If This is Israel's 9/11, I Hope They Have Learned from the United States' Mistakes
Beyond a horrific date in American history, 9/11 also evokes the way traumatized nations react to terrible events.
Author’s note: There are a couple pictures in this article that show people hurt and in a state of distress. They are upsetting images but not particularly graphic. I mention this because I do not want readers to find I have included photographs in this article and then stop reading out of concern more gruesome images may follow.
Following the massacre of over 1,300 Israeli civilians last weekend by Hamas militants from Gaza, many commentators have taken to calling the attack “Israel’s 9/11.” What is left unspoken when calling it that should give us pause.
The comparison between 10/7 and 9/11 is certainly apt, given the shock and scope of the attacks, the civilian victims, and the way both events shook their respective nations to the core and destroyed their sense of security. The images and reports that have come out of Israel are horrifying, with Hamas militants invading Israeli towns, slaughtering people of all ages (including babies), terrorizing the attendees of a music festival, and taking an estimated 150 people hostage. Hamas’s actions had nothing to do with freedom fighting, but was instead barbarism. As one Israeli military commander in the region said, “It’s not a war or a battlefield; it’s a massacre. It’s something I never saw in my life, something more like a pogrom from our grandparents’ time.”
Yet 9/11 doesn’t merely evoke a specific date in American history. It also marks the beginning of a terrible misadventure fueled and excused by rage and fear. The need for justice and revenge—understandable and justifiable desires then and now—took on an implacable momentum. Many came to the conclusion that the trauma of that day would absolve the actions of those who might go too far in retaliation. Even the cooler heads among us sensed this was no time to object too strenuously, not with smoke still rising and rescue workers still retrieving bodies from the rubble of lower Manhattan. To call something a “9/11,” therefore, is to equate it to an event so horrific that we would not allow things like prudence, reason, or morality to temper our collective reaction to it. The United States came to deeply regret that.
I confess I have no idea how Israel could best react to Hamas’s attack. It certainly makes all the sense in the world to hold those who organized and carried out the attack accountable. Israel appears to be preparing a full scale invasion of Gaza to do just that. Yet I fear that course of action may prove catastrophic not only for the Palestinians who live there but for Israel as well.
It is important to understand what Israel is facing in Gaza. Israel itself is a fairly small nation, slightly bigger in terms of square miles than Clark County, Nevada (home of Las Vegas) but smaller than Maricopa County, Arizona (home of Phoenix). Gaza, by comparison, is about the size of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, which is coextensive with the city of Philadelphia. Yet while Philadelphia has 1.6 million people living within its 143 square miles, Gaza has 2.46 million people—40% of whom are are under the age of 15—living within its 141 square miles, making it one of the most densely populated territories on Earth. (It’s comparable to Hong Kong in that regard.)
Most of the Palestinians who live in Gaza are the descendants of refugees who either left or were expelled from the territory that became the nation of Israel in 1948. Israel occupied Gaza following the Six-Day War in 1967. While Israel has not maintained a military presence in Gaza since 2005, the United Nations still considers Gaza occupied by Israel, since Israel (along with Egypt) controls passage to and from the territory as well as its air and maritime space. Gaza is also heavily dependent on Israel for electrical power and water.
Per the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, political administration of Gaza and the West Bank was transferred to the Palestinian National Authority. By the time of the last Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, two parties had come to dominate Palestinian politics: Fatah, which was closely associated with Yasser Arafat and the PLO and backed the two-state solution outlined in the Oslo Accords, and Hamas, a fundamentalist Muslim party that favored armed resistance against Israel and that Israel, the United States, and the European Union had designated a terrorist organization. Hamas won those 2006 elections with 44% of the vote compared to Fatah’s 41%. The differences between the parties prevented them from reaching a power-sharing agreement, leading Hamas to take control of Gaza while Fatah retained control over the West Bank. Hamas militants have continued to clash with Israel ever since, leading Israel (and Egypt, which fears the spread of Hamas’s militancy) to seal off the territory.
