World Geostrategic Insights interview with Irina Tsukerman on the predictability of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the shortcomings of the Israeli defense system, the dilemma on how to free Israeli hostages in Gaza, the role of Iran and Hezbollak, the prospect for the Abrahamic Accords, and Israel’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security lawyer based in the US. She is also a geopolitical analyst, President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm, and the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider. Irina Tsukerman is a Fellow at the Arabian Peninsula Institute and a Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Leaders of Hamas, in power in the Gaza enclave for sixteen years, had repeatedly threatened to launch an offensive inside Israel. Was the October 7 attack therefore predictable?
In many ways, it was only a matter of time before Hamas would launch a mass casualty attack of some sort. However, Hamas, as it proudly boasted to the media, deliberately deceived Israel and the international community into coming to believe in the past 2 years, that it was more interested in governance of Gaza than in terrorism. For that reason, Hamas pretended to accept the Qatar deal, which allotted funding for education and infrastructure, but which was never accounted for; went along with deals that would bring thousands of Gaza residents into Israel for work – while potentially using them as moles, and abstained from joining Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the riots and rocket attacks against Israel.
To avoid detection, Hamas also went dark on its regular communications channels and reportedly used complex clandestine techniques to plan the operation. This sort of sophisticated military level diversion, however, is not surprising in the geopolitical context. In addition to reportedly receiving training and funding from Iran, Hamas was being transformed into a more serious paramilitary organization along the lines of Hezbollah, which also meant more advanced intelligence training – including diversionary tactics.
Moreover, with Russia likely lending support, Hamas was learning the art of deception from the best; while Israel still treated it as an old school terrorist organization. Hamas, however, is more than that now; it is a real political operation backed by vested forces, and so it acted more like an intelligence agency than a non-state actor. There were other indications, however, that trouble was not far ahead. Only three weeks before the attack, Israel intercepted a shipment of explosives from Turkey to Gaza. And six months earlier during the Ramadan riots, Iranian officials had traveled to Lebanon from where they urged Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah to attack Israel from Gaza and Lebanon with rockets and other methods. All of that pointed to an extensive and increasingly open level of incitement by Iran as well as backing for something big by state actors such as Turkey.
Turkey for years has been involved in Gaza with intelligence operatives, training, and funding for various activities, which continued even despite recent normalization with Erdogan. As for Qatar, it has been funding education among the Israeli Arabs (through Sheikha Moza’s foundation) for at least a decade with the results of increased violence and anti-Israel sentiments speaking for itself. Whether any of these developments by itself was sufficient to predict the scale of the attack is unclear, but all of these trends and incidents bode ill and at the very least invited closer scrutiny.
It could be said that the only real surprise of this bloody assault, besides the cruel modus operandi of Hamas terrorists, was the fragility of the Israeli defense system?
A combination of different factors led to a disastrous result, but behind all these technical and human failures was the complacency and unwillingness to apply the geopolitical context to the immediate and local circumstances. That Hamas was not acting in isolation was obvious from the headlines. Its repeated visits to Moscow, per public announcements, included high level and “different” discussions, which included, in the past, a conversation on breaking the Israeli “siege” of Gaza. That Hamas could be cooperating with Russian, Chinese, and Iranian hackers to disable Israeli systems in some way in this context would certainly fall within the realm of possibilities.
Moreover, it appears that a number of the Gaza workers and ex-IDF Bedouin personnel privy to scheduling and logistics of the internal order were able to communicate this information to Hamas over a period of time, which invites many questions about basic operational counterintelligence and due diligence concerning these people. It is one thing to miss the red flag’s about an organization’s carefully hidden plan, and completely different to blithely ignore thousands of potentially hostile operatives entering the country day in and out and failing to understand what kind of information they could be privy into. There also seems to be a basic internal CI failure within IDF concerning potential collaborators with ulterior motives. Whatever the case may be, treacherous elements usually fit a particular profile, such as ideological proclivities, financial needs, or other vulnerabilities that make them easy bait for terrorist or foreign intelligence recruiters.
