One year on from 7 October, our panel considers: what next for the Middle East?

BY Fawaz Gerges, Leila Seurat, Jason Burke, Orly Noy and Sanam Vakil – The Guardian:

There are so many players and so many imponderables. Truly it is a region on a knife edge

Fawaz Gerges: We may have reached a point beyond which the international order changes for ever
Israel’s year-long war in Gaza (and the accompanying violence perpetrated against Palestinians in the West Bank), and its ever-expanding military campaign against Lebanon, have led to humanitarian catastrophe and the heightened risk of an all-out regional war. But the wider consequences may ultimately be a great rupture in international relations, and the accelerated decline of the US-led international liberal capitalist order that has prevailed since the end of the second world war.

At that time, western states seemingly committed themselves to an international human rights architecture, embodied in the Nuremberg principles, which holds that leaders and the states they govern must be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. But the way that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its military have waged their campaign over the past year, armed and supported by the US, has permanently undermined the notion that all states will be held equally accountable under international law.

Indeed, the slaughter of more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza (conservative estimates place the number of children who have been killed at more than 11,000), the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, and the starvation that has ensued cannot be justified by Hamas’s terrorist attack on 7 October, however horrific it was.

The US’s full-throated defence of Israel’s brutal campaign, consisting of many genocidal acts, has exposed what many in the global south already believed: that international law applies to the global south but not to the US and its allies. That Arab lives and the lives of non-westerners are viewed as lesser in the eyes of those who set up the liberal international order.

If there is not an immediate change in course, the consequences of the growing north-south polarisation will probably have transformative effects on international politics for generations. It will also further accelerate the decline of the US’s global influence, and empower China and Russia, which have been challenging the rules-based international order. It may also lead, as the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has warned, to “an epidemic of impunity around the world”.

The stakes are very high. No order so morally bankrupt and evidently hypocritical can sustain itself for long. The best defence is to ensure that all abide by common principles. If the US does not demand an immediate ceasefire and halt Israel’s escalations, this period may be remembered as the rupture that ended the US-led order that promised peace and universal values, but delivered anything but.

Leila Seurat: Hamas wants to expand the war beyond Gaza. Worryingly, that is not far from becoming reality

In the spring of 2022, amid repeated incursions by settlers on to al-Aqsa mosque, Hamas’s political leader, Yahya Sinwar, delivered a speech in which he announced an upcoming great battle that would cause a regional and global explosion.

“The enemy wants to turn the war into a religious battle. We would prefer this not to happen. But if the Zionist extremists absolutely want it, then we will accept the challenge. I call upon our people and our umma, you must prepare for the great battle if the occupation continues its aggressions against al-Aqsa.”

The 7 October attack can be viewed as the first strike in that battle and has made Palestine a major international concern. While the objective was achieved, Hamas has had to adapt its strategy as the war has gone on and more players have become involved.

Sinwar anticipated that Netanyahu would escalate in a way that would be costly in terms of image – not only for Israel but also for all its western supporters, whose complicity in alleged war crimes was rapidly exposed. At the same time, Hamas relied on the axis of resistance, betting on a strategy of “unifying the fronts” from Lebanon to Syria, passing through Iraq, Iran and even Yemen.

So far, this approach has allowed Hamas to maintain its power in the Gaza Strip militarily and politically. Israeli troops becoming occupied on the northern front with Lebanon has allowed Hamas’s al-Qassam brigades to carry out a number of ambushes and regularly cause casualties in the ranks of the Israeli army. It is this maintenance of power and military tenacity that make it possible for Hamas to hold its consistent position in the negotiations: accepting various ceasefire proposals while insisting on the exit of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Opening the conflict beyond the Gaza Strip allows Hamas to keep Israel busy elsewhere, and is a way of delaying or avoiding a face-off that has historically worked to Hamas’s disadvantage. But this is also where Sinwar’s strategy has by chance aligned with Netanyahu’s. He also seeks to mobilise other fronts – from Lebanon to Yemen to Iran – to distract from the quagmire of Gaza and regain internal legitimacy. Expanding the war is also a way to obscure the colonial nature of the conflict against the Palestinians, by turning it into a civilisational or religious confrontation against Iran.

Hezbollah and Iran have long sought to limit the conflict with Israel to low-intensity indirect warfare. But it appears that is no longer possible: they are increasingly being called upon to respond to Israeli aggressions that now threaten their own sovereignty. The prediction made by Sinwar in 2022 is not far from becoming a reality.

Jason Burke: Netanyahu’s escalation into Lebanon is a gamble that might not pay off

What next? There is likely to be Israeli retaliation for the recent Iranian missile attack. That, in turn, was a response to the Israeli assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah (an Iran-backed proxy), an Iranian general and Ismail Haniyeh, who died in a blast in a bedroom in a government guesthouse in Tehran in July. We appear caught in a cycle of increasing violence that threatens a regional conflagration, and which no one seems able to slow, let alone halt.

