By Md. Muddassir Quamar (Ph.D.)
The war has divided the global community into two camps—pro-Israel and pro-Palestine—leaving little space for a considered and objective analysis of the situation.
As the Israel-Hamas war, that broke out on 7 October 2023 after Hamas and other militant organisations based in the Gaza Strip attacked southern Israel, enters the second month, it is relevant to analyse its geopolitical context and implications.
The war has divided the global community into two camps—pro-Israel and pro-Palestine—leaving little space for a considered and objective analysis of the situation. For the supporters of ‘Palestinian rights to self-determination,’ even a terrorist strike against unarmed civilians is justified in the name of ‘resistance against occupation.’ On the other hand, for the supporters of Israel’s rights to defence, even the killing of innocent civilians and children is justified as ‘collateral damage.’
World leaders have also taken stands based on personal preferences and the country’s strategic interests and ambitions, not entirely unexpected. Hence, President Joe Biden and the United States have fully backed the Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip. Similarly, the majority of European leaders and countries have voiced their support for Israel. The same is true for Canada and a few countries in the Global South. On the other hand, most of the West Asian countries, while condemning the Hamas terror attack of 7 October, have been critical of the excessive use of force by Israel and have condemned the targeting of civilians and children. The non-western global powers such as Russia, China and India have taken a more nuanced and balanced position given their intricate relations with both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
As the war continues and the casualties rise, the calls for allowing humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinian population have increased, with intermittent appeals for a ceasefire. The political and military leadership in Israel, although they have allowed some humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through the Rafah border with Egypt, have ruled out any possibility of a ceasefire until the twin goals of decimating Hamas and rescuing the nearly 200 Israeli hostages are achieved. Hamas and other Gaza-based militant organisations have ruled out surrendering or releasing Israeli hostages and committed themselves to fighting the Israeli ground incursion. Thus, the threat of urban warfare between IDF and Hamas remains possible.
Amidst this, it is important to understand the regional geopolitical setting of the ongoing war. While the festering and unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the primary context, the geopolitical contestation among the regional powers is also important. A key aspect is the position of Iran, which has been engaged in proxy conflicts with Israel and Arab Gulf states, as well as has outstanding problems with the United States. The tensions between Iran and Arab Gulf states have begun to settle down after the March 2023 agreement to restore their diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Some had underlined the possibility of the beginning of a rapprochement between the two Gulf neighbours that can unveil a new era of stability in Western Asia.
Alternatively, the signing of the Abraham Accords and the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel led to greater discussion on peace and stability in Western Asia, wherein the focus shifted from geopolitics to geoeconomics. Economic interdependence and regional connectivity had emerged as the buzzword in the region since 2020–2021, especially as the Biden administration was trying to encourage greater regional cohesion, unlike the Trump administration, whose policies were fuelling tensions.
The rapprochement between Arab Gulf countries and Israel was not necessarily viewed positively in Ankara or Tehran. In Türkiye, the Islamic-nationalist AKP-Erdoğan government has been critical of Israel for its continued occupation of Palestinian territories. In Iran, the Shia Islamist-clerical establishment has continued to refuse the Israeli right to existence based on religious and ideological convictions. Iran is also engaged in a proxy conflict with Israel in Syria and Iraq, wherein it has been able to establish itself as a de facto military power through Shiite-Islamist militant groups that are committed to the revolutionary ideals of the Islamic Republic.
Iran is also the chief benefactor of groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansarallah (Houthis) in Yemen and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Iran’s strategy to arm militant groups is based on the idea of offsetting any threats emanating from state and non-state actors because of the ideological fight with Sunni Islamists and the geostrategic battle with the US and its regional allies for dominating the region. In the Iranian view, the regional order should be free from external interference, in which case the leadership of the Islamic Republic assumes that Iran will be able to establish an Iranian-led regional order. Given its ideological opposition, Iran would also prefer Israel to remain tangled in a web of conflicts with non-state actors without Tehran necessarily getting directly involved in the war. Iranian nuclear ambitions and Israeli opposition and actions to deny the possibility of it attaining atomic weapon capability have also become a bone of contention in the fight between the two regional powers.
Given this, it raises the bigger question of whether the Palestinian issue has become just a pawn in the proxy war between Iran and Israel. Although thus far, there is no evidence of direct Iranian involvement in inciting or planning the Hamas attack on Israel, the fact remains that the Iranian support and training, along with Qatari aid, have been instrumental in keeping Hamas alive and making it into a potent fighting group albeit with only rudimentary military equipment.
As the context is important, so are the implications. One of the key aspects is that the already strong anti-Hamas and anti-Palestinian sentiments in Israel will further harden, and the same can be said about the prevailing anti-Israel sentiments in Palestine, the Arab and Islamic worlds and the pro-Palestinian global community. Secondly, it will become difficult for the Arab Gulf monarchies to justify their relations with Israel, diplomatic or otherwise, given the rise in anti-Israel sentiments. Thirdly, the war may lead to intensification of the ongoing proxy war between Israel and Iran, and at some point, other regional Iranian proxies might join the conflict. Finally, the war also rules out any possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however remote it might have been before the outbreak of the war.
It is not clear what the Hamas leadership was hoping to achieve by attacking, killing and abduction of Israeli civilians. If it were to showcase their potency and Israeli vulnerability, they can claim they succeeded. But to attack civilians is unjustifiable and outrightly criminal under any circumstance, and to do this at the cost of the lives of thousands of Palestinians and the destruction of the Gaza Strip is not only ludicrous but outrightly beyond any humanitarian conscience. The 7 October attack on Israel, thus, has not only hardened the regional and global public opinion against Hamas but has also buried any possibility of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Originally Published : The Financial Express, 8th November 2023
Posted in SIS Blog with the Authorisation of the Author
Md. Muddassir Quamar (PhD) is an Associate Professor at Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.