Strictly speaking, Israel’s war on Gaza is not a tragedy, but rather a horrible accident. Many wars wait years to break out until they cannot be stopped. These are the tragedies.
Israeli intelligence had the plans for the October 7 Hamas attack a year in advance, as well as urgent warnings from lower-ranking officers shortly before the event. But the top military and political leadership turned a deaf ear to them. This fits a historical pattern.
- Stalin had been informed of Hitler’s plans for Operation Barbarossa by his spy Victor Sorge.
- US naval intelligence had warnings of the attack on Pearl Harbor and
- The FBI had the pieces of the 9/11 puzzle, but couldn’t…
Intelligence agencies are not rewarded for early warnings, but for serving the political agenda of their bosses, and Israel’s legendary spies have proven to be no different from their counterparts in other countries.
Believing that $40 million in Qatari subsidies and other financial concessions would keep Hamas quiet, the Israeli government refused to consider anything else.
The war confrontation
There is simply no war in the classic sense between 300,000 regular soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces and 30,000 to 40,000 lightly armed Hamas rebel forces, any more than there has been a conflict between ISIS and the US military and its allies.
Whether Hamas is completely or largely eliminated from Gaza depends on the extent to which Israel can resist American pressure to moderate its operations. The result won’t be much different either way.
Whatever happens, most of Gaza’s two million residents will spend the next two years in camps while the rest of the world looks for what to do with them.
Their living conditions will be similar to those of the more than 200,000 Jewish refugees who lived in slums for up to two years after being expelled from Arab countries after the 1948 war.
The existential risk
For all the horrors of the October 7 attacks, they were not an existential crisis for a country with the most powerful military in the region and an extraordinary capacity for national solidarity in the face of external threat. The existential threat to Israel does not come from its southern border, but rather from the far north, specifically Ukraine.
The Biden administration previously imagined it could achieve regime change in Russia through economic sanctions. Instead, much of the world’s trade and financial flows have bypassed US sanctions, leaving Russia with minimally reduced oil revenues and a steady supply of high-tech components from China, directly and through intermediaries such as Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia.
The biggest blunder in history
Instead of collapsing by 50% as President Biden predicted, Russia’s economy grew by 3% in 2023 after contracting just 2.1% in 2022. Putin had an 80% approval rating as of October 2023.
The Biden White House team is responsible for the biggest blunder in American foreign policy history. America’s strategic position is about to suffer a blow equal to, and perhaps more devastating than, the collapse of Vietnam in 1975.
With a permanent population of less than 30 million compared to Russia’s 147 million, Ukraine cannot put enough men in the field to hold the line against a Russian army with similar technology and far greater firepower. The West cannot produce enough artillery shells, so Ukraine fires hundreds of missiles daily while Russia fires thousands.
Both sides have lost 70,000 to 100,000 and three or four times as many wounded, but Russia has many times more reserves. None of the West’s Wunderwaffen have made a difference, and the Russians have some powerful weapons of their own, as well as clear air superiority.
The attempt to move the NATO border to the Russia-Ukraine border may have been the most wrong act in the sad drama of American foreign policy, and President Biden’s statement on March 26, 2022 that Putin must not be allowed to remain in power may be the most conceited boast ever by an American leader.
With few exceptions, the American foreign policy establishment has staked its credibility on the outcome of this war. Although some establishment figures, such as Richard Haass, talk about “redefining success in Ukraine,” that is, declaring victory and going home, most of the establishment remains in this position.
Making enemies
The atmosphere in Washington resembles that of Vienna in the spring of 1914, as depicted by Robert Musil in his famous novel The Man Without Qualities (1930): The reader, but none of the protagonists , little does he know that their world of illusions is about to come crashing down to a gruesome end.
The US establishment refuses to accept this, but Russia knows it, as does China, the Gulf states and everyone else. The shift in the global balance of power after the collapse of Ukraine will be so dramatic that all players in this global game are cautious about their next step.
However, Russia and China are probing American weaknesses in ways that fall well below the threshold of casus belli, testing American responses.
Collateral losses for Israel
Israel will suffer collateral damage.
- It needs American weapons, ammunition and spare parts, especially with ammunition stocks depleted by the Ukraine war.
- It also depends on America’s veto in the UN Security Council.
- It doesn’t help that the Biden administration, because of the pro-Palestinian sympathies of its progressive base, is doing everything it can to prevent Israel from taking the military action needed to eliminate Hamas.
Although the American alliance is essential to Israel in the short term, the decline of American power will contribute to Israel’s strategic encirclement over time.
Russia’s choices
The late Henry Kissinger was asked on October 20, in his last published interview, “Is there a possibility that Russia will show more involvement in the Middle East?” He replied: “Before the Ukrainian war, Russia was generally pro-Israel in the confrontation with the Arabs. If Russia intervenes now, it has two options: Join the Arabs or appear as a mediator in the crisis – which would be strange in light of the Ukrainian war.”
Since Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015 to prevent the Sunni Jihad against the Assad government from entering the Russian Caucasus, Israel and Russia have maintained cordial if not cordial relations in the Syrian theater.
