The Arab World Versus Israel: Will It Be Different This Time?

Smoke billows during Israeli air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza City on Oct. 12, 2023. (Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

A few days ago, I noted the widespread speculation that the savage attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 might be only an opening sally.

The attack left 1,300 dead, thousands wounded, and yielded some 150 hostages of all ages for Hamas.

At least 30 Americans were killed in the carnage, which made no distinction between men and women, young or old. Even infants and the infirm elderly were targeted.

It was the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

The New York Times and other media outlets reported on the links between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon along Israel’s northern border.

“Hassan Nasrallah,” the NY Times reported, “the leader of Hezbollah, held an hourslong online meeting in March with an elite group of strategists from all the Iran-backed militias and told them to get ready for a war with Israel with a scope and reach—including a ground invasion—that would mark a new era.”

We don’t yet know whether that new era is nigh.

Hamas has continued to lob missiles at Israel.

For its part, Israel has, as of this writing, yet to mount a full-scale retaliatory attack against Hamas.

Still, it’s reported that its actions have left at least 1,500 Hamas operatives dead, including a senior commander who helped plan the Oct. 7 raid.

For days, Israel has been urging the 1.1 million civilians in the North to evacuate southwards, away from the Hamas stronghold in and around (and under) Gaza City.

Hamas has reportedly prevented many civilians from evacuating.

Why? Partly because Hamas wants to use them as human shields.

Partly, in the words of one Islamic expert, because they love death more than life.

“Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”

That’s from the founding document of Hamas.

There are reports that Israel has agreed to resupply the South with water as an incentive for civilians to move South—if they’re allowed to.

It seems clear that Israel is doing what it can to minimize civilian casualties.

On Sunday, it was reported that U.S. Sens Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) had to be rushed to a bomb shelter during a rocket barrage from Hamas as they prepared to meet with Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv.

In the last several days, Hezbollah has also fired missiles at Israel.

Israel has begun operations against Hezbollah military assets but, as with Hamas in the South, has yet to mount a full-scale invasion.

Iran, which had a hand in planning the Oct. 7 attacks, has issued minatory if unspecific threats against Israel if its retaliation expands.

Ditto forces in Iraq, Egypt, and other parts of the Arab world.

Ditto, alas, U.S. students on elite college campuses from Stanford to Harvard.

What will happen?

No one knows.

The world is holding its breath.

The burgeoning conflict has pushed the war in Ukraine off the front pages.

We don’t know what will happen, but there’s a growing sense that an existential moment has been reached.

Israel has been attacked from the moment of its birth, in 1948.

There was war in 1967, and 1973, always started by Israel’s Arab enemies.

There were the Oslo Accords and the removal of Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

In every case, Israel made concessions, courted peace, and strove for political comity with its neighbors.

The one constant has been the Arab denial of Israel’s right to exist.

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”

That’s from the 1988 “Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” also quoted above.

Similar statements have been emanating from Iran since the Shia fanatic Ayatollah Khomeini swept into Iran and ousted the Shah in 1979.

As one commentator put it, “When Iran says ‘Death to Israel,’ it means it.”

Possibly, this latest spate of attacks against Israel will unfold as previous ones have.

I get the sense, though, that Israel’s leaders have begun to take their enemy at his word.

There’s something steely and deliberate about their response this time that makes me suspect that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to wipe Hamas “off the face of the earth” is no idle or histrionic threat.

We’ll probably know within weeks.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.