Living conditions inside Gaza are bleak. An estimated 40-80% of the working-age population is unemployed, and its economy constantly teeters on the brink of collapse. As mentioned before, Gaza is heavily dependent on Israel for food, water, and electricity; in fact, over 90% of its population does not have access to clean water in their homes and over 60% lack food security. The poverty rate likely exceeds 65%. Over 130,000 residents live in shelters administered by UN relief agencies. Gaza’s children deal with PTSD due to their exposure to the violence and destruction resulting from Israeli rocket strikes. The United Nations has said Israel’s blockade has led to the “de-development” of Gaza, while the Red Cross has asserted the blockade is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Human rights organizations have called the territory the world’s largest “open-air prison.”
Hamas has not distinguished itself as the governor of Gaza. It does not tolerate public displays of opposition to its rule and uses police authority to punish dissent. Women have few basic rights or social privileges. For years, Hamas was viewed as less corrupt than Fatah, but Hamas’s control over economic activity (which includes smuggling, kickback, and patronage networks) has damaged its reputation among locals. Despite receiving billions of dollars in aid, its social services are woefully underfunded. The regime’s constant war footing and exchange of rocket fire with Israel has exhausted its residents, most of whom, despite preferring Hamas to Fatah while viewing Israel with disdain, are generally believed to favor a more conciliatory approach toward Israel in order to improve standards of living.
Now an all-out urban war is about to be waged in Gaza between Hamas and Israel among close to 2.5 million Palestinians, about one million of whom are no older than fifteen. Israel has already struck Gaza by air with missiles that have reduced buildings and housing units to rubble. One Israeli official said they want to turn Gaza City into a “city of tents.” The UN estimates 400,000 Gazans have been displaced by the attacks. As of Friday, Gaza’s health ministry reported nearly 1,800 deaths, including nearly 600 children. Hospitals and medical centers in Gaza are overrun with the dead and wounded as a constant stream of injured people arrive at their doors. Medical supplies are nearly exhausted.
Early last week, Israel instructed the residents of Gaza to leave the territory, but with the borders closed, they have no where to go. On Friday, Israel told the 1.1 million Palestinians living in the north of Gaza they had one day to move to the southern part of Gaza. Hamas has told Gazans not to flee, hoping the presence of civilians will either hamstring Israel’s military operation (while providing Hamas fighters with greater cover) or result in countless deaths that will turn world opinion against Israel and spur a greater uprising among Palestinians and Arabs beyond Israel’s borders. Many Gazans in the north have moved to the south; many still remain.
I worry Israel is about to step into a trap. Israel may feel they have no choice in the matter, that they will need to fight block by block through Gaza and raze buildings sheltering both enemy combatants and civilians until they decapitate the leadership of Hamas once and for all. Israel is supposed to be more than a homeland for Jews; it is also supposed to be, after centuries of oppression, a place that ensures the safety of the Jewish people. Israel may believe it can no longer provide that guarantee with Hamas on their borders.
But this is also what Hamas wants Israel to do. They want civilian casualties, they want a devastated landscape, they want a humanitarian crisis. They want Palestinians living in the West Bank and Lebanon enraged to the point that militants there will open fronts against Israel. They want Arabs and Muslims throughout the Middle East enraged to the point that their fearful governments heed their voices and adopt an antagonistic posture toward Israel. And they want people around the world to view the atrocities they committed against Israelis as not only a fraction of the suffering Israel inflicted on them, but, in retrospect, justified. If that happens, a besieged Israel may struggle to ensure the security of its nation-state.
That nightmare scenario may not come to pass. Arab governments may crush pro-Palestinian activists before they threaten their own regimes, and Israeli operations in the West Bank and Lebanon may snuff out uprisings before they reach a critical mass. But a vengeful Israel that exhibits little concern for the humanitarian crisis it is about to encounter in Gaza will eventually find its democracy, national unity, and global reputation severely diminished. The United States would know, as that’s what happened to us when we overreacted to 9/11.
Again, I have no idea how Israel might avenge its dead and confront Hamas without inflicting tremendous levels of suffering on the already vulnerable residents of Gaza. Well-intentioned people this week have revived talk of the need for a two-state solution; I’m all for that, but that doesn’t address what’s happening in the here and now. What I am hoping for is that someone in the Biden administration is telling Israel that their actions in Gaza need to keep the prospects for a two-state solution alive, because once this immediate crisis passes, that will be urgent work, for the sake of both Palestinian dignity and Israeli security.
