(Dobbs) Never A Long Pause Between Conflicts
Having covered the region, I fear that might never change.
This morning Hamas attacked Israel. It was the most lethal attack in memory. The fighting hasn’t stopped.
The Prime Minister of Israel told his people, “We are at war – not in an operation, not in rounds – at war.”
The military commander of Hamas told his, “If you have a gun, get it out.”
We don’t know but it’s probably no coincidence, this comes on an unforgettable anniversary: 50 years and a day after the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. That’s when the Syrian army to Israel’s north and the Egyptian army to its south staged a coordinated surprise attack and for several days appeared to have the Israelis trapped in their pincers. During those dark days, it seemed entirely possible that after only 25 years of life, the Jewish state would be annihilated.
This time, Israel is far stronger than it was in 1973, its enemy is weaker, and annihilation is almost entirely unlikely.
Still, with its surprise assault at dawn, Hamas has hurt Israel in a big way.
Video and photographs from southern Israel could be mistaken for scenes from the war in Ukraine. As I write this, at least 40 Israelis have been killed and close to a thousand injured. Hamas says it has fired some 5,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel. The Israeli military says the number is just 2,200, but whichever is accurate, many have hit their marks. Palestinian gunmen are on the streets of Israeli towns not far from the Gaza Strip. There are reports of Israeli civilians barricaded in their homes, begging their own defense forces for help.
Hamas says it has captured several Israeli soldiers, and a video from Reuters that appears to show Hamas militants dragging an Israeli soldier from a tank seems to confirm it.
But as they always have been, the Palestinians are up against a superior force. Israel launched several dozen warplanes to hit targets in Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered “an extensive mobilization of reserves” and has vowed “to return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”
Gaza, already impoverished and long isolated by an Israeli barricade that essentially controls what gets in or out of the territory, is bound to feel the noose tighten. Palestinian access to Jerusalem has been cut off. As of now there is no report about the toll of death and injuries in Gaza but if history is any guide, it is sure to be higher than Israel’s.
The world this morning is even messier than it has been.
And the implications go beyond this narrow strip of land on the Mediterranean. Iran is a major supplier of arms to Hamas, and officially is cheering for its client. Hezbollah, based just across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, has praised the Hamas attack too. It is not inconceivable that either, or both, could insert themselves into this war while the status quo is so unstable and make Israel’s job even tougher.
Then there’s Saudi Arabia. Diplomatic efforts to forge a formal peace between the Saudis and Israel have been underway for a while, with notable progress in the past month. Now though, that could be in jeopardy. While the official statements from other major nations in the region have been neutral, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry this morning cited its “previous repetitive warnings of the dangers of the situation blowing up as a result of the continuing occupation and depriving the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights.”
Just last night my wife and I happened to watch the new movie called Golda.
It is about Israel’s prime minister Golda Meir, who guided her nation 50 years ago through the existentially threatening Yom Kippur War. It was a reminder that everyone who lives in that region— Israelis, Palestinians, the Arab nations on every land border with Israel— has never gone long without conflict.
Having spent years in and out of the region, covering the tense relationships between neighbors, it is not beyond my imagination that that will never change.
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.
Greg, thanks for rushing this note out so quickly. Yes, my own responses have been the same as yours. I wonder whether the timing is more to try to derail the Israel-Saudi rapprochment? Whatever the motivation, the consequences for Gaza citizens Iand others if other groups try to join in) will be horrible.
When will we ever learn?