About the author: Brian Katulis is a senior fellow and vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute.
The events that began in Israel on Oct. 7 are a historical hinge. Like 9/11, as has been said, 10/7 will be remembered by most observers as a bright dividing line between “before” and “after.” What’s at stake for Israel—a fight for its survival—has echoes in other battles taking place around the world like Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Iranian regime’s continued repression of its own people. The world keeps moving toward the future, but the past and those retrograde elements that want to move the world backward still want to have a say.
The attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas was unprecedented in its reach into Israel and the murderous rampage against innocent civilians that ensued. Israel’s military campaign, already underway, will likely be unprecedented, too. This new episode of a conflict between Israel and an extremist terrorist faction who rules millions of Palestinians in Gaza with fear and intimidation will have ripple effects across the region and the world.
The main battleground: southern Israel-Gaza. For the moment and likely for the next few days or weeks, the centerpiece of this struggle will remain within a defined geographic location along Israel’s southern border and in the Gaza Strip, a densely populated area controlled by Hamas since 2007 with 2.3 million Palestinians.
Israel has called up 300,000 reservists for duty, and it has already initiated airstrikes against positions inside of Gaza’s territory, targeting Hamas and other groups. It appears poised to launch a ground invasion. That would be a risky proposition in and of itself, made all the more dangerous by the fact that Hamas and other extremist groups continue to hold more than a hundred Israelis and other nationalities hostage in Gaza. They have threatened to murder more innocents in response to Israeli military strikes.
The instant press coverage of the battlefield means that in a very real sense, the next phase of this war will also play out before our eyes. It will add to a global media landscape that is stuffed full of competing narratives and clashing worldviews in the never-ending doomscrolling and venting of social media. Sadly, the carnage will be televised, and this will provoke political debates and geopolitical tensions far beyond this corner of the Middle East in unpredictable ways.
Risks of new fronts opening in the Middle East. The most immediate worry is on Israel’s northern front, where the terrorist group Hezbollah has fired some salvos against Israel as they have in the past. The group is well-armed by Iran and battle-trained in Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s decade-plus war against his people.
The U.S. announced it is sending a strike carrier group to the Eastern Mediterranean as a show of support to Israel. That deployment will also send a message of deterrence to Hezbollah, Iran, and other actors that might seek to draw Israel’s attention and military resources away from the main battlefront in Gaza.
A second arena of concern is the West Bank. The Israeli military retains overall control there. A weakened Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah has security forces that have tried to maintain calm but has had difficulty in doing so in recent years. Will it continue to struggle?
There are also long-standing concerns about Jordan next door, which has an economy strained by multiple challenges and a significant portion of its population with family ties to Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza. Worries linger of turmoil inside Israel between Arab and Jewish citizens, just a few years after clashes in particular communities shocked the country.
The likelihood of a broader Middle East regional war that brings in Gulf states and Iran in a conventional war still seems small, that’s why global energy markets stayed relatively quiet with some small increases over the weekend in response to the initial attack. But this is why it’s important to make moves that seek to disconnect and isolate the different potential theaters of tension and conflict while the fight in Gaza rages.
It is difficult to predict at this early stage the outcomes, but an Israeli military victory degrading Hamas and its capabilities to strike seems almost inevitable. In a real sense, Hamas has already lost, and it will continue to lose, particularly if it cynically murders innocent Israelis and Palestinians in the next stages of its nihilistic campaigns. The biggest questions are the ones that remain a little far afield from our vision, but it’s important to raise them now in the early moments of a new war.
The key long-term questions are: Who will win the peace? How will it be won? And who will share in its benefits?
Deferred dreams of a new Middle East. In the months before the Hamas attack, the dominant conversation was about different countries coming together unlike ever before to forge a new Middle East. In March, China famously credited itself for brokering a diplomatic opening between Saudi Arabia and Iran, an opening that was actually forged through quiet diplomacy in places like Muscat and Baghdad over the past few years. How Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates use their renewed contacts with Iran is an interesting factor to watch during this crisis.
In the pre-10/7 period, there was talk and hope about creating new linkages in the region, including the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor that would connect countries together in new transportation and energy infrastructure to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Biden administration still has high hopes for a possible Saudi-Israel normalization deal, though events will likely backburner those diplomatic efforts for now. The violence will make achieving that deal a steeper hill to climb.
It seems likely that much more violence, bloodshed, pain, and uncertainty will lie ahead in key parts of the Middle East. The awful assault against Israel and the aftermath we will all witness serves as a clarifying reminder about the key dividing line in today’s Middle East and in the wider world: between those who want to build versus those who seek to destroy, between those who want to move the world forward in the future versus those who rely on force and intimidation to keep things stuck in the past.
What unfolds in the Middle East will reverberate around the world, and it will intersect with other fault lines. The winners will shape the future.
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