Nothing can justify what Palestinian armed groups are doing right now and what Israel has been doing for decades as they violate (both) international law and show utter disregard for human life. But to remain in simple condemnation, accompanied by requests for moderation from the parties, as many rulers and political leaders tend to do, also for decades, only shows a high degree of cynicism and an obvious lack of political will to resolve a conflict that now points to a new war in the Middle East.
In reality, war, violence, is a daily routine in Palestine. And this could lead one to think that the attack by the militias of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad is one more of the countless bloody episodes that characterize the region, caused by the madness of those in charge. In the face of this unfounded reading, the evidence is imposed that there is a clear rationality that explains what has happened in a dynamic that directly involves three main actors.
The first is Israel. The dimension of the attack received highlights a resounding failure of intelligence, since it was not possible to anticipate it. To those who argue that such a colossal fiasco of Israeli intelligence is unthinkable and that, therefore, given increasingly convoluted interpretations, claim that the Netanyahu government has allowed the attack to find an excuse to retaliate, only they must be reminded that this attack took place precisely fifty years and one day after the start of the Yom Kippur War (the failure par excellence of those same overrated services). In addition, since last December it has become clear that the most extremist government in the history of Israel needs no excuse to impose its dictate by force until it achieves total domination of historical Palestine.
In essence, it is not that Tel-Aviv – with media that includes collaborators on the ground and cutting-edge technology applied to a strip of Gaza barely 400 square kilometers, closed to the world by land, sea and air – did not have enough information about the remarkable increase in the arsenal that the conglomerate of Palestinian armed groups active in the strip has been accumulating. The problem is that his assessment of the situation was wrong, as he believed that they would not dare launch an operation of this magnitude for fear of being annihilated immediately, given the overwhelming military superiority of the Israeli forces. Confident that his anti-aircraft defenses gave him a total deterrent capability and that his line units would thwart any frontal attack, he failed to gauge the will and intentions of his opponents.
As for Hamas, it must be imagined that its delusions have led it to think that this is the only way to bring Israel down, with an operation that has combined a massive artillery attack with naval and ground infiltration in several locations israeli With the first, he has managed to saturate the theoretically impenetrable Israeli defenses – the Patriot, Iron Dome and David’s Sling systems – and has guaranteed that some rockets and missiles fall into enemy territory. With the second you get a lot more, no matter how macabre it is. Not only does it fuel the climate of terror among the Israeli population, but it obtains a large number of prisoners – military and civilian – who now serve it to negotiate an exchange for its own fighters locked up in Israeli prisons and, not least, to make serve them as human shields against the predictable massive retaliation from Tel-Aviv.
Added to this is that, looking at the beleaguered population of Gaza, which will be the main sufferer of what will happen, Hamas is confident that the dissemination of the brutal images of dead Israelis and the actions carried out by their militias in Israel will partly offset the criticism it will receive when Israeli retaliation takes place.
In the background, Iran emerges as the third actor to consider with a more far-reaching strategy. By facilitating the operation of the Palestinian groups, and calculating that Israel will subject the population of Gaza to an unprecedented punishment, it aims to torpedo the current process of normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Given what is already beginning to materialize on the ground in the planet’s largest open-air prison, Gaza, it will be very difficult for Riyadh to criticize Hamas and side with Tel-Aviv. And it still has the option of activating Hezbollah, which has also significantly increased its missile-launching and ground combat capabilities, to open a new front that would force Israel to diversify its forces and plunge into war with an ending that does not guarantee him to come out better than the one that took place in 2006.
Once again, the Palestinian Authority and those who limit themselves to condemning what has happened are left out of the game.
