
The October 7 Hamas attack produced society-wide shocks in Israel. To many, it served as a reminder of the Yom Kippur war triggered 50 years earlier. The latter produced long-term regional and international consequences, including the first peace treaty signed by Israel with an Arab country, as well as Europe’s reliance on Russian energy imports. The Israel-Hamas war, which many have compared to the Yom Kippur war, could also produce long-lasting effects, from a resurge of Islamist terrorism and compromising any hope of reconciliation between Israel and Arab countries, to the destabilization of the entire Middle East.
Yom Kippur, the biggest shock in the history of Israel prior to the Hamas attacks
On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. It was Yom Kippur, one of the biggest feast days in the Jewish calendar. No one really expected war would break out at the time, although tensions between the State of Israel with its Arab neighbors had been brewing ever since the establishment of Israeli statehood twenty years earlier. Israeli leaders had been cautioned, but before they realized a large-scale attack was coming it was too late to prevent it. So instead they decided not to launch pre-emptive strikes, lest they should forfeit US support which they knew would come in handy. The attack did, however, take by surprise the Israeli population.
What was even more surprising was the military prowess of Arab nations. Just 6 years before, these countries (along with Jordan) had been crushed in the so-called Six-Day War, when Syria lost control of the Golan Heights, and Israel also managed to seize the Sinai Peninsula. It was also in 1967 that Israel occupied the West Bank and the Jordanian-held Eastern Jerusalem and the Egypt-occupied Gaza Strip. After such a clear-cut victory, all doubts regarding Israel’s military superiority had by now been dispelled. However, Arab countries had prepared in the years that had lapsed since the Six-Day War, modernizing their armies and fitting them with state-of-the-art Soviet equipment, including anti-air defense systems, which to a large extent managed to neutralize Israel’s most formidable weapon at the time – its air fleet. In the first days of the attack, Arab forces progressed inland on both frontlines before being finally stopped and pushed back, at a heavy cost (the Yom Kippur war remains to this day the most expensive war in the history of Israel), also with support from the United States, which launched an airlift operation to supply Israel with weapons and ammunition.
The Yom Kippur war produced a number of significant effects, one of which is felt to this day. The reputation of the then Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, was seriously dented due to her Cabinet’s failure to prevent the attack and obtain a victory as decisive as in previous wars. Golda Meir, who went down in history for her much criticized comment “There was no such thing as Palestinians”, remains an iconic figure for Israel, commonly seen as one of the “founders” of this nation. Her legacy, however, remains marred by controversy, particularly due to the 1973 conflict.
At regional level, the Yom Kippur war (paradoxically, it would seem) paved the way for peace. Israel understood that its military superiority was not something to be taken for granted and that Arab nations can still pose a serious threat. In turn, Egypt understood that Israel cannot be defeated on the battlefield and that, instead of fighting an endless war in the name of Arab solidarity (the two countries had been virtually at war for twenty-five years, and on three occasions the conflict had escalated into bloody wars), peace would be the better option. What followed were the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. It was then that Egypt lost its position as leader of the Arab world, which repudiated it long after making this decision. A few years later, president Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated by Islamists. However, a precedent had been set, so the Jordanians and Palestinians could now sue Israel for peace. Last but not least, Egypt’s shift of policy with respect to Israel was also followed by a broader geopolitical shift – Cairo traded its alliance with the USSR for the one with the United States, which seriously backtracked the Soviets’ plans in the Middle East.
Beyond the Middle East, the oil embargo imposed by Arab countries, Saudi Arabia in particular, prompted many Western countries to look elsewhere for energy resources in order to avoid the same thing from happening in the future. Germany particularly increased its imports from Russia. Basically, Europe’s dependency on Russia’s energy resources (which made Vladimir Putin believe Ukraine could be attacked because it would be left to fend for itself) is directly connected to the Yom Kippur war.
The “Palestinian cause” and Muslim hostility towards Israel: why the war in Gaza could lead to a resurge of Islamist terrorism and compromise the peace process in the Middle East
The Hamas attack took Israelis by surprise, much like the Yom Kippur war. It is possible, just like in 1973, that the Israeli leadership had been warned an attack was coming both by Egypt and by the CIA. Regardless if Israel had prior knowledge of the attack or not, what is certain is that the power structures and politicians will both have some explaining to do when the war is over, as they need to account for the failure of security forces and intelligence agencies. Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career may well be over, and Israel’s longest-standing Prime Minister could go down in history for his failure to prevent the biggest terrorist attack in Israel. The war could also spell regional and global consequences generated by Muslims (Arabs in particular, but others as well) possibly rallying behind the so-called “Palestinian cause”. The bigger the loss of human lives and the destruction caused by the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the greater the consequences could be.