We don’t know what form that retaliation might take, but Israel has many options. Possibilities range from a spectacular attack against oil facilities, potentially destroying Iran’s most vital economic lifeline, to something much more covert, using the clear superiority Israel appears to enjoy in the clandestine shadow war between the two states. A strike against Iran’s nuclear programme would need US involvement, which is unlikely to be forthcoming.

Israel is already fighting on multiple fronts. On 30 September, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) units moved across the frontier into Lebanon. They were aiming, Israeli officials say, to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to fire on communities in northern Israel, in order to allow 60,000 displaced Israelis to return to their homes. It is too early to judge how this effort is going, but eight soldiers died in clashes with Hezbollah, suggesting that it will not be easy.

The bloody air offensive that has accompanied the ground attack in Lebanon has made clear other objectives: to permanently weaken or destroy a long-term adversary that is the linchpin in Iran’s coalition of proxies across the Middle East, and to restore a high threshold of deterrence that has been a foundation of Israel’s security doctrine since 1948. Israeli policymakers and generals have regained the confidence lost a year ago and see an opportunity to bring strategic change on a major scale to the region.

In Gaza, little is likely to change. Israel’s offensive in the territory has struggled to achieve the arguably unrealistic aims set by political leaders: to “crush” Hamas and free the remaining 100 or so of about 250 hostages taken during the 7 October raids into southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. But Hamas is much weakened, and poses a very limited threat. This lethal stalemate can only be broken by some kind of political shift. Leaders on neither side appear keen on a ceasefire and attention has shifted elsewhere. It is unlikely there will be any “day after” in Gaza soon.

Orly Noy: Israel’s already limited democracy is decaying under the fog of war
Last October, only two days after the massacre committed by Hamas in southern Israel, I wrote for the Guardian about the resulting chaos among the Israeli public, and my deep fear of the vengeance it would stir. But even in my darkest dreams, I could not have imagined the apocalypse that Israel would bring about in Gaza. I still find it hard to believe.

Israel has never been an egalitarian democracy. But the idea of ​​democracy was part of the collective ethos, at least in Israelis’ self-perception. It is true that there has always been an abysmal gap between the self-image and the actual practice, but this gap also embodied the space for potential correction, and therefore for hope.

The past year has largely eliminated this gap as the unfolding genocide in Gaza has become normalised. The sanctity of life and the laws of war are only two of the basic tenets of democracy that have been relinquished within Israeli society, which no longer even pays lip service to them.

And what about equality before the law? Extreme nationalism has led to the complete degradation of equal citizenship. The unprecedented persecution of Arab citizens in Israel, the brutal silencing of their protests and their exclusion from public debate, has dangerously deepened the alienation between the two collectives: the Jewish and the Arabs. Today, in their public speeches, Israeli leaders no longer address the “citizens of Israel”, but the “people of Israel” – a term that refers only to the Jewish public.

In the thick and poisonous fog in which Israel is shrouded, it is very difficult to predict what will happen

after the war, especially with the end retreating even further from view after another battlefront was opened up in south Lebanon. The prospect of a wider conflict with Iran also looms. But one thing is clear: Israeli society will emerge from this last year more nationalistic, more violent and much more uninhibited. Even when Netanyahu’s rule eventually comes to an end, his legacy of destruction and hatred will remain for many more years, if not generations.

Sanam Vakil: There is an impasse in negotiations because of a lack of pressure to compromise
Despite nine months of negotiations led by Egypt, Qatar and the US, there has been no lasting ceasefire. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas that were ongoing until the last round ended in August 2024 have consistently failed due to the maximalist goals of Netanyahu and Sinwar – two men whose leadership has been damaged by the 7 October attacks and subsequent war. After 12 months, with little pressure on them and few incentives to change tack, the two sides are still far apart, and Israel’s expanded operations in Lebanon aimed at dismantling Hezbollah are risking a broader multi-front war.

In response to the 7 October attacks, Israel vociferously committed to destroying Hamas. A year on, with a trail of death and destruction left in its wake, Israel has degraded Hamas’s military capabilities and taken out much of its rank and file – yet the group remains functional. It is hard to imagine Netanyahu swallowing a ceasefire deal that would offer Hamas concessions and a lifeline granted to its leaders, when he has previously stated “nothing will stop” Israel in its mission to wipe them out entirely. This model and rationale has now been extended to Hezbollah and the new, dangerous campaign in Lebanon.

On the other side, Hamas’s position is complicated by its own aims, which include not just surviving the war but also retaining control in Gaza and remaining a viable postwar player in Palestinian politics. To achieve this and build back legitimacy, Sinwar has insisted on a permanent ceasefire, an increase in humanitarian provision and the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. But there has been little incentive for Sinwar to compromise, as Israel’s exacting demands have complicated matters: it has demanded control over Gaza’s southern border and refuses to commit to a settlement plan that would address the key issue of Palestinian self-determination.

With Israel now repeating the same model of warfare against Hezbollah and with the prospect of a wider regional conflict with Iran growing, it can only be hoped that the Biden administration will urgently return the focus to a ceasefire and negotiations, despite the pending November presidential elections.