The year since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s retaliation have demonstrated once again that neither has learned anything from decades of horrific violence as they continue to miscalculate each other’s intentions and resolve
By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir
Israeli-Palestinian relations have reached a new nadir in the year since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s retaliation. Never since Israel’s establishment in 1948 has their relationship reached this level of bloodthirstiness in the quest to completely destroy the other. Both Israel and Hamas have miscalculated the other’s intentions and resolved over the years to rid themselves of each other. The repeated violent encounters and wars over the decades have changed nothing, only poisoning one generation after another and planting the seeds for the next cycle of violence, which led to the horrific attack of October 7.
Although Hamas expected a major retaliatory attack by Israel, they gravely miscalculated the extent to which Israel would go to counter Hamas’ unprecedented savagery they inflicted on Israeli civilian communities on a holy day, no less, that evoked the horrific memories of the Holocaust. Crossing this red line shattered any restraints to destroy Hamas that Israel might have otherwise exercised.
On its part, Israel underestimated Hamas’ capability to wage such an assault. Israel further underestimated Hamas’ resiliency and fighting abilities, something Prime Minister Netanyahu should have known because he made it possible for Hamas to arm themselves, train tens of thousands of fighters, and build hundreds of miles of tunnels, with time to prepare to wage such a violent assault.
Hezbollah has also miscalculated Israel’s intentions and strategy. Though immediately following the beginning of Israel’s war against Hamas, Hezbollah came to Hamas’s defense by engaging Israel in a violent tit-for-tat confrontation, it miscalculated its approach, which ideally suited Israel’s strategy. It gave Israel the time needed to effectively decimate Hamas’ fighting forces and infrastructure, and then turn its focus on Hezbollah. Finally, Hezbollah fatally underestimated Israel’s technological prowess and unsurpassed intelligence capability, which decapitated most of its top commanders, including Hezbollah’s Secretary General Nasrallah, and crippled the organization’s fighting capability, at least at this stage of the conflict.
Iran came quickly to the realization that the years of heavy investment in Hamas and Hezbollah has not yielded the benefits it had expected. Iran has also bitterly realized that its arsenals—an array of ballistic missiles and drones—are no match for Israel’s air defense systems and that its air defense systems are ineffective in the face of Israel’s superior air force and precision missiles that can penetrate its air space with impunity.
The US has its share of miscalculations as well. The Biden administration stood firmly behind Israel; it had no strategy as to how to end this conflict before it engulfs the entire region. Yes, the US lived up to its commitment to protecting Israel’s national security; it has, however, enabled Israel, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, to act as it pleases against the Palestinians, sidestepping the fact that Israel’s ultimate national security rests with Israeli-Palestinian peace.
I cite the above brief review of the miscalculations made by all direct and indirect parties to the conflict to demonstrate that regardless of how this war against Hamas and Hezbollah ends, very little will change the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unless both sides accept the inevitability of coexistence.
Whereas Hamas is now crippled militarily, it remains a viable organization and will reconstitute itself simply because Israel cannot eradicate a nationalist movement. A growing number of Palestinians cheered Hamas’ attack because they saw no other way to end their suffering unless they rose against the Israeli occupation. A new generation of Palestinians is now poised to continue their struggle against Israel and will pass the mantle to the next generation until they realize their aspiration for statehood.
Israel can win every battle against the Palestinians for generations to come, but it will never win any war that will subdue the Palestinians for good. The Palestinians are there to stay, and no power or circumstance will make them go away. Israel must come to terms with the Palestinians’ rights. If there is one thing the Israelis should have learned from the past 57 years, it is that the occupation will never be sustainable. More than seven million Palestinians who live in the West Bank, Gaza, and in Israel proper, which is roughly equal to the number of Israeli Jews, will not be subjugated to second-class status or occupation, no matter how painful and how long the fight against Israel will last.
By the same token, although Hezbollah will come out of the violent confrontation with Israel bruised and battered, it too will regroup and prepare for the next round of hostilities with Israel as long as there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s experience with Hezbollah over the past two decades offers a good lesson to every Israeli that as long as Iran views Hezbollah as the front line in its defense against Israeli and/or American attacks on its soil, Tehran will continue to finance and arm Hezbollah regardless of the extent of its losses in the current conflict.
Iran, too, would realize if it hadn’t learned already that its aspiration to destroy Israel is nothing but a perilous nightmare. Iran must reconcile itself with Israel’s irrevocable reality and understand that any credible threat against Israel’s existence is tantamount to suicide. Iran has now witnessed how the two prominent members of its “Axis of Resistance” have fared—Hamas is decimated, and Hezbollah is crumbling before its eyes.
Finally, it is time for the US to understand that while its iron-clad commitment to Israeli security is necessary not only to protect Israel but to safeguard its own strategic interest in the region, it must now put its foot down, stop preaching about a two-state solution, and start acting on it. The US should make its continued political, military, and financial support of Israel conditional upon Israel’s moving earnestly toward a two-state solution.
In the final analysis, the US’ unconditional commitment to Israel’s security did not produce peace. It has only prolonged the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Israel took comfort in America’s unconditional support regardless of its continuing, nearly six decades-long, brutal occupation.
The question is, will Israel, the Palestinians, and the players that support them, have learned anything from Hamas’ attack on October 7? If they have not, the horrific Hamas attack and Israel’s retaliation will only be another tragic chapter in the dark, dismal annals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.
