Israel’s 9/11 versus US 9/11

The Hamas incursion from Gaza into Israel and the subsequent attack on Israel’s Southern District that began on October 7, 2023, led to the death of more than 1,500 Israelis and foreigners. The atrocities, widely reported as Israel’s 9/11, have been met with international condemnation, along with support for Israel, especially from the United States.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken traveled to the Middle East, followed by President Joe Biden, who travelled to Israel on October 18, 2023. He hugged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the tarmac immediately after Air Force One landed. Since then, the United States has moved warships and aircraft into position adjacent to Israel along with 2,000 troops to “provide intelligence and surveillance, transportation and medical assistance.”

However, David Petraeus, who served as CIA director, as well as commander in Iraq and Afghanistan in the years after 9/11, and Biden, have both urged Israel not to repeat US mistakes during its so-called “War on Terror.” These mistakes are often cited as a lack of post-war planning and state-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as human rights abuses. Similar to both wars, the war against Hamas lacks a military solution and requires a diplomatic approach. This needs to be considered sooner rather than later, before more than two million lives are put at risk by Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza and regional escalation becomes a manifest reality.

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Bottom Line

• Israeli “collective punishment” of Gaza threatens to upend decades of US policy in the Middle East, particularly the possibility that Iranian surrogates or proxies escalate the conflict or open up new fronts in the Levant or the Gulf.
• Egypt and Jordan cannot afford the risks associated with further instability and insecurity along their borders or within their territory.
• The Biden administration has a unique opportunity to shape the conflict in ways that better guarantees Israeli security and international standing, supports Gulf Cooperation Council state-led regional de-escalation, and opens up new opportunities for Palestinian socioeconomic recovery and reintegration.

 

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Robert Mason

Robert Mason is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and senior non-resident fellow at the Gulf Research Center, Jeddah. Previously, he was an associate professor and director of the Middle East Studies Center at the American University in Cairo. He was also a visiting scholar in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford, and a visiting research fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. He specializes in Gulf politics and the international relations of the Middle East.