General complacency, lack of imagination, and cultivated willful blindness to political developments which clashed with the internal political lines and wishful thinking all contributed to the misjudgment of threat and underestimation of Hamas’s intent and capabilities. Meanwhile, Hamas never revised its genocidal anti-Israel charter… and followed a typical pattern of a terrorist organization slinking into the shadows to plot before striking a blow with an element of surprise.
Has Hamas achieved its alleged goal of demonstrating, especially to the Arab states, the fragility of the “enemy,” the fallibility of its intelligence services, which until now were regarded as the most efficient in the world?
Yes, without a doubt Israel now appears of far lesser value as a defense asset, even for the countries who joined the Abraham Accord or otherwise have normalized relations with Israel. As soon as the attack happened, these countries reacted by putting out statements either siding with Hamas outright or severely criticizing Israel without any condolences for the victims or acknowledgment of terror. That alone speaks to loss of prestige, and the response to the attack may have been different had Israel’s perceived weaknesses not been an obvious contributing factor. These Middle Eastern countries tend to gravitate towards what they perceive as the “strongest horse”, which is why for a while many sought security relations with Israel, hoping that it could help defend them from Iran and other threats, particularly with the US increasingly removing itself from an active presence in the region.
However, this situation also demonstrated the fragility of defense relations with the Arab States to Israel: when push comes to shove, they cannot be counted on for support; moreover, it has become abundantly clear that the Abraham Accords were never actualized in terms of defense. Had they had a proper foundation, all these countries would have been working with Israel to dismantle Hamas and other regional threats long before Iran had become such a looming menace that these same states opted for normalization to get themselves out of the zone of danger. This lack of commitment created a situation where Israel was expected to pull most of the weight but got nothing out of it, and with no buy-in into a commitment to secure the region, these countries now had an excuse to abandon Israel in time of need.
Is Israel’s credibility and deterrence capability weakened as a result?
Yes, Israel is seen as extremely vulnerable and not capable of standing up for its own interests, much less contributing to any sort of regional defense infrastructure. However, joint defense was already somewhat of a myth, given that many of the countries either already joined Iran – which Israel considers an existential threat – in normalization or are heading in that direction. In that sense, the defense architecture of the region was already quintessentially dead as envisioned under Abraham Accords. The role of Russia and China in expanding the Great Power Competition and openly looking to use Israel against the US only exacerbated matters.
Israel was as deluded by the false promise of normalization with the Saudis which was being used as a carrot before it as it was by Hamas’s posture as a moderating political force. That failure to understand the political reality of Islamists and proponents of the Old Guard vision of the Middle East returning to power, of the new iteration of the Arab Spring, which arises less through street revolutions and more through palace coup, was what led Israel to misinterpret the critical situational developments around it and cost it both credibility and deterrence. Had Israel been more aware of and informed about internal affairs and developments inside Arab countries, it would have been far more on guard, and would also have understood that factions at odds with Israel’s interests were actively plotting against it through regional proxies. The new rise of Islamists throughout the Arab world should have been that alarm/wake up call. As it is, Israel still does not fully understand the scope of danger it is in and therefore is continuing the fight against Hamas as if it is only or mostly an Iran tool of influence in the region.
The reality is far more complex, meaning Hamas has not only itself grown into a full fledged regional actor but has significantly broadened its diplomatic relationships and political capital, which also explains the remarkable level of support it has generated over the years despite ample demonstration of extremist tendencies and fanatical ideology. It is not only the Islamist states that are lining up to back Hamas, but the global radical left, and even “moderate” European states, which continue to harbor Hamas operatives and who have facilitated radical Gaza NGOs, actively contributing to the crisis. To restore deterrence, it is not sufficient to weaken or disable Hamas operations in Gaza; Israel must make that clear that no one who had any had in this last disaster – either a Hamas operative, facilitator, backer or funder – is safe anywhere in the world.