If ever there was a time for a novel alternative to vengeance to emerge, that time is now. Just imagine if Israel could conceive a response that did not rest on violence. I feel so silly even suggesting that, as it runs so counter to human nature and our desire for justice. Yet that predictable reaction is exactly what Hamas wants of Israel in this moment, and if Israel is not careful, it may find itself ensnared in a new era of violence and pain.
Signals and Noise
To learn more about the Israel-Hamas war, a good place to start is with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. All are highly recommended:
“Israel’s Worst Day at War” (10/7/23)
“Israel Has Never Needed to Be Smarter Than In This Moment” (10/10/23)
“Why Israel Is Acting This Way” (10/14/23)
By Zack Beauchamp of Vox: “How to Think Morally About the Israel-Hamas War”
Important trends and stories to follow over the coming days and weeks:
Hamas’s raid into Israel was a massive intelligence and security failing. (Egypt apparently warned them.) How did this happen, and who will be held accountable?
Along these same lines, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has built his career around his ability to keep Israel safe. After the attacks by Hamas, no Israeli Prime Minister has failed more at that task than Netanyahu. Will Israelis demand his removal? Was Netanyahu’s fixation on settling and securing the West Bank responsible for the security failures in Gaza? What will become of Netanyahu’s efforts over the past year to undermine Israel’s democracy through judicial “reforms?” Will these events mark the end of Israel’s rightward swing?
Israel was on the brink of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has now put those negotiations on hold. How will the Saudis and other Arab governments react to Israel’s military operation?
Joanna Slater of the Washington Post describes the plight of an American family of Palestinian descent currently trapped in Gaza. Sarah Dadouch of the Washington Post chronicles what life is like in Gaza for a people that have no where to run.
The mother of a young man abducted by militants from Gaza shares her grief in the New York Times.
NBC News obtained documents taken from the bodies of Hamas fighters in Israel showing their plans to attack elementary schools and a youth center in Israel.
Isabel Fattal explains in The Atlantic what Hamas is.
Summer Said, Benoit Faucon, and Stephen Kalin of the Wall Street Journal report Iran helped plan Hamas’s attack against Israel. The U.S. and Qatar have frozen a $6 billion Iranian account the U.S. had opened as part of a prisoner exchange that occurred earlier this year.
For a variety of reasons, the Biden administration has ruled out sending special forces to rescue the American hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Update on the Republican House Speaker debacle: In the race to become the next Speaker of the House, Steve Scalise edged Jim Jordan in a secret ballot vote among House Republicans, but around two dozen House Republicans refused to support him on the House floor, forcing Scalise to drop his bid. Jim Jordan is the new Speaker nominee, but he appears about 50 votes short of the required 218 votes needed to claim the gavel. Other names have been floated, but there is no clear way forward. The House remains paralyzed.
From Punchbowl News: “Scalise’s blockbuster decision on Thursday night to withdraw his name for consideration as speaker shows once again just how toxic it is inside the House Republican Conference. They’re all but ungovernable. Forget about compromising with Democrats or President Joe Biden. This group of House Republicans won’t even compromise with each other. They’re deeply distrustful of anyone in leadership not named Donald Trump. And they’re unwilling to accept the realities of divided government — or simply governing at all.”
“I see a lot of threats out there, but one of the biggest threats I see is in that room because we can’t unify as a conference and put a Speaker in the chair to govern.”—Republican Representative and Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul (TX)
“This is a bad episode of ‘Veep,’ and it’s turning into ‘House of Cards.’”—Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis (NY)
“They put us in this ditch along with eight traitors. We’re still the majority party, we’re willing to work with them, but they gotta tell us what they need.”—Republican Representative Mike Rogers (AL), blaming Democrats for Republicans’ inability to act as a majority party in the House.
