Israel’s Long War Ahead
Why the wars on Israel’s periphery and beyond are unlikely to be over soon
I have just returned from my visit to Israel. I was able to gain many insights during the visit, which took us to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, as well as the north and the south of the country. One key theme of the visit is that it quickly became clear that the current conflict is unlikely to be a short war. I explain why that is in my latest article for ABC Australia.
For almost all of its modern history, the state of Israel has engaged in relatively short wars. This is a function of its geography and its small population.
The 1967 and 1973 wars lasted for six and 20 days respectively. Its wars in Gaza have also been short. None of its wars there in 2008, 2012, 2014 or 2021 lasted more than a couple of months. Similarly, the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War lasted a month.
However, despite its preferences, there have been times when Israel has had to fight for much longer periods. These include the first and second intifadas and the Lebanon War from 1982 to 1985.
Today's Israel-Hamas War may also continue for a considerable amount of time. There are three reasons for this.
Read rest of my article for free at ABC Australia here.
The egg cannot be unscrambled. The so-called intel failure in Israel was a failure to believe Hamas when it was clear what was planned and to be executed. The intel was there. It is a failure of the political system in Israel which allows the far right Likud and Netanyahu to work on their pet project: ejecting Palestinians from the West Bank and allowing right wing settlers, who ironically can avoid military service, to act as an extra-legal militia. From what I can see, the main objective for “Israel” is to really preserve Netanyahu’s control and position and keep him out of court and out of jail. There is already a large segment of the Israeli population that are disillusioned by the action in Gaza and activity of the current leadership. What I find more fascinating from your report out of your visit is how there is no objective to come up with a two state solution and joint security guarantees for Israelis and Palestinians. All that we see is sowing the seeds for the conflict to continue and the next generation of bitter and revenge seeking people on both sides.
As for the surrounding areas, it is Iran taking advantage of the chaos in the region and in Ukraine as everybody is distracted from directly and forcefully confronting Iran (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi’s in Yemen. But the aside from what appears to be a feckless US response to maritime issues in the Red Sea, where is KSA? Where is Egypt? They are supposed to be US allies and definitely not friends to Iran, yet they too remain silent and on the sidelines. It is beyond me as to why KSA who has been fighting the Houthi’s in Yemen cannot help put a stop to maritime attacks. I am clearly missing something, but do not know what it is exactly. Is it all parties are trying to prevent escalation (this would be a consistent US theme it seems), but all I see coming from that is further emboldening Iran and its proxies, much like it has emboldened Putin and Russia.
Other than Israel's intelligence failures, the one thing that has surprised me in this conflict is the absence of SAMs in Hamas' inventories. They ought to have known that the IDF would be the prime attacker in response, yet it appears that Hamas did not have SAMs in their weapons' inventories.