https://www.meforum.org/65247/adi-schwartz-the-middle-east-after-october-7th
Adi Schwartz, research fellow at the Misgav Institute and post-doctoral fellow at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, spoke to a November 13 Middle East Forum Webinar (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Historically, the Arab-Israeli conflict can be separated into two periods: before and after Israel’s 1973 Yom Kippur War. The 1948, 1967, and 1973 wars were each fought to thwart an “existential threat” to Israel’s territory and survival. In each instance, the Arab attempt to destroy Israel via conventional warfare failed.
As no major war had occurred since 1973, leading historians believed that bordering Arab states Egypt and Jordan had “had enough” and signed peace agreements. Still, hostile intentions toward Israel remained “in some of these circles,” and Israel continued to absorb terror attacks. Although the Jewish state still faced repeated diplomatic attacks and “attempts at delegitimization,” the general mindset had been that the “existential territorial threat” of invasion was relegated to history.
Hamas’s infiltration from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on October 7th dispelled that assumption and began a new phase. In a multi-pronged assault, the terror group “succeeded in actually invading into the territory of the state of Israel, occupying even for a few hours, villages, communities, cities, committing atrocities.” Hamas’s barbaric atrocities against the largely civilian Jewish population in southern Israel resulted in a single-day death and casualty toll not seen since the Holocaust. These attacks, as well as the launching of missiles from Hezbollah on communities along the northern border with Lebanon, have resulted in the dislocation of “two hundred thousand refugees inside Israel.”
The attack was a result of the “convergence of two separate trajectories, separate axes” that threaten Israel: the Palestinian Sunni Arab axis, and the Iranian Shiite axis. Together, they represent an existential threat to Israel. The Shiite threat is from Hezbollah in the north, Iran-backed militias from Syria and Iraq, and Houthi rebels in Yemen who launch long-range missiles aimed at Israel. The Sunni threat is from Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the restive population of Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank.
Israel, tasked with securing its people and land, faces two issues: the enemy’s motivation to act on its intentions, and the enemy’s means to do so.
The Palestinian Arab motivation is that “Israel should not exist.” Since the Jewish state’s re-establishment in 1948, a “simplistic narrative” fuels the Palestinian Arab cause through the present day: “They are the complete victims; their lands were stolen by the Jews in 1948; the Jews had no excuse to do that.” The narrative has been consistent since its origins and has similarly been repeated by the Arabs through “the forties and fifties.” It remains unchanged.
Technological and economic developments since 1948 have not changed the narrative peddled by Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, or by Fatah, which controls the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Differences in their vision of what will replace Israel aside, their shared view of Jews includes eliminating the Jewish state, relegating the Jews to a “minority under Muslim rule,” and the unfettered ability to commit any atrocity against them.
Hamas’s mutilation of the bodies of the Jews slaughtered on October 7th follows a pattern of atrocities in Palestinian Arab attacks throughout Israel’s history. An early example of this was the murder and mutilation of the bodies of the eleven Israeli athletes by PLO terrorists at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
Although the Palestinian Arabs’ virulent hatred of Jews that permeates its education and society has been compared to that of Nazi Germany, there are differences. Germany “somewhat” functioned as a democracy in the twenties and early thirties before the rise of Nazism. There were also dissident voices as the Nazis came to power. After the Allies defeated the Nazis, the process of denazification, albeit incomplete, found those who were not Nazi sympathizers taking part in Germany’s reconstruction under Allied supervision.
In contrast, there are no Palestinian Arab political leaders or dissident voices condemning Hamas’s cause to destroy Israel and kill all Jews. To the contrary, Hamas is cast as “liberators” among its supporters and sympathizers and its savagery is celebrated. Excuses made for the absence of any Gazan dissident who would be silenced under the Hamas dictatorship does not account for the Palestinian Arabs in the diaspora who have the freedom to object but choose not to.
There are no Palestinian Arab political leaders or dissident voices condemning Hamas’s cause to destroy Israel and kill all Jews. Hamas is cast as “liberators” among its supporters and sympathizers.
The amount of support for the October 7th attack from “simple people in the street” to the “so-called moderate PA” ministers is evidence that it is only “a question of the means or the ability” that a similar attack would be launched against the Jewish inhabitants of Judea and Samaria. Hamas represents a majority of the Palestinian Arab people in the West Bank as well as in Gaza, which belies pronouncements from President Biden, who has been supportive of Israel in his comments, but whose assertion that “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people” is “simply not true.”
Had elections been held among the West Bank Arabs prior to October 7th, “more than fifty percent” would have voted for Hamas. Despite the improved living conditions in their areas when compared to the poverty and isolation Hamas has inflicted upon Gazan residents, West Bank Arabs prefer Hamas. Among the thousands of infiltrators from Gaza on October 7th were its citizens, young and old, who eagerly participated in the looting, maiming, and torture of the residents of kibbutzim in southern Israel. As Israel wages its war against Hamas, it is engaged in efforts to locate and recover the more than two hundred hostages now languishing in Gaza.
The article stated
“As no major war had occurred since 1973, leading historians believed that bordering Arab states Egypt and Jordan had “had enough” and signed peace agreements. Still, hostile intentions toward Israel remained “in some of these circles,” and Israel continued to absorb terror attacks. Although the Jewish state still faced repeated diplomatic attacks and “attempts at delegitimization,” the general mindset had been that the “existential territorial threat” of invasion was relegated to history.”
These historians were not aware of how the US government has been consistently, since Jimmy Carter’s presidency, supporting the Iranian theocracy and all Iranian assets such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and the PA. Once you are clear about where the US government stands in its behavior, you realize that it is only a matter of time before Iran decides to wage war on Israel or the US using one or more of its proxies.
This is one of the motivations for the Abraham Accords: Pragmatic Muslim leaders in the Middle East have realized they had more in common with Israel than with Iran which wants to dominate the entire Middle East. In addition, these countries realize the US role vis a vis Iran, and they realize they, too, can be victims of this particular US policy.
The article points out that from the date of the massacre, Israel has to demilitarize and destroy Hamas but also the PA, and completely take away their ability to wage war on Israel.
Now if the US continues to arm the PA and the people in Gaza, as it has done since Carter’s presidency either directly or through money to Iran, Israel will have to find a solution to that.
It appears that the US government is the main threat to Israel, despite what the US politicians say in order to get elected. They must lie to the people because the American people are highly supportive of Israel. They would not get elected by telling the truth, that they are funding Iran despite this being an existential threat to Israel.
In particular, the democrat party has become the party with most of the support for Hamas and the most antisemitic representatives and senators. But it isn’t a political party thing: all Presidents since Carter, except for Trump, regardless of party, have supported the genocidal state of Iran.