Sinwar’s “bloody gambit” changed the MAZ – but not in the way he imagined

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planned that last year’s attack on Israel would reshape the Middle East, dragging Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and a large part of the countries of the region into what he envisioned as a decisive battle that would end in the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel, and the global balance of power, indeed changed decisively following the October 7 massacre, in which approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed.

The Israeli response to the attack resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza and Lebanon, including Sinwar himself and Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah, along with countless Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. In addition, for the first time in its history, Israel is now involved in a direct military conflict with Iran.

But, like the attacks on September 11, 2001, in which Osama bin Laden aimed to uproot American power from the Middle East and lead an Islamist takeover of the region – Sinwar’s bloody gamble didn’t quite go according to plan. In the short term, Israel showed its military capability, harmed the capabilities of Iran’s “axis of resistance” and pushed away the realization of the Palestinians’ desire for self-determination.

Among other things, the reason for this is that instead of facing a concentrated attack from its enemies, Israel managed to deal with them one after the other.

first, Israel conquered Gaza, and flattened a large part of the area to remove Hamas from actual control of the strip. So, in a series of intelligence-led strikes, Israel took down Hezbollah’s leadership – removing the Lebanese militant group’s ability to serve as Iran’s strategic deterrent – and began a ground operation in the border areas of southern Lebanon.

Now, with the support of the US, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to attack targets in Iran, as a response to last week’s Iranian ballistic missile attack. All that time, society and the economy in Israel continued to operate almost without disruptions.

He failed to change US policy towards Israel

The question that remains open is how the situation will develop in the long term and whether Israel will be able to translate its recent military successes into lasting political achievements.

“Iran is clearly on the defensive. Israel has neutralized some of the strategic threats it faced, but in doing so may have also created new threats,” said Emil Haukim, director of regional security and the Middle East at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “Despite the defeat of the terrorist organizations, the mindset has not been neutralized – also because now they have more people to fight with.”

Sinwar’s plan on October 7, 2023 resulted in catastrophic destruction in Gaza and terrible suffering for Palestinian civilians who never asked for or agreed to war with Israel. However, the crisis imposed by Sinwar also punctured the illusion, fostered for years by Netanyahu, according to which the Palestinian aspirations for a state can be ignored forever, in parallel with the normalization actions with other Arab countries.

“Sinvar achieved his goal of bringing the Palestinian issue to the center of the global discourse,” says Nancy O’Kale, executive director of the Center for International Policy. “But the cost was very high and in fact he did not move the US an inch in its support for Israel. Change, the situation of the Palestinians will not change.’

For now, Israel’s diplomatic relations with Arab countries have also survived the past year. Several daily flights continue to connect Tel Aviv to Dubai, and Riyadh is still interested in a normalization agreement with Israel – provided it comes with US security guarantees for progress towards a Palestinian state. Israel’s cold peace with Jordan and Egypt is young, but still standing, as is The latest diplomatic agreements with Morocco and Bahrain.

And yet, photos from Gaza and Lebanon – including photos of Sinwar’s death – have increased citizen pressure on Arab governments to take a much tougher stance, especially in Egypt, which is undergoing a major economic slowdown.

Israel is more isolated than ever

Elsewhere in the developing world, countries from Colombia to South Africa have severed or cooled relations with Israel, while Russia and China argue against the moral harm, come out against American support for Netanyahu. More importantly for the long term, support for Israel has decreased both in the US and Europe, especially among the young, who have been exposed to the sights of Gaza’s destruction on television, computer and phone screens.

“The Israeli brand has been damaged, and Israel is more isolated than ever,” says Aaron David Miller, a former senior US negotiator for peace in the Middle East and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. At the same time, he added, the US and the international community They failed to influence Israel’s decision-making or fundamentally change the course of the conflict.”

However, while the Palestinian cause has returned to the center of global attention, it has not been done in the terms that Sinwar had hoped for, said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Sinwar’s plan was a military event that would involve all the countries of the entire region, inflict a decisive military defeat on Israel and cause the emigration of many, if not most, of Israel’s Jews.

“Instead, we returned to talking about a two-state solution, about a change in the Palestinian leadership, a vision that is the antithesis of Sinwar’s,” Maksad said.

The storm caused by Sinwar, of course, continues to spread, with Israel and Iran so far only firing the initial shots, before a direct confrontation between them. Israeli officials are increasingly expressing ambitions for regime change inside Iran, comparing it to the end of the rule of the Soviet Union, and talking about stirring up internal unrest there.

“A necessary condition for any kind of positive change in the Middle East is the elimination of terrorist practices like Sinwar and Nasrallah,” said Mark Dubovich, CEO of the Fund for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank that supports Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. “But that is not enough. Unless it will be carried out at the same time as weakening and undermining, and if luck smiles on us also, the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Otherwise these terrorist organizations will reorganize, because the Iranians will continue to finance, arm, train and coordinate these terrorist armies.”

The parameters of Israel’s expected attack on Iran are still unknown, as is the scope and nature of the Iranian response to it. But what is certain is that the struggle between the two countries will continue for the foreseeable future, when Tehran will try to return to an offensive position after the recent failures.

Among the possible responses, in addition to renewed investments to rebuild Hezbollah, Hamas and other members of the axis of resistance, may include closer military cooperation with Russia, an acceleration of Iran’s nuclear development program, or another strategic surprise that has become the hallmark of the war in the Middle East.

“It is clear that Israel has succeeded in weakening Iranian interests, but I think that not only is this escalation not nearing an end, but also the tensions that have been going on for years will continue,” said Nicole Graievsky, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment. “Iran will have to recalibrate its strategy. But in the long run, it will find ways to adapt to the new reality.”