The Palestinian cause has always been a core tenet of Muslim extremists. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Hassan al-Banna, who died in 1949, less than a year before the creation of the State of Israel, said that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”. The statement is also featured in the Covenant of Hamas, a terrorist cell that “branched out” from al-Banna’s Islamist organization.
Abdullah Azzam, the “father” of Global jihad and mentor to Osama bin Laden, the founder of Maktab al-Khidamat, an organization that in the late 80s would evolve into Al Qaeda, was a Palestinian who had been strongly influenced by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood who laid the ideological foundations of jihad as it is understood today by ultra-radical organizations. When Osama bin Laden called the first jihad in 1996, he said that Palestinians had called on the Muslim community for assistance in liberating occupied territories. In his declaration of war, Bin Laden also mentioned Abdullah Azzam and Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas. A couple of years later, when Bin Laden issued a fatwa stating that Muslims have a sacred duty to kill Americans and their allies until Al Aqsa (the mosque in Jerusalem, considered the third-holiest site in Islam) and the Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which the terrorist leader believed had been “captured” since American forces were in the Arab Peninsula) are liberated.
The reason why Muslim extremists rally behind the Palestinian cause has to do with the doctrine of jihad, which states that if a Muslim territory is attacked or is occupied, Muslims from every corner of the world have an obligation to rally to defend / liberate this territory, either by fighting or assisting the war effort, for instance by donating for the cause. The fact that Jerusalem is also at stake adds further importance to the conflict. We should not forget that the Second Intifada is closely tied to Jerusalem. Although there were multiple causes behind the second uprising, the spark that triggered the rioting in 2000 was the provocative visit of the Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The mastermind behind the October 7 Hamas assault, Mohammed Dief, had allegedly started planning the large-scale attack shortly after an Israeli security forces’ raid on Temple Mount in May 2021.
The war in Gaza had ignited tensions in the region even before Israel ever launched a land attack, and it may well lead to a new resurge of Islamist terrorism that should target not just Israelis in the whole world, but also Western objectives, given that Americans and Europeans (and others) have expressed solidarity with Israel. In the last decades, the Muslim world has never grown short of young, brainwashed fanatics, willing to blow themselves up shouting Allah’s name. In fact, the first such attack followed less than a week from the Hamas assault. A radicalized young man of Chechen origin killed a teacher and stabbed another three people in France.
It is not just extremists, but also Arabs everywhere that are rallying to the Palestinian cause, as shown by events expressing solidarity with Gaza organized, from the first week of the conflict. For decades, the predominant narrative in the Arab world, including in those countries that made peace with Israel, is that the latter had imposed a brutal occupation and has killed countless Palestinians, including women and children. This narrative paints a black-and-white version of reality. Hamas extremists are perceived as freedom fighters, terrorist attacks carried out by this organization are not met with the same repugnance like in Europe and the United States, but rather are perceived as a response to an act of aggression. Similarly, Israel’s retaliation to the said terrorist attacks is regarded as a crime against the Palestinian people. Images of the victims, which also include numerous children, and the destruction caused by the war, their effects amplified by online media, simply fan the flame.
Amidst escalating tensions, it will be hard for any Arab government to show Israel any sympathy, which means the peace process between Israel and Arab nations will be postponed, if not compromised altogether. In fact, Saudi Arabia announced there will be no reconciliation with Israel, although prior to the war the Saudis were moving towards normalizing ties with this country.
Experts have also warned that the war in Gaza might spiral out of control and further expand. The first country to be engulfed by the conflict could be the West Bank, a country that has already reported dozens of fatalities and over a thousand wounded in the first week since the conflict broke out. A Third Intifada is another possibility. The border with Lebanon, where the Israelis have traded artillery fire with Hazbollah militants every day, is another hot spot. During a visit to Lebanon, Iran’s Interior Minister threatened Hezbollah could also attack Israel. The Shiite Islamist group has an estimated arsenal of a 150 thousand missiles at its disposal to strike northern Israel.
The worst-case scenario (total war in the Middle East) is more likely than the best-case scenario (enduring peace)
The worst possible outcome would see Iran (which continues its operations in Syria, where it has helped Bashar al-Assad’s regime survive) join the war effort, which would turn the entire Middle East into a war zone, from the Gulf to the Levant.
There is, obviously, also an ideal scenario in the cards: Israel succeeds in eradicating the Hamas threat without causing too many civilian casualties and turning the battlefield into a pile of smoldering ruins. At the end of the war, both the Israelis and the less radical of Palestinian leaders engage in genuine peace talks, where each side is ready to compromise. After a while, the two parties reach a resolution that is finally put into practice.
History, however, shows that ideal scenarios seldom become reality in the Middle East.
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