By Ben Jacobs of Slate: “The second-biggest question in the Capitol right now is who will be the speaker of the House. The biggest question is simply: Why would anybody want to be the speaker of the House at this point?…Whoever wins will have to deal with a seemingly unmanageable Republican conference, the expiration of government funding in just over a month, multiple geopolitical crises in Israel and Ukraine, and a host of other day-to-day issues—all while trying to hold on to a paper-thin majority, with 18 members in districts won by Joe Biden and another member who has introduced six different bills to impeach Biden. The job also comes with the constant risk of being deposed at any time and the urgent necessity to spend free time crisscrossing the country to raise money. It comes with a nice gavel, sure, but you can buy one of those online for $20 without any of the aggravation of having to manage the egos of 220 other members of Congress (not to mention one very mercurial resident of Mar-a-Lago).”
It’s possible moderate Republicans support Jordan simply to put the House back into order. Republicans hope to hold a floor vote early next week. Politico hypothesizes Jordan will attempt to bully his way to the speakership. Aaron Fritschner notes on Twitter/X that Jordan has been in Congress for sixteen years and has never had a single bill he sponsored pass the House.
Andrew Solender of Axios reports bipartisan talks are underway to find a new Speaker who could gain the backing of both Republicans and Democrats. The Messenger reports moderate House Republicans are also interested in empowering caretaker Speaker Patrick McHenry to carry out the business of the House (although it’s unclear to me whether either Republicans or Democrats would go along with that or how expansive McHenry’s powers would be.)
By John F. Harris of Politico: “Trump Watches While His Party Implodes” (“There’s only one person who plausibly could impose order on the sullen, snarling House Republican conference and the free-floating chaos for which it stands. So far, however, there’s scant evidence that one person gives more than a passing damn about the outcome….If Trump is a would-be authoritarian, the House drama shows that he is not the kind who cares much about exercising authority beyond himself. To the contrary, he seemed to regard the turmoil and ritual humiliations — first McCarthy, then Jordan, now Scalise — as a sideshow.”)
Nate Cohn of the New York Times writes about how the fall of McCarthy and Scalise and the respectable showing by Jordan are signs we are getting a new, more Trumpy Republican establishment.
Joe Gould and Connor O’Brien of Politico write about the Senate’s confirmation process, which allows individual senators to hold up scores of nominations, and how it has allowed Republicans to keep hundreds of high-ranking military positions and a handful of diplomatic posts (including the US ambassador to Israel) vacant at the moment.
From a new CNN poll: “The public’s impressions of the Republican Party and its leaders in Congress have worsened amid a leadership crisis in the House of Representatives, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with Republican-aligned Americans divided over how the GOP should govern. Even then – and with most Americans expressing anger at both parties’ handling of the country’s problems – the public continues to prefer the Republican Party’s leadership to that from the White House: 54% say they have more confidence in Republicans in Congress than in President Joe Biden to tackle the major issues facing the country, while 45% have more confidence in Biden’s leadership, unchanged since this summer.”
A new federal indictment accuses Democratic New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez of being an unregistered agent of the Egyptian government.
According to Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsang of Rolling Stone, Don Trump’s lawyers are convinced they can’t win his New York civil fraud trial on its merits. Instead, they plan to turn the trial into a circus to score as many political points as possible. MORE: From the Washington Post: “How 91 Felony Charges Boosted Trump’s Standing in the GOP” (“Interviews with scores of voters in multiple states show that Trump’s constant message of victimhood has seeped in not just among the Trump faithful — but also among center-right voters who were previously skeptical of him. Some said they believed Trump had made mistakes, but they contend there was an unfair double standard against him.”)
Trump continues to churn out anti-immigrant rhetoric.
By Dennis Aftergut of The Bulwark: “Will Narcissist Trump’s Bizarre Praise for Hezbollah Hurt Him?”
Enfant terrible and owner of Twitter/X Elon Musk is encouraging people interested in news about the war between Gaza militants and Israel to follow accounts known for spreading false information.
Texas has bussed more than 50,000 migrants from its border with Mexico to cities in blue states.
New data shows the top 1% of households in the United States held approximately 26.5% of the nation’s household net worth. That’s up 1.5% since 2019, the year prior to the start of the pandemic.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes about why we should (but won’t) reduce the budget deficit.
Steven Erlanger of the New York Times wonders if support for Ukraine has peaked.
Zeke Hausfather writes in the New York Times about disturbing new evidence that global warming is not just increasing but accelerating. The animated graphic accompanying the story tracking the rise of global temperature above preindustrial levels is definitely worth checking out.