The restoration of deterrence inherently needs to be global for it was a global operation that put an end to it to begin with. And if the international community wishes to put an end to a potential targeted assassination campaign, it will take steps to cooperate with Israel in bringing all the culprits to justice through political and legal means. If Hamas is ISIS, and it very much embraces its image – then it and its enablers are fair game anywhere, having given up all pretense of legitimacy and Israel has every right to treat them as it once treated escaped Nazi war criminals.
The presence of prisoners in Gaza dangerously limits Israel’s room for maneuver. The scenario for the coming weeks thus seems difficult to delineate. Will Israel continue to be determined to neutralize Hamas militarily?
Israel has no choice but to neutralize Hamas militarily; whether it will choose to do so only through air strike or will engage in a difficult, likely bloody, and long-term ground operation remains to be seen. The international opinion was bound to turn against Israel once the body count in Gaza went up significantly, which was also predictable given its structure, logistics, and Hamas strategy of holding the population hostage and using human shields. The population density leads to a high number of victims, and the Hamas operatives make good use of an intricate tunnel system to evade detection while maximizing casualties on all sides.
Hamas’s calculation was to draw Israel into a lose-lose scenario where, if it fails to restore deterrence, it will face increasing and more brazen attacks through encirclement or if it chooses to proceed, it will face a possible multi-front war and extreme levels of international pressure and intervention. But the parties that are launching these pressure campaigns are also mostly the ones who had opted into a campaign of perpetuating the cycle of violence and pushing for Hamas entrenchment; these parties were never sympathetic to Israel’s survival or security, so they were only looking for an opportunity to turn Israel into a pariah state or to put it into a position of existential threat.
This is not a new reality for Israel; it is one it has to grapple with in new ways given that it is no longer 1948. The world is far more interconnected and interdependent; and Israel, even under current circumstances, is far stronger, far more prepared, far more influential, and has contributed far more in ways that made it indispensable for many interests than it has in the first difficult years since its creation as a state. For that reason, it is time for Israel to take the opportunity to assess its needs and act accordingly; moreover, it should not fall into Hamas traps of doing only what Hamas expects it to do; it should, for instance, not wait for the end of the military campaign to start holding Hamas leadership and operatives accountable outside Gaza, using both covert action and political methods.
This is also a good time for Israel to confront and push back against the hypocrisy, double standards, and self-serving positions of countries who did nothing to weaken Hamas and are now clutching pearls over high civilian deaths directly resulting from Hamas entrenchment and dictatorship. Israel’s lobbying, outreach, and communications efforts have been catastrophically subpar, but it is not too late to start listening to advice from outside sources and show flexibility and creativity in handling these diverse threats and challenges.
Will Israel have to compromise to save the lives of the hostages and heed international concerns to avoid escalation and suffering for the people of the Gaza strip?
Israel has already agreed to some substantial compromises such as partial restoration of water and electricity and work on a joint pathway towards providing humanitarian aid into Gaza along with the US. All of this has happened without a single good will gesture by Hamas, which has not ceased attacking Israel with rockets nor has released a single hostage. At the end of the day, Israel’s greatest leverage is its people’s existential needs. No international opinion will save Israel from forthcoming attacks. If the international community is as concerned about ending escalation and suffering in Gaza as it claims to be, it will work with Israel hand in hand to dismantle Hamas and other terrorist organizations; however, for now, Europe, at least, not to mention OIC and the Arab League show no sign of having learned that lesson. Europe has pledged to triple humanitarian aid into Gaza without instituting any real accountability and transparency mechanisms.
OIC and Arab League states have shifted all blame on Israel, disregarding Hamas’s war crimes against both Israel and its own people, perhaps in part because Hamas threatened the possibility of additional operations in unnamed other countries. But all these countries that refuse to take action to put an end to Hamas’s reign of terror peacefully are leaving Israel with no alternative but to go at it alone regardless of consequences. Another additional option Israel has to deal with this situation is a political one; it should form a coalition of states who have suffered losses as a result of Hamas terror; those willing to join Israel – Ukraine, Thailand, Philippines – could work jointly both in the security arena and in lobbying the international community to take action on Hamas.