The Russians stood by while the Israeli Air Force flew thousands of sorties against Iranian-backed militias in Syria. This is critical to Israel’s security on its northern flank, where it faces a Hezbollah force three times larger than Hamas, armed with perhaps 150,000 missiles, including many modern models that may be able to evade Israeli defenses.
Now Russia’s turn to Iran is a serious concern. In late November, Iran announced that it had “finalized” a deal to buy Russian SU-35 fighter jets from Russia, an aircraft roughly comparable to the F-15s flown by the Israelis.
It is not known whether the Russians will sell fully equipped warplanes with advanced avionics and air-to-air missiles or a less powerful version for export. Obviously, this is a matter for negotiation. The Russians are playing chess while the Americans are playing Monopoly, and the obvious Russian move in response to an American attempt to control the center of the board in Ukraine is to form an alliance with Iran.
Russia’s readiness
If Washington chooses to demonize Russia, it is likely that Russia will become a scapegoat for US strategic interests in general and use the Iran issue to corner the US. This is indeed a serious danger, because nuclear proliferation is the only means by which illegitimate regimes can pose a serious threat to the great powers.
Russia faces issues not of mere expediency, but of existence, and will do everything it can to gain room for maneuver if the West seeks to “punish” it for its actions in Georgia. One irony of the current crisis is that Washington’s neoconservatives, by demanding a tough stance against Russia, appear to have damaged Israel’s security interests more deeply than any of their critics in American politics.
Neoconservatives are not typically Jewish, but many of them are Jews who care deeply about Israel’s security.
If America turns Russia into a strategic adversary, Israel’s chance of survival will decrease exponentially. Putin’s official visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which ended with military aircraft flying the Russian colors, was “nothing less than Putin’s return to the world stage”. Later that week, Putin received senior Iranian officials in Moscow.
Knives out
- Iran has apparently decided to end the current conflict in Gaza, rather than (as many feared) open a second front against Israel in the north. But it explores its possibilities like cat and mouse, testing Western answers.
- Hezbollah fired about 50 rockets at Israeli positions in November, compared with 4,000 rockets during the 2006 Lebanon war.
- Yemen’s Houthis have fired anti-ship missiles and drones at merchant ships, effectively diverting cargo traffic from the Red Sea.
- On December 18, the Pentagon announced a coalition of ten countries (with the Gulf states conspicuously absent) to protect maritime transport in the region.
- In Asia, meanwhile, China’s navy on December 10 staged a small standoff with Japanese vessels near the disputed Senkaku Islands.
- Chinese ships harassed Philippine ships with water cannons as they attempted to resupply Philippine forces in the South China Sea.
China’s involvement
These are investigations, not preparations for war. The reading China drew from Xi Jinping’s mid-November summit with President Biden is that America is fearful of the prospect of military engagement with China. The main demand of the Americans in San Francisco was the restoration of the open line between the two militaries, which China suspended after the visit of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosy to Taiwan.
China also received a clear statement from the White House that “we obviously do not support Taiwan’s independence.” The US Navy is about 1,000 miles off the coast of China. “The [People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s] ground-based missile forces complement the air and sea precision strike capabilities of the PLAAF and PLAN forces,” the Pentagon said on November 29, 2022.
The PLARF continues to increase its inventory of DF-26 IRBMs, which are designed to rapidly exchange conventional and nuclear warheads. They are also capable of precision ground attacks and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and South China Sea from mainland China.
Like the battleship lobby of the 1930s, the Pentagon built too many aircraft carriers, now as vulnerable as battleships in 1940, and not enough submarines—which explains why the public debate focuses on cheap, quick fixes—more 155mm guns and HIMARS rockets for Taiwan, for example.
A Ukrainian defeat and its consequences
A Ukrainian defeat in the form of a significant loss of ground and a long-term ceasefire would remind the rest of the world of Kissinger’s joke that it is dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but fatal to be its friend.
Israel will have to face:
- a less cooperative Russia that will have common interests with Iran;
- a China seeking to exploit anti-colonial resentment in the Global South against Israel;
- a more assertive and better armed Iran and
- a poor American geopolitical engagement in West Asia.
Israel’s immediate problems are less serious than they appear:
- Except for Qatar and possibly some parts of the Turkish political establishment, the rest of the world is happy to see Israel destroy Hamas.
- The Sunni Jihad to which Hamas professes allegiance is a persistent security problem for both Russia and China
- Iran has armed and financed Hamas, but does not want a Sunni entity to emerge as the main opposition to Israel.
Israel’s long-term problems, however, are worse than they appear and will emerge when the dust settles in Ukraine.
The election of Trump
The most likely event to alleviate Israel’s strategic predicament would be the election of Donald Trump to a second term in 2024. Unlike the neoconservatives and liberals currently in charge, Trump is not interested in regime change in Russia and he has no reason to perpetuate the mistakes of others.
He has pledged to end the war in Ukraine, which means reducing America’s casualties. It is likely to maintain strong American support for Israel while limiting damage to America’s standing abroad by avoiding conflict with Russia and China.
Unlike Joe Biden’s foreign policy team, Trump doesn’t care much about how other countries manage their affairs.
Forced American isolationism will leave Israel of about 10 million people in a sea of more than 120 million angry Arabs. One does not need to stretch the imagination for the disastrous outcome for Israel.
