Peter Frankopan: “An attack on Israel will have serious consequences, the significance of which is difficult to underestimate”
The beginning of the summer was full of hope. Burnley had just beaten Liverpool in the FA Cup final thanks to a goal from England international Bert Freeman.
The weather was magnificent, as poet Alice Meynell noted, and moon after moon was «heavenly sweet» as » heavenly sweet.» The silk harvest was down.”
As one senior diplomat noted, everything looked peaceful abroad. “I have not seen such calm waters since I was at the Foreign Office,” wrote Sir Arthur Nicholson, until recently ambassador to Russia and now permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs. It was May 1914.
A few weeks later, the idyllic days and calm waters disappeared with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The decisions made in the following weeks changed the world forever: soon all of Europe was at war, which soon spread to Asia and Africa.
In four years, millions of people died and many more were injured; Russia was gripped by revolution and a spiral toward communist authoritarianism; The curtain had been drawn on the era of European empires, even if for some of them — such as Britain — it flashed briefly. Nobody foresaw this.
Nobody foresaw the attacks on Israel last weekend either. Just over two weeks ago, Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor, spoke optimistically about changes in the Middle East and his hopes – shared by many in the region – for stability and continued integration.
“In the Middle East region today is calmer than in two decades,” he said at the Atlantic Festival on September 29.
Eight days later, Hamas launched an attack that killed even more Jews. than any other day since the Holocaust. The horrors of these scenes are almost impossible to describe, from festival-goers being gunned down in cold blood to hostages being taken, many of them women, children and the elderly.
Their lives are now likely to change. be sold or lost as Israel's response to this crisis escalates.
“We are witnessing a looming humanitarian catastrophe.”
The retaliation measures taken to prosecute those responsible are in themselves haunting, watch as multi-story buildings collapse after rocket attacks and explosions.
For the siege and bombing of Gaza by the Israeli military forces have now followed up the order against more than a million people living north of Gaza. Wadi Gaza is evacuated to the south.
How the young, old and infirm should do this, where they should go or stay, what they should eat and drink and how they should stay safe is unclear.
Everyone will have to be forced into one half of what is already one of the most densely populated places on Earth. The borders with Egypt are closed and the Egyptian government has so far refused to open corridors allowing civilians to leave the country.
Hamas called on people to stay put and «remain steadfast in their homes and stand firm.» Many are afraid of what the coming hours, days and weeks will bring. We are witnessing a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
At the moment, many believe that only the population of Israel and the Gaza Strip will have to endure disasters. But there are already signs of escalation. Some US intelligence officials initially linked Iran to the attacks, with Sullivan arguing that «Iran is complicit in this attack in a broad sense because they provided the lion's share of funding for Hamas's military wing, they provided training, they provided capabilities, they provided support, and they have maintained interactions and contacts with Hamas for many years.»
That assessment has changed over the past two days, and multiple sources now seem to indicate that the Hamas attack took Iran's military and service leaders by surprise. security and political leadership.
If Tehran did not take a direct part in the conflict then, now it is eager to fight. Israeli actions against the Palestinians constitute «war crimes», Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said after a visit to Lebanon yesterday.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Photo: Anadolu Agency
Israel's actions and ultimatum in the Gaza Strip, he said, «will undoubtedly provoke a collective response from the resistance axis.» This obviously meant that Iran's main client in the region, Hezbollah, would intervene.
Naim Kassem, Hezbollah's deputy leader, has made clear that he and his organization will not issue calls for restraint. “Behind-the-scenes calls to us from great powers, Arab countries, United Nations envoys directly or indirectly calling on us not to interfere will have no effect,” he told supporters at a rally in south Beirut. The question is when, not if, Hezbollah will enter the fray. Here's to peace and quiet in the Middle East.
The fact that we are facing the most serious crisis in the region since the Yom Kippur War, whose 50th anniversary occurred last weekend, is itself a surprise since, as Sullivan rightly suggested, there have been many signs of progress and peace.
The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Just last month, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave a rare interview in which he suggested that Saudi Arabia's recognition of Israel was «getting closer every day» — in anticipation of the creation of a viable Palestinian state.» For us, the Palestinian issue is very important,” he said. “We need to solve this part. We hope that this will go so far as to make life easier for the Palestinians and make Israel a player in the Middle East.»
The prospects of rebuilding the Middle East, a two-state solution, or an agreement with Israel no longer seem so distant as they are unthinkable. An attack on Israel would have serious consequences that are difficult to overestimate.
