Israel’s worst losses in this bloody war might not be behind it. Despite the massacres on October 7th, despite the rising death toll of soldiers fighting in Gaza now, the worst losses for the Jewish state could be yet to come.
They could take the form of attacks by other antagonists, of shattered alliances with newly-acquired partners in the Arab world, of global support eroding as more Palestinian non-combatants die, of fast-rising cases of anti-semitism, of new terrorists recruited from the rubble of Israeli air strikes, and of the daunting challenge of governing a post-Hamas Gaza. They could even take the form of Hamas somehow surviving Israel’s assault, leaving it poised to plan another massacre one day down the road. Between the dangers of urban warfare in war-torn Gaza and the enemy’s complex network of tunnels, there is no guarantee that the terror group will be forever destroyed— not defeated, destroyed— and that Israel will meet its goal.
First, the possibility of new attacks from new directions. In the three wars it fought in the last century, no coalition of adversaries ever defeated Israel. But with the resources that the Israeli Defense Forces are pouring into Gaza, it might be argued that the army is stretched thin. Analysts talk about fatal threats on several fronts: the resistance in Gaza, Hezbollah at the northern border in Lebanon, the ever-present animosity with Syria and Iran, Cruise missiles launched all the way from Yemen by the Iranian-backed Houthis, and as immediate as any, the worsening wrath between Palestinians and Jews on the West Bank.
On the northern border, Hezbollah is a wild card. It controls everything in southern Lebanon from security to traffic. Like Hamas, the U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Like Hamas, Hezbollah also has vowed to erase Israel off the map, and its leader said on Friday that “all possibilities on the Lebanese front are open.” There has been no major battle since the Hamas attack but the two sides have exchanged rockets and shells across the border and villages on both sides have had to evacuate.
There is a report in The Wall Street Journal that Russia’s Wagner Group, infamous for its brutal methods in Ukraine, is delivering surface-to-air missiles to Hezbollah. CNN reports that Syria is helping. If Hezbollah escalates, it would not easily be extinguished. Iran, its primary supporter, has trained its fighters in guerrilla tactics, and according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hezbollah has stockpiled an estimated 150,000 rockets— about ten times what Hamas even had in its arsenal a month ago— some of them precision-guided. Since 2006, when it fought Israel for more than a month, Hezbollah has had almost 20 years to plan for the next face-off.
The U.S. is trying to hold off Iran. Not just by moving two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region as a deterrent show of force, but also by moving several hundred American troops to new positions in the Middle East. When President Biden issued his warning, “Any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t,” Iran was his most important audience. The rhetoric from the Islamic Republic always has been about the death of Israel. What no one knows is whether it is willing to go to war to pursue it.
On the once calmer West Bank, the other Palestinian territory, hostility has come to a boil. Since October 7th, reportedly at least 150 Palestinians have died there. Some were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers, some by ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. The United Nations tracks settlers’ violence against West Bank Palestinians and says that while there used to be an average of about one violent incident a day, now there are seven.
An old colleague of mine, a Palestinian in Ramallah who used to join peace groups with Israelis, recently saddened me with the news, “I’m done with that.” That’s how much alienation Palestinians feel.
There are proposals circulating about lowering the heat by reviving the dormant idea of two independent states: Jewish and Palestinian. Either the current crisis will provide new impetus for a so-called two-state solution because nobody can see a tenable alternative, or it will set it back, possibly for generations. From my own time in the region, the latter would be my guess. On both sides, there is more resistance to peaceful coexistence than ever. That won’t disappear when the bullets do. Jordan’s foreign minister put it in brusque but realistic terms: “The whole region is sinking in a sea of hatred that will define generations to come.” Western leaders, including President Biden, believe an independent Palestinian state is the only way out. Israel’s neighbors— Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman— say so too. But every American president dating back to Richard Nixon has tried to make it happen. While some got closer than others, all ultimately failed.
This is the epitome of the axiom, “easier said than done.” 18 years ago I was in southern Gaza after the Israeli government told Jewish settlers there that they had to leave their homes and the settlers attacked their own country’s troops. These were ultranationalist Israelis who fiercely insist that the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria are theirs. They fiercely resisted abandoning Gaza, they will never abandon their settlements in the West Bank without a fight.
The shattered alliances— some already forged, some in the making—are another blow to Israel. Politically, Saudi Arabia could not soon restart its effort to normalize relations even if it wanted to. Jordan and Bahrain, which already have treaties with Israel, have withdrawn their ambassadors. Longtime Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross wrote in The New York Times that Arab leaders privately admit that Hamas must be destroyed, but that these leaders also know “that as Israel retaliated and Palestinian casualties and suffering grew, their own citizens would be outraged and they needed to be seen as standing up for the Palestinians.” But it’s not just Arabs. Even from as far away as South America, three nations have called their ambassadors home.
And waning global support? Large demonstrations Saturday from London to Paris, from Berlin to Milan to Washington DC, tell the story.
Protestors didn’t just call for Israel to end its bombardments, some chanted the anti-Semitic slogan “From the river to the sea.” That parrots the founding charter of Hamas, vowing to push Jews off the land from the River Jordan into the Mediterranean.
The war has both emboldened old anti-Semites, and created new ones. The Anti-Defamation League cites a 400% increase in anti-Semitic acts in the U.S. The director of the FBI said last week that anti-Semitism is reaching “historical levels.” Swastikas at a high school in Stamford, Connecticut. “F#ck Jews” painted on the wall of a Jewish family’s home in Beverly Hills. Calls at Cornell to “slit the throats of Jews.” In Germany, France, the U.K. too, a huge reported rise in anti-Semitic threats. And of course there was that mob in Russia’s Dagestan region that went hunting for Jews coming off an airplane from Tel Aviv.
An essay with the title, “J’Accuse—An Open Letter to Hamas Apologists,” last week went viral on the internet. Mirroring an open letter in 1898 by the French novelist Emile Zola, who accused the French government of anti-Semitism in what was known as the Dreyfus Affair, an American Jew named Daniel Wolf cited the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Pogroms, and the Holocaust when “Jews were expected to just take it.” He wrote, “The blood was not yet dry from the wholesale slaughter of 1,400 Israelis, and the chorus of condemnation of Israel, the victim, began from all corners of the globe. I suspect that this reflects the discomfort that Jews suddenly dare respond to the cold-blooded killing of our people.”
But however true that is, it is the reality. In the first days of its response to the terrorist attacks, Israel was the clear victim, even in some nations where there has never been much love lost between the two. Now, in much of the world, that picture has been erased. The picture now is of Israel as the heartless aggressor. But Israelis never had the luxury of currying world opinion. Always surrounded by enemies and having fought for their very survival in three major wars before now, they have long since stopped worrying about what the world will think. But the fact is, much of the world thinks Israel is wrong.
Secretary of State Blinken said when he returned to the Middle East three days ago, “How Israel does this matters.” He was right. If “how Israel does this” doesn’t change, its worst losses may be yet to come.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Excellent interpretive summary Greg. Alas.