Attack on Israel could change political calculus

After 50 years and a day, Israelis were woken to war. On Saturday, October 7th, Hamas launched an air, land, and sea operation from Gaza into Israel. This was the first such operation ever mounted by the Palestinians against their occupiers. On October 6th, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated campaign on Israel’s northern and southern fronts with the aim of recapturing Sinai and the Golan Heights conquered by Israel in June 1967. This was the first war ever waged by the Arab against Israel.

All previous wars — 1948, 1956, and 1967 — were wars begun and won by Israel. As were subsequent wars fought by Israel on the Palestinians and Lebanon. Al-Aqsa Flood operation can be compared to Operation Badr when Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal into Israeli occupied Sinai and the Syrian army’s drive into the Golan on October 6th, 1973. This was the first time Israel had to fight on two fronts since 1948. No one expected Gaza to take on Israel by mounting an all-out blitz. But Gaza has a thirst for revenge. Hamas’s leader Yahya al-Sinwar was imprisoned for 20 years by Israel and military commander Mohammed Deif lost his wife, three-year-old daughter and infant son to Israeli violence.

Hamas prepared well and well ahead for the operation and Islamic Jihad joined once the fighting had begun. Secrecy was observed despite the presence of Israeli agents and constant overflights by drones and monitoring by Israeli spy ware. The operation was launched after Hamas jammed Israel’s electronic equipment strategically placed around the Gaza Strip. Hamas says 5,000 rockets were fired into Israel to cover incursions by paragliders, infantry, and sea-born infiltrators into Israel. Once on the Israeli side paraglider troops unlocked and opened gates in Israel’s fence which surounds Gaza. This is well protected by ground sensors and other devices and topped with razor wire. Palestinians inside Gaza used bulldozers to break through the fence. Palestinian fighters fanned out to attack Israeli military posts and settlements neighbouring Gaza with the aim of taking prisoners which could be exchanged with high profile Palestinians among the 5,200 political detainees in Israeli prisons. In the evening, Hamas fired more rockets into Israel where sirens wailed in Tel Aviv and other cities. This is the first time Palestinians have plotted a campaign/operation with such precision.

Hamas’ war aims are for Israel to end the occupation and the siege and blockade of Gaza, free prisoners and defend Palestinian holy sites. Hamas political bureau head Saleh al-Arouri said that the operation was open-ended.

Al-Jazeera’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara said this operation should “change the political calculus (as) the situation is no longer tenable.” Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians have endured Israeli siege and blockade since 2007 while Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank suffer constant Israeli military raids and expropriation of their land.

Other Palestinian commentators agree that this war could be a game changer. While Hamas may not obtain its demands, there will be changes in Israel which could follow the pattern set by the aftermath of the 1973 war. Israel will investigate how its three intelligence services — foreign Mossad, internal Shin Bet, and military — failed to detect what was going on in Gaza. Heads could roll. The increasingly desperate Palestinian situation has been ignored due to Israel’s internal dispute over the Netanyahu’s government’s drive to weaken the country’s supreme court. Weekly mass protests have focused on this issue at the expense of what is being done to the Palestinians by the current right-wing settler-run government. Prime Minister Binyamnin Netanyahu and his ministers are certain to be blamed for the failure to predict the operation, pre-empt it, and deploy troops to tackle Palestinian infiltrators who operated throughout Saturday in Israeli settlements neighbouring Gaza.

The 1973 war took a huge toll on the Israeli army: 2,656 Israeli soldiers died and 7,251 were wounded. The unexpected attack shocked Israelis who demanded retribution and led to the “war of the generals” who charged one another with failing in their duty to protect the country. The first in line to go were the intelligence officers who failed to identify signals from sophisticated listening devices that indicated Egypt and Syria were preparing for war. Israel’s politicians believed they would have at least a 48-hour warning. The Israeli public grew angry with the politicians who sought to blame the generals while they squabbled with each over while trying to avoid responsibility. Widespread outrage forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign in April 1974 and she was succeeded in June by ex-general, ex-ambassador Yitzak Rabin who had served as chief-of-staff during the successful 1967 war which en- abled Israel to conquer East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

Netanyahu’s position could become untenable as he has formed a hard right government with extremists who had not previously held ministerial posts with the object of saving himself jail time for corruption. He has suggested his rivals Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz enter an emergency government.

Gantz insisted that this government would deal solely with the war and nothing else. Lapid said that Netanyahu would have to dismiss the extremist Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties from such a government for his party to join the coalition. Both Lapid and Gantz live for the day that Netanyahu is out of office. After this conflict is over, there will be a “war of the politicians” which could also affect the generals.