Getting a massive release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for those taken hostage since Oct. 7 seems to be part of Hamas’ plan?
There are approximately 5000 Hamas and PIJ prisoners in Israeli prisons; most of them are violent and exceptionally dangerous. After Israel had in the past released 1000 prisoners in exchange for Gilad Schalit, the Israeli security apparatus admitted that was an error. These prisoners later came back to fight another day – becoming murderous assassins who targeted Israel in assorted terrorist operations. Without a doubt some of them contributed to the instant scenario.
Interestingly enough, while Hamas has clearly indicated in the plan that was captured in the aftermath of the attack, the need to take as many prisoners hostage for future exchanges as possible, it seems to be in no rush to make exchange demands. Part of the reason for that is that Hamas is far more interested in getting as much leverage out of trapping Israel politically and militarily, and waiting until international opinion shifts against Israel and it is in a far more vulnerable place politically to make those demands. No doubt part of the calculus is that the more time passes, the more domestic pressure from the families of the hostages will intensify; while they are still outraged in the immediacy of the attack they are likely to go along with the general push to liquidate Hamas operatives; the more time passes, the more emotional leverage Hamas will have to push for exchanges and for other demands.
Do you think that might be a demand that Israel might consider?
At the current juncture, the release of Hamas operatives is out of the question. Unfortunately, Biden and international pressure are eroding Israel’s leverage to force Hamas to release the hostages in return for the restoration of the utilities to the Gaza street. Those conditions are still part of the calculus on Israel’s part. Another issue is that Hamas has already killed a number of hostages and may continue to do so in an effort to deter air strikes or other operations that could compromise the security of senior leaders, so Hamas may end up opting out of the exchange scenario if it find a different purpose for the hostages or simply decides to maximize the number of casualties.
In the future, Israel may consider select prisoner exchanges such as the release of female prisoners in exchange for women and children, and this is reportedly already part of the negotiation process which the US has spearheaded along with Qatar and Turkey. However, such an exchange could also mean that the price for the remaining prisoners could go up or that Hamas could try to abduct more hostages through additional infiltration efforts. The last thing Israel wants to do is encourage future abduction attempts. A lot will depend on whether and when it starts the ground operation and the rate of success in liquidating the Hamas operatives. It is also not impossible that the hostages could simply end up being killed in the air strikes.
Does Hamas’ attack make little military sense unless Hezbollah intervenes in turn?
Hamas’ operation was very successful in its own right because even if Hezbollah does not engage in a full second-front war with Israel, perhaps out of concern of being decimated, it has already succeeded in putting Israel on the defensive, disrupting its relations with its neighbors, and wreaking diplomatic havoc in the region. Moreover, Hamas has never before been as successful in abducting so many hostages; that is years worth of publicity, recruitment successes, and funding in terms of making Israel look bad and gaining leverage.
However, evidence points to clear coordination with Hezbollah, from the various ways by which Hamas and Hezbollah both benefited from Russian weapons sold in Syria, to being trained by the same IRGC contingent, to Iranian officials making frequent trips to Lebanon to call on Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel, to the Wall Street Journal report of Iranian officials giving a final approval to this attack in Beirut only a few days prior to its execution.
Hezbollah and Hamas share ideology, sources of backing, and would have had plenty of occasions to meet, particularly since like Hezbollah leadership, Hamas operatives and leaders had visited Iran, and since 2018 and before his advice reportedly received instruction from Qassem Soleimani. Hezbollah’s role in all of this has been as a back-up and coordinator who continues to keep pressure on Israel from the North and to test the red lines while Hamas is doing its best to draw Israel into military traps in Gaza. The mere threat of escalation of Hezbollah is also an important form of cognitive warfare which fills headlines and keeps oil prices high, to the benefit of the funders of this endeavor.
Moreover, there is also the question of the Israeli gas pipelines. Hezbollah benefited handsomely from the maritime agreement forced by Biden on Israel; now it may take advantage of the situation by engaging in economic warfare which could impact not only Israel and its investment opportunities, already suffering from the devastation related to the Hamas attack, but Egypt that has taken heavy losses from the closure of the pipelines and the cessation of operations, and even as far as the East Med.
