalem remained with the Israelis, East Jerusalem was in a kind of mixed control. It was until 1967 mostly not in Israeli control. In the six-day war of 1967, Israelis went and took over East Jerusalem. But the status of East Jerusalem still remains uncertain.
Al Aqsa Mosque, in a way means the last mosque or the most distant mosque. The story is the Prophet started from the holy mosques of Mecca and Medina, he came as far as Jerusalem and it is from here, from the shrine, a very picturesque shrine — Dome of the Rock — that the Holy Prophet ascended to heaven to meet Allah on his winged, lightning horse Buraq, and came back very quickly because Allah then introduced him also to many of the other Prophets over there, including Prophet Jesus, Prophet Adam and all the others, Prophet Jacob. It is also the place which is holy to Jews because Jews think this is where Abraham offered his son in sacrifice to God. But God revealed himself and didn’t let him do it.
Remember these three great faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And I’m not listing them like this in any order of importance or any order of preference. I’m only listing them chronologically because Judaism came first, then came Christianity and then Islam. For all three, this little piece of real estate is their holiest. For the Jews, their Second Temple built by Herod in 516 BCE and was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, stood there. It is on top of that second temple of the Jews that the Dome of the Rock is supposedly located.
This is really Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi multiplied several times over. And remember just walking distance, maybe if you don’t have many people in the street, just a few minutes away is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — that’s where Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected. So for Jews Christians and Muslims, this little patch is among their holiest places and definitely the most disputed for all three faiths.
The shrine itself, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built and rebuilt several times. In 8th century AD, a prayer hall was built by Umar the second, the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, in the place where it was said that the Prophet prayed before he ascended to heaven. Then subsequently, Abd al-Malik, who was the fifth caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, built a larger structure there. In 1033, Dome of the Rock or the shrine of Dome of the Rock or the mosque took shape. The mosque has been there since then.
And you know what happens because any time there’s festival season just as it used to happen in the days of communal riots in our country. In this place, if the month of Ramzan coincides with the Jewish week of Passover, then people go in the same area to pray. And you know who has the state power. It’s the Israelis. Clashes took place in 2022. The month of Ramzan was April 2 to May 2. Trouble had started there even earlier before Ramzan began. April 15 to April 23 was the week of Passover. Easter was April 17.
I told you all three Abrahamic faiths. It’s an irony. All faiths, all three faiths are Abrahamic faiths and all three at this point are contesting this space.
The Christians are not part of this trouble right now. It is entirely the Muslims and the Jews. In 2022, clashes took place, again Israeli security forces went in. There was a lot of beating, use of rubber bullets, etc. and then reprisals by Palestinians. Many Jewish settlements were attacked in that melee of stuff that followed after the Al Aqsa action in 2022, 17 Jewish Israelis were killed.
Once again this year, 2023, the month of Ramzan was 22 March to 20 April. Passover was 5 April to 12 April and Easter was 9 April. Trouble broke out on 15 April and pictures of the trouble went around the entire world, particularly the Muslim world. These came handy for Hamas.
Also Read: High-energy laser to destroy airborne targets — Iron Beam, Israel’s 5th line of aerial defence
How did the world react to attack by Hamas
Now, fourth question, what’s the global reaction? We’ve seen that the entire Western world has condemned this unequivocally. In fact, in the Western world, nobody has said anything about what we might call ‘root causes.’ Because, you know what happens when we in India get hit by terrorists coming in from Pakistan. Somebody reminds us of ‘root causes’.
You haven’t settled the Kashmir problem or you did this in Ayodhya or Babri Masjid or you did this in such and such place. We say this is nonsense. Don’t give us the ‘root causes’ theory. When 26/11 happened and Mumbai was attacked, UPA was in power. The UPA government also completely dismissed anybody who would have said what about any root causes. Just because you have a problem in Kashmir. You can’t just come anywhere, in this case Mumbai and start killing innocent people. So there is no ‘root causes’ justification.
But generally, the Western world is fully with Israel.
Also Read: How Gaza hospital blast united Arab world against Israel amid Tel Aviv’s attempts to normalise ties
What may happen next in Gaza
That is the G7 Western Alliances reaction where support for Israel cuts across party and ideological lines. It’s in India, however, that this response remains divided. But also the interesting and important point is that India’s official reaction is exactly the same. Exactly the same as that of the Western world, which brings us to the final question, what may happen?
Now, I will share with you a long 2021 article by Anthony Cordesman, who is one of the foremost and senior most strategic affairs experts sitting in Washington and is currently Emeritus Chair and Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). I’ve taken this paper from the CSIS website. I will share a link to the full paper with you. Please check it out, read it patiently but basically five points that he has made and I will leave it at that.
• Number one, he says that wars in 2006, 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2022 have shown that Israeli might, Israeli armed forces are formidable but they have been unable to decisively degrade the terrorist firepower or manpower or the ability of the terrorists to strike at Israel.
• Number two, Israel has an overwhelming military advantage. But in built-up areas, that is neutralised because cities are unpredictable and expose the limitations of modern armies as shown by the US armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gaza, as you know, is fully built-up. Also, built-up areas really degrade technology because technology works when you have open ground. If you’re going from house to house, apartment to apartment, street to street, technology still helps, but it does degrade very fast.
• Number three, Iron Dome, which Israel uses, is great. It’s very expensive. But the fact is that Hamas is also improving and Hamas has large quantities of these rockets. And as Joseph Stalin famously said, something like ‘quantity itself is a quality’.
• Fourth point from Cordesman, stalemate is bad for all. That there should be a solution but to think that there can be an Arab-Israeli deal by passing the Palestinians, it’s not going to happen. That’s unsustainable. You will have to get the Palestinians on board for any deal or any settlement. It’s not as if the Saudis and the Israelis can settle something and bury the hatchet in the Palestinians’ back. That is unsustainable, that’s not going to happen.
• And finally, he says, not solving this situation is not a solution as it has created four failed Palestinian states. What are these four failed Palestinian states?
I will tell you from Cordesman: the first, Gaza with Hamas; second, West Bank with Palestinian Authority — Palestinian Authority and Hamas, by the way, are political rivals — third, Israeli Arabs, these are Arabs who live in Israel. The West Bank is about 3 million Palestinians, mostly Muslim, some Christian; and Gaza, a little over 2 million.
And then you have Israeli Arabs. These are Arabs who live in Israel, who have the right to vote. Not all the rights that Jews have, for example, under a law passed by the Knesset, Israeli Arabs cannot criticise the Israeli State. Whereas in Israel, anybody can criticise the Palestinians. That is also from Cordesman’s paper.
So it’s almost 7 million Palestinians under three different entities.
He says each one of these is a failed state, as is East Jerusalem. That makes it four failed states. Gaza under Hamas is a failed state, number one. Second, the West Bank and Palestinian Authority is a failed state. And then, in a most stunning conclusion he says, if this goes on, this could create Israel as a fifth failed state as its politics has declined from an effective democracy to “something beginning to approach ‘chaocracy’”.
I conclude this episode with this final turn of the knife.
This is the full transcript of ThePrint Cut The Clutter Episode 1325 published on 10 October 2023.
Also Read: In this war of dead baby pictures, yours versus mine, the question of who’s the victim will be lost