THE ECHOES are eerie. Saturday’s attack by Hamas on Israel came almost exactly 50 years after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Arab nations launched an attack on Israeli-occupied territories on what is meant to be the holiest day in Judaism.
The attack also came days after the world marked 22 years since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. In the immediate aftermath of Saturday, officials declared the developments “Israel’s 9/11” moment.
If the horror and breath of the initial bloodletting mirrored that atrocity, the resultant rush to point fingers, declare war and launch a counter-offensive against the civilians of the hemmed-in Gaza Strip also echoed the infamous American response in invading Iraq.
These developments are simultaneously surprising and unsurprising. Surprising in that Israeli officials and international intelligence agencies appeared to have been caught off guard.
Unsurprising in that no one can really be surprised at the continuation of the vicious cycle of bloodshed that has occurred in the Middle East in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, when allied powers carved out a new state on contested territory. That action was meant to close one horrific chapter and open a new, more hopeful one.
Instead, it has been more akin to an unhealing wound in the psyche of the world.
There are many questions as to how these latest developments took place and what role they may yet play in the overall story. Is this a turning point? For whom? Did international actors like Iran play a role, direct or indirect?
And what role, if any, has been played by the tumult surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose focus on pushing through controversial judicial reform earlier this year triggered considerable unrest and protests in his country?
The Israeli PM, a former combat soldier in a special forces unit of the Israel Defence Forces, was once dubbed “Mr Security.”
He has entered a narrow arrangement with opposition parties to weather this storm, but whether his reputation will survive remains to be seen.
What is clear: ordinary people, as ever, will pay the price. The death tolls so far on all sides are already in the hundreds and are only set to rise. Not only people from Israel and Gaza have succumbed: people from many nations around the world have also been caught up in the fallout.
With the market startled and oil prices already jumping, TT may well “benefit” from an economic windfall.
But what price that benefit when this conflict will divert global efforts away from things like the pressing climate crisis, which, like the threat of nuclear conflagration, is an urgent, existential one? We could all be dragged down by this latest war.
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