We could also see additional transfer of weapons and fighters from Lebanon to Iraq and Syria, strengthening the positions of the local Iraqi militias and the IRGC and Syria and further encircling Israel. Add to that Russia’s ongoing defense exercises with the Syrian officials amidst rumors of Assad’s potential involvement, and Russia’s long history of cooperation with Hezbollah in Syria and we may see a much more international anti-US conflict in the works which puts Israel directly in the crosshairs of many parties.
It may favor Iran in its attempt to end the ongoing process of normalization of relations between the Arab states and Israel. So, can we consider the Abrahamic Accords as gone?
The Abraham Accords were not really expanding, despite rumors of potential summits with various countries. The most hyped up normalization process, with Saudi Arabia, was the least likely to come to fruition. Saudi Arabia never held peace talks with Israel to begin with. There were no direct conversations between KSA and ISraeli officials at all. All of the discussions were being held through the United States, which suggests that it was all at best a theoretical discussion; by contrast the Abraham Accords consisted of direct-face to face negotiations between UAE, Bahrain, and Israel for about a year and a half before signing. Nothing suggests that Riyadh was seriously contemplating normalization. The Arabic language Saudi media made no mention of it; on a political level such discussions were taboo except when Americans like Jared Kushner came to visit. NO major gestures in that direction were made by any of the sides. One can say, there was a sort of double speak aimed at the West and the Arab world.
In fact, Saudis are farther from normalization now then a few years ago circa 2018 when Saudi press regularly published notable thinkers to float the idea by the population which generally opposed a diplomatic relationship. Most tribes in KSA remain opposed; and in the last two years ISlamist campaigns aimed at the Saudi population against normalization on religious grounds have intensified. MOst of the breakthroughs between Saudi Arabia and Israel have been achieved before the Jamal Khashoggi campaign aimed at weakening and undermining the Crown Prince, who was the main proponent of improved relations with Israel.
Following the Al Ula agreement, the political gestures from Saudi Arabia went in the opposite direction. More conservative figures became more prominent on the public stage, focusing once again more on the Palestinian issue. Excitement over prospects of even cultural exchanges faded from the media. After Iran’s normalization with KSA, the tone by the Foreign Ministry became much tougher against Israel than it was in the preceding few years, especially around Hamas and PIJ riots. The language was far more hostile and pointed to a shift in the foreign policy mindset.
Despite all the visibility of meetings supposedly about the normalization, this was not a Riyadh initiative but Biden’s push due to his own interests in gaining a major diplomatic achievement that could not be completed by Trump. Saudis saw to their advantage to try to gain concessions from the US by going along with this concept; however, many of the meetings supposedly about normalization actually had to do with other regional concerns such as energy, but were reported to the media by Biden to be about normalization in order to continue the appearance of his success in a very close presidential election year. Israel echoed these publicity campaigns but without any new evidence pointing to any substance. It soon became obvious after many statements by Biden that the Saudis would not get what they were pushing for out of these arrangements, which was probably known by Riyadh.
Riyadh proposed conditions it knew the Biden administration could not and would not approve so it could appear to be conciliatory and open without having to actually deal with Israel or reject the administration and further strain the relations. It demanded approval of its civilian nuclear program and a defense treaty, but the US rejected both and made counterproposals which appeared to be of no interest.
The Hamas attack on ISrael provided Saudi ARabia with a clean exit out of the situation, and it seemed preparing for this step regardless. Its language made it clear that it was looking to find an excuse to get away from Israel rather than work out their differences; for that reason it was coordinated with Qatar and IRan, which are both hostile to the very idea of normalization rather than with UAE and Bahrain who also expressed concerned for Palestinian lives but did not place blame for terrorism on ISrael. The withdrawal from the appearance of talks was a relief to Saudis who no longer have to keep up the appearance of a policy most of its foreign policy establishment vehemently opposes and which would be a hard sell to the tribal makeup of the country even under the best of circumstances.
