Forty-eight hours after the Hamas attack against Israel, the world, stunned, discovered the toll – which is increasing – of the Palestinian terrorist action and the Israeli reprisals: around 700 Israelis and at least 400 Palestinians, not counting the thousands of wounded on both sides, to which must be added more than 100 people held hostage, scattered throughout the Gaza Strip.
For Jacob Heilbrunn, who directs the prestigious geopolitics review in Washington The National Interest, the consequences of the conflict are still incalculable. It could, for example, extend to Iran and will certainly impact the American presidential election, he predicts. Furthermore, it tests the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, likely to be overtaken by History and criticized for not having seen the danger coming from Gaza. “The Prime Minister erred on the side of overconfidence. And he exposed the nation to new dangers,” he notes. “This war is now his,” says Heilbrunn, who predicts: “And like Golda Meir in 1973 after the Yom Kippur War, he will not emerge unscathed.”
L’Express: How do you assess the terrorist Blitzkrieg carried out by Hamas on Saturday October 7?
Jacob Heilbrunn: This is the most important event to have occurred in the Middle East since 1973. Israeli – and American – intelligence services did not see this coming. Failing to interpret the signs coming from Gaza recently, they were caught off guard. As a result, Israel finds itself with a new type of hybrid war, which combines terrorist actions and guerrilla methods imported from the Ukrainian conflict. The country’s leaders believed they had found the solution by creating an airtight border with Gaza, thanks to a wall and barbed wire fences. But they discover that it was actually a Maginot Line…
With unsophisticated, low-tech and inexpensive weapons, Hamas fighters managed to break through. The toll is appalling, significantly higher than that of September 11 if we relate it to the population. The psychological trauma is terrible. The country thought it could isolate itself from the Palestinians and ignore the problem. It is not so. On the contrary, Israelis are discovering that they are vulnerable.
What will happen now?
If the government launches a massive ground offensive against Gaza in the south, it is likely that Hezbollah will join the conflict by attacking from Lebanon in the north. This could extend the conflict to Iran. Because Netanyahu could decide to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. It is indeed clear to everyone that Iran played a central role in preparing Hamas’ terrorist offensive.
Will the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab countries (Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan) survive the conflict that is beginning?
It is inevitable that an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza will trigger massive protests across the Arab world. Under pressure from the streets, the governments of these countries could find themselves in a complicated situation. This could compromise not only the Abraham Accords signed in 2020 but also the ongoing rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
How weakened is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
This war is above all his. His mistake is to have prejudged his strengths and his ability. He sinned through overconfidence and arrogance. Above all, it exposed the nation to new dangers. He will not emerge unscathed because, as they say in English, he is swimming in waters too deep for him. In other words, he doesn’t have the build. The blame will fall on him as it fell on Golda Meir in 1973. After the Yom Kippur War, the Prime Minister was criticized from all sides because she and her services had not seen anything coming. She ended up resigning. Netanyahu in turn finds himself with a monumental crisis to manage. Of course, the hostage issue is the most acute problem. In terms of the number of prisoners, this giant kidnapping surpasses the Tehran hostage crisis of 1979-1981, when 52 American diplomats and civilians were detained for 444 days.
Analyst and author Jacob Heilbrunn edits the geopolitics journal The National Interest
© / The National Interest
Is the political crisis in Washington, where the seat of “speaker” (president) of the House of Representatives has been vacant since Tuesday, October 3, working in Hamas’ favor?
The absence of a speaker in the House means that one of the branches of our institutions is no longer functioning. When there is a power vacuum in Congress, it becomes much more difficult for the United States to provide aid, military or financial, to Israel or Ukraine. This is a further sign of the disintegration of the United States, which increasingly resembles the Germany of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Our institutions are decaying from the inside. Unfortunately, we are the laughing stock of the world because of a small fraction of deputies who prevent Congress from functioning normally. This weakens the prestige of American power. How could America serve as a model, and even help its allies, if it itself is dysfunctional? We do not have an ambassador to Israel either. Appointed last month, he has still not been confirmed in his functions by the Senate. The United States left Jerusalem without leaving an address and are absent…
What did you think of Joe Biden’s speech on Saturday after the Hamas attack?
I found it good. President Biden is doing his best under extremely difficult circumstances. A few days ago, he announced that he was preparing to give a major speech on Ukraine. This speech will obviously be devoted to Israel and Ukraine. He will probably condemn American elected officials who, through political calculation, diminish the power of the United States and prevent it from helping democratic countries.
Could the situation in the Middle East reshuffle the cards for the American presidential election?
On the Republican Party side, it is not impossible. Candidates like Mike Pence or Nikki Haley are now in a good position to criticize the proponents of isolationism, of which Trump is one. But the moment is also delicate for Joe Biden, because his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu was not particularly good. The latter, for example, has never been received or invited to the White House. That said, foreign policy is not where Biden is in trouble. On the contrary, he masters it well since he devoted forty years of his life to it – first in the Senate, then as vice-president and finally in the White House. Its weak point lies elsewhere: the Americans blame it for inflation and the loss of purchasing power.
What can the European Union do?
Showing support for Israel, but not much more. In reality, this fight is above all Israeli. The question is: what will Netanyahu decide? And how big will the response be? What the current crisis shows is that the approach of crushing the Palestinians does not work. On the contrary, it leads to more violence and turns against the Jewish state, which is politically divided. Furthermore, the right in power, allied with anti-democratic forces, is incompetent. Israel is always stronger when it is governed at the center by leaders driven by strong democratic beliefs.