The Israeli leadership sees its war against Hamas as one element of a broader geopolitical rearrangement driven by Russia, China and Iran – and says the West should be worried.
Already a subscriber?Israel will invade Rafah to “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza, regardless of what the world might think. It has a crisis to its north that has forced more than 100,000 citizens to flee their homes southwards amid daily Hezbollah rocket barrages.
Its primary focus is on avoiding wider escalation, but concerns are growing that a military miscalculation could unleash a moreIn addition, Israel’s leaders list further hostile fronts against the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran. And they perceive an additional front – the rest of the world’s perception of Israel’s legitimacy.met this week with dozens of high-ranking Israeli and Palestinian officials, analysts, diplomats, journalists, political leaders, business and community figures on a trip funded by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Former treasurerThe discussions – as well as travel to Israel’s northern and Gazan borders – revealed a complex political, humanitarian and military challenge that has global implications. The message from Israel’s government to Australia and the Albanese government is appreciative of Labor’s initial statements of support for Israel following the October 7 attacks and against antisemitism. But now Israel says it expects much more from its allies. Its leadership paints Israel’s current conflict as one element of a broader geopolitical“We are just the start, you are next,” said one senior figure. “Australia has to be very aware of a new order.” They added: “It requires world leaders to stand up and not be fearful of social media flare-ups.”Another put it this way: “Israel is the low-hanging fruit” of a global anti-American, anti-West conflict marked by the war in Ukraine, the new Middle East war andThe calls come as efforts to reach a six-week ceasefire before the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan stalled late this week, according to reports by Reuters and others. At the same time, Israel continues to face growing calls led by the US to get more food, medicine and humanitarian supplies into Gaza. US intervention raises the Biden administration’s responsibility for the humanitarian need, freeing Israel to complete its primary goal of eliminating Hamas in Rafah.the government is confident the final military assault on Hamas fighters will take six to eight weeks. That task sits at the top of Israel’s priority list, followed only by the release of hostages.But getting there will be even more complex than the initial phase of the war, which saw Israel push the population of Gaza southward. The main difficulty is the complexity of fighting a battle against an enemy sequestered in a, estimated by Israeli military officials to be up to 500 kilometres in length. The tunnel system allows Hamas fighters to move positions quickly, forcing Israeli forces into “whack-a-mole” missions alongside the grinding and slow hard work of securing and destroying the structures. The work is slow and dangerous. But after 154 days of fighting in these conditions, Israel is increasingly confident of its capacity to prevail. The wider question is how Israel is coping under the strain of a lengthening war, as well as international condemnations over the civilian death toll. Many show signs of deep frustration over the slow and costly pace of progress in Gaza, as well as the ongoing attacks out of Lebanon into the north. Hanging over everyone in this country – expressed on tens of thousands of “Bring Them Home” posters, stickers and jacket pins – is the fate of its , which number just over 100 at this point. With every day, hope for their survival slips, leaving families in a state of anguished exhaustion.More generally, the country has that oppressive sense of suspended animation of a world in limbo. A bit like the pandemic lockdowns, only with the intensity dialled up. Hotels are full of refugees from the north, families spilling into lobbies with their children and dogs, playing card games and knitting. Wondering when it will be safe to return home. And then there’s the wider psychic toll. In a country of just 9 million, the scale of the massacres and abductions on October 7 are many multiples greater – in per capita terms – than the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in America. People tell you that there is nobody in this country not directly linked in some way to the victims or fallen soldiers of the war. “I have not smiled since October 6”, is a common refrain. Relatives and supporters complete the final leg of a four-day march from the Israel-Gaza border to Jerusalem to demand the immediate release of all Hamas hostages over the weekend.Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, nobody is under any illusion that there aren’t many dark days ahead. Yet in a perverse way, the war has reunited Israelis, who were mired in a bitter internal battle over judicial and democratic reforms that left the country deeply polarised. And others say they have been buoyed by the support from the Jewish diaspora. One Australian, recently arrived, toldthat she far preferred to live under threat of rockets in Tel Aviv than in the worsening toxic atmosphere of antisemitism in Sydney. There is also a near universal hard-headed appreciation of what will happen next, and what the preconditions for future peace might be, no matter how remote it seems. Nobody in Israel is under any illusion that it can bomb the death-cult of Hamas out of existence. But there is no alternative, they say, to obliterating the military capability of Hamas and its political regime. “We are not ready to sleep next to these monsters,” says Sarit Zehavi, a reserve army lieutenant colonel and head of a research and education centre that specialises in Israel’s northern security challenge. Before October 7, her worst fear was that Israel would one day be at war. What she did not count on was massacres and rapes and abductions. “You cannot deter someone who wants to be dead,” she says of the fighters’ death-cult ideologies.With hostages still languishing in Gaza, there is also no room for talk about “two state solutions” or goodwill offers of an eventual Palestinian state, Israeli leaders say. And such things may not be possible for a long time to come. The feeling among Israelis is that to place such a huge concession on the table would send an unmistakable message to both the Islamic enemies of Israel and its allies around the world, including Australia, that an attack like October 7 can yield a huge dividend. This would embolden other terror groups across the region, weakening the growing list of Israeli allies forged by the Abraham Accords, led by Egypt and Jordan. “They want us to finish the job” against Hamas, said one senior Israeli figure, even if they won’t say so in public. But even that may be shifting. Demonstrators wave signs and shout slogans during a protest calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip.An influential Saudi newspaper this week published a savaging of the Hamas leadership, accusing them of sacrificing the lives of ordinary Gazans for their military goals while living in luxury. “All of Palestine, with its men, women and children, living and dead, is not worth a toothpick” to Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, wrote Saudi journalist Muhammed al-Saed in the influentialThat such a staunch attack on Hamas could be published in Saudi Arabia has not gone unnoticed in Israel this week. Related to this is a widespread hope in Israel that the long-term path out of this hell is through de-radicalisation and education. That will require Arab leaders to make deals with Israel while simultaneously educating their people on the benefits of peace and prosperity, they say. Left unchecked, the radical anti-Western sentiments that drive terror organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah will continue to thrive, and not just in the Middle East, says Zehavi. “How do you prevent the next massacre? What are you doing to stay safe in Australia?”She notes, from her home in northern Israel, that Sydney witnessed public celebrations of the deaths of Jews. “Within a generation, your kids are at risk” from such extremism, Zehavi predicts. “It’s not about Israel or Jews.” Israeli officials speculate that Sinwar – currently hiding deep under Gaza – triggered October 7 intending to push the whole region into war, and was surprised by the lack of a broader uprising against Israel from Lebanon, Syria and Iran.Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to the northern border crisis, which has effectively left the country smaller than it was on October 6 by forcing residents to flee southwards. That has left the northern front largely contained in a limited war, but escalation may be just around the corner, warn Israeli officials.
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