However, Saudi Arabia can continue using the issue as a pressure card on ISrael to de-escalate in Gaza not through the prospects of normalization per se but through economic issues lauded as victory by the Biden administration shortly before these events transpired. First, was the promise of an an increase in oil production output if US conceded to a defense deal. Biden desperately needs that as oil prices are skyrocketing, and the inflation is increasing in an election year, where economy could be one of key factors in his reelection. Second, is the Middle East/Europe/India economic corridor, which was supposed to be linked to Israel.
Now that is much less likely to happen which is a major loss of face for everyone who signed off on that and gives Saudis a lot of leverage on economic negotiations with all these countries. So while Saudis likely played on Biden’s and Netanyahu’s domestic concerns and desperation for major diplomatic achievements, they still managed to get a lot out of it without having to do anything in return because they conditioned their interests and important practical economic demands to the weaker negotiating positions of the Biden administration and ISrael. And so now they can do nothing about ISrael, but pressure Biden to try to get Israel to deescalate for fear of the economic processes being sabotaged if that does not happen and actually costing Biden even more than a failed peace process.
Moreover, Abraham Accords with UAE, Bahrain, a restoration of relations with Morocco, and the negotiated relationship with Sudan were deeply flawed in that they provided no commitment by the Arab states to any specified defense structure and cooperation on any particular threat. For that reason, it was very easy for these countries to switch sides and to back Hamas or to abstain from any assistance to Israel when such a threat appeared. Indeed the only exception was the tiny Bahrain which made an astoundingly strong statement, both independently, and jointly with the US, resulting in Hamas’s wrath and being called “Arab scum”.
Bahrain, however, is at a significant disadvantage with the threat of Iran looming over it, and only a US fleet there to intervene in the event of another Iran and Hezbollah backed insurrection. However, during the first Arab Spring, the US was actively facilitating the uprising and only Saudi Arabia’s intervention saved the day. The same may not happen now, with the Saudis in the middle of the protracted and failing peace talks with Houthis in Riyadh. When a Bahraini base in Yemen was attacked by the Houthi drones with fatalities and a very significant number of injuries, Riyadh remained silent and took no action nor issued a statement of support. This may have tipped the situation for Bahrain in Israel’s favor, because at the very least Israel, even if weakened, appears to have the goodwill to carry through on its security commitments – whereas KSA appeared willing to sacrifice Bahrain security interest to the dubious prospect of normalization with the Houthis.
In its current form, overall, however, Abraham Accords have given up the ghost. Any future iteration will need to be rethought in light of the fragility of these relationships, significant lack of real investment into changing popular mindset by the governments, and the defense element that would need to be clearly outlined and include treaty level obligations in order to bind the parties to each other and prevent anyone from switching sides when these commitments are tested.
Or has the Hamas attack reached such a degree of horror that the Arab states can stop being “hostages” to the Palestinian issue?
At the peak of the Abraham Accords enthusiasm, the Arab states appeared willing and interested in reviewing their relationship with Palestinians, which in many ways was costly and counterproductive. However, the rise and return of Islamists following the al Ula agreement and Biden’s position heavily favoring Muslim Brotherhood led to a heavy social and political backslide in that regard with the previously disenfranchised groups returning to rabble rousing and campaigning and refocusing the Palestinian issue as both religious and pan-Arab paradigm, playing this time more on anti-Israel cultural stereotypes than on any sense of unity among Arabs who appear more divided and committed to independent national pathways than ever before.
Moreover, the current governments are less “hostage” to the Palestinian issue than are actively using it to distance themselves from their commitments to Israel in favor of Iran, Russia, and China. US weakness and apparent loss of positions in the region to these actors may have played at least as much of a background role in the turn away from Jerusalem as the Hamas attack, since the relations have been deteriorating even before this incident, and the attack merely provided everyone with an excuse to put an end to the ruse.
Irina Tsukerman – Human rights and national security lawyer.
Image Credit: Reuters