Not long ago, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman suggested that Saudi Arabia's recognition of Israel is «coming closer» but has now been pushed aside. Photo: Olivier Doulery/Poole
First, the shock Israelis are experiencing at the intelligence services' inability to identify the threat and the military's poorly coordinated efforts to quickly counter it will change the country's already fragile political landscape.
If reports that Egyptian intelligence warned its Israeli counterparts of an imminent attack three days ago are correct, then serious questions must be asked not only about why this warning was not taken more seriously, but also about the direction of Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and the potential distraction attention generated by proposed reforms that have caused what some analysts have called «the most serious constitutional and political crisis since [Israel's] creation 75 years ago.»
The shock waves will travel much further. The reaction of some was predictable. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement that made no mention of the violence in which festival-goers and their families were brutally killed over the weekend, instead saying it had «repeatedly warned of the risk of the situation escalating as a result of the ongoing occupation, deprivation the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights and the repetition of systematic provocations against their holy sites.”
In other words, it is not surprising that some will try to take matters into their own hands. draw attention to the problem and gain support.
Perhaps it is not surprising that Saudi Arabia has decided to put its potentially groundbreaking ties with Israel aside and show solidarity with the Palestinians as they face a crisis.
The decisions made by other people further away are more striking. The initial Foreign Ministry response in Beijing also made no mention of the 1,200 deaths in Israel, simply noting concern about the “current escalation of tensions” and calling on “relevant parties to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately cease hostilities to protect civilians and avoid further worsening situation.»
The ministry noted that the most appropriate course of action is to “implement the two-state solution and establish an independent State of Palestine.”
This ambiguous response was sharply criticized by Yuval Vaks, a senior diplomat at the Israeli mission in China. Israel had expected a «stronger condemnation» of Hamas and its actions, he noted, adding that «when people are being killed [and] slaughtered in the streets,» now was hardly «the time to call for a two-state solution.» .
Although Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, was more outspoken in her condemnation the next day, China watchers were quick to note that Beijing's reference to a two-state solution was a departure from its usual stance of non-interference in the affairs of other countries. internal affairs; Moreover, given China's long-standing and important trade ties with Israel, not least in the defense and high-tech sectors, the failure to show public support in the face of last weekend's traumas has been interpreted as a sign of the importance of the Arab world and oil-producing Gulf states in particular. Chinese strategic and economic thinking.
If Beijing views the events of the past week through the prism of an emerging new world, then the same can be said about Moscow, which has its own interests in spreading turmoil both regionally and beyond.
Although not There is no evidence of any Russian involvement in the events of last week or support for Hamas and its activities, Russia has been actively involved in Syria over the past decade, and has recently been developing ties with Iran. not least to ensure the supply of drones for use in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin also did not miss the opportunity to point the finger at what the Russian president believes was the reason for last weekend's attacks. This, he said, has nothing to do with Israel's oppression of Palestinians or Hamas' iron grip on the Gaza Strip and its desire to create chaos; rather, “it is a clear example of the failure of US policy in the Middle East.”
This sets up a story that will hit fertile ground in many parts of the world at a time of political and economic fragmentation. For Putin, the crisis in the Middle East has come at the right time, not only as a distraction from the war in Ukraine and blaming the West for the sins of others, but also as another side effect of the events of the past seven years. days.
Perhaps the most significant of these is the reinforcement of perceptions, prevalent in many countries around the world, but especially in Europe and the United States, that the world is in a period of transition, that we are entering or are already in an era of darkness, that threats lie all around. on every corner — from the consequences of new technologies to concerns about climate change, from fears about mass migration to the polarization of political life.
One rational way to cope with such pressures is to turn away from them: therefore, one of the likely consequences The suffering of so many Israelis and Palestinians will lead to increased isolationism — something that will cause as many problems as it will solve.
As Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia, astutely put it, we are “living in a decade of living dangerously.” In 2021, Rudd wrote about the context of the US-China rivalry.
But this model applies to a whole new set of rivalries that have since intensified: not just between geopolitical blocs, such as the West on the one hand, and China and Russia — on the other; but also new alliances, illusory or not, such as the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which in January will expand to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Argentina). /p>
As the events of the summer of 1914 unfolded, great powers, even empires, were betting on their ability to make good decisions rather than rash ones.
As revenge for the horrors of the previous weekend, the previous weekend would take center stage in the coming days and will likely intensify with tragic consequences. We need to remember some of history's worst lessons and ensure they are not repeated.
Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford
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