By Michael F. Duggan
“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
-Jake Sullivan, September 29, 2023
The Hamas attacks in Israel this weekend are as shocking in their scale, scope, sophistication, and operational success as they are horrifying in terms of civilian losses. Israel appears to have been caught off guard in what looks like a Middle Eastern version of the Tet Offensive, the coordinated nationwide attacks in South Vietnam during the Lunar New Year holiday in January 1968. Many hundreds of people have been killed and wounded on both sides. Scores of Israeli civilians were taken hostage.
I am sympathetic to the Palestinian people and know of their plight and despair. But this wave of attacks by Hamas will only initiate another round of insanity in the region. Could that be the goal? The attacks seem as self-destructive as they were murderous. Now Israel will bring down a ferocious wrath upon them—a payback for a payback—and more civilians will die.
The Gaza will bear the brunt of the initial retaliation even though there are Israeli hostages being held there. An overreaction is what Hamas wants. What are the prospects of an Israeli victory if they invade a city with a population greater than Baltimore (more than 590,000 in Gaza City with a total of more than 2 million in the Gaza Strip) with infantry, and what will happen to the hostages if they do? One can only wonder how they will respond on the West Bank. The impact of the new war on the power structure and relations of the Middle East can only be guessed at. What is the possibility of a wider regional war? Will Hezbollah get involved? Will Syria? Iran? And all at a time when relations between Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia appeared to be heading in the right direction. It has also pushed Ukraine out of the headlines.
The Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group is on its way to the eastern Mediterranean.