The Middle East’s strategic landscape one year on

Paul Salem
Vice President for International Engagement
Paul Salem

While Israel is winning on the battlefield, it does not have a sustainable vision for any of the days — or months or years — after in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or the region; for the Palestinians, the last year has been an unmitigated disaster, causing devastation and displacement comparable with that of the Nakba of 1948.

In the past three weeks, Israel has dealt a near-knock-out blow to Hezbollah; for the immediate future, Tehran’s primary strategic asset cannot deter Israeli or American attacks on Iran, leaving the Islamic Republic vulnerable.

One year after the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, the strategic landscape of the Middle East continues to be transformed. For Israel, the attacks were the biggest breach of its security since 1973 and the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Since then, Israel has all but destroyed Hamas and utterly devastated Gaza and Gazans; in the past three weeks it has dealt a crushing blow to Hezbollah and devastated large parts of Lebanon; and in the coming days, it will likely launch its largest-ever strike on Iran. This is in addition to Israeli strikes in Yemen and Syria as well as increasing government-supported settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. While Israel is winning on the battlefield, it does not have a sustainable vision for any of the days — or months or years — after in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or the region.

For the Palestinians, the last year has been an unmitigated disaster, causing devastation and displacement comparable with that of the Nakba (“Calamity” or “Catastrophe”) of 1948. Hamas, the group that triggered this latest round of conflict, is all but defeated, but its uncompromising message is strengthened by the devastation of the past year, and existing Palestinian alternatives, in Fatah or the Palestinian Authority, are bereft of popular legitimacy.

A two-state solution, already largely dead before Oct. 7, now seems more remote than ever. The events of the past year have pushed the Palestinian issue back to the forefront of regional politics, however; the Saudi crown prince has made it clear that Saudi Arabia would not proceed to normalization with Israel without a Palestinian state.

Until about three weeks ago, Iran was doing reasonably well in its proxy confrontation with Israel. One of its junior proxies, Hamas, had dealt the largest blow to Israel in its modern history, and its primary ally, Hezbollah, was holding Israeli forces to a tit-for-tat standstill across the Lebanese-Israeli border. Its other proxies in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq were striking occasional blows against Israel and its US backer — as well as Red Sea shipping.

But as of Sept. 17, that equation has changed radically. In the past three weeks, Israel has dealt a near-knock-out blow to Hezbollah. Hezbollah was always Iran’s primary strategic asset, on a fundamentally different level than of all its other proxies in the region. It was the equivalent of a heavily armed aircraft carrier parked north of Israel, designed to deter Israeli or American attacks on Iran. For the immediate future, that is lost. And Iran finds itself strategically vulnerable, forced to rely on its own military resources to try to restore deterrence against Israel. In the coming days, we are likely to see Israel exploit this window of Iranian strategic vulnerability by carrying out direct attacks on Iran. The region is at another tipping point — poised on the brink of a major regional war that could have dramatic consequences for regional and global security and economics.

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Israel has carried a heavy domestic burden since Oct. 7

Nimrod Goren
Senior Fellow for Israeli Affairs
Nimrod Goren

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has been embroiled in fighting on multiple fronts, including against both long-time enemies and new foes, while additionally facing a range of challenges at home.

The past year has been an unprecedented one for Israeli society, which has had to deal with collective trauma, security decline, hostage abandonment, political stagnation, civil mobilization, and regional hope.

In the wake of the Hamas terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has been fighting multiple enemies across the region, but it is also facing daily struggles closer to home. The past year has been one of unprecedented challenges and experiences for Israeli society, manifested in collective trauma, security decline, hostage abandonment, political stagnation, civil mobilization, and regional hope.

Collective trauma: Oct. 7 was the deadliest day in Israel’s history. It resulted in enormous losses and multiple crises. Israelis are still mourning, processing what has happened, and trying to cope. “I have seen enormous pain and agony that I have never imagined I would see in my life,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told al-Arabiya this week, reflecting what many Israelis feel. The trauma lives on, with many seeing Oct. 7 as “a long day that never ends.”

Security decline: The unimaginable Hamas attack shattered basic societal beliefs about Israel’s ability to protect its citizens. In addition to continued fighting against Hamas and Hezbollah, enemies with which Israel is familiar, attacks were launched from new fronts — Yemen, Iraq, and Iran, bringing most Israelis under fire. Moreover, terror attacks inside Israel’s major cities resumed, and tens of thousands of Israelis are still displaced from their homes in the north and south, along the borders with Lebanon and Gaza.

Hostage abandonment: Some 250 people were abducted from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Never before has Israel faced a hostage crisis of this magnitude. Their fate has become a major source of concern across society, leading to public activism for their release. A year later, 101 hostages are still held by Hamas. Israel’s far-right coalition is not willing to pay the price for their release and has politicized the issue. As time passes, hostages are losing their lives in Hamas’ tunnels. This contradicts the Israeli ethos of state responsibility for its citizens and soldiers, and it is a major source of public anger and distress.

Political stagnation: Since Oct. 7, polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of Israelis hold Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accountable, have lost trust in his government, and want early elections to be held. A change in leadership is needed for Israel to heal and to put the country on a positive path. Yet a year on, Netanyahu retains a strong grip on power. He refuses to take responsibility for Oct. 7, blocks the establishment of a State Commission for Inquiry, appeases his extremist coalition partners, prioritizes political survival, and brushes off mass protests. Underneath a thin veneer of wartime unity, Israeli society is deeply divided.

Civil mobilization: Israeli society is characterized by resilience, agency, optimism, and entrepreneurship, all of which came into play after Oct. 7. While the state failed its citizens, ordinary people stepped up. An unprecedented wave of solidarity, volunteering, and mutual support took place, addressing people’s needs and providing comfort. Private initiatives and non-governmental organizations became a beacon of hope and even a lifesaver, giving rise to a new cadre of grassroot leaders.

Regional hope: Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza made Israeli-Palestinian peace seem even more distant. The regional dimension, though, provides a glimmer of hope. Bilateral ties between Israel and the Arab countries that have signed treaties with it continued. The scope of cooperation declined, criticism grew, and aspirational regional initiatives were put on hold, but shared interests have continued to be pursued, new threats were jointly confronted, and strategic decisions to engage were not walked back. Going forward, there is still potential for further normalization agreements, reflecting the transformational impact that eventual progress toward a two-state solution could have.

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Suffering, disillusionment, division, and lack of leadership: Palestinians one year into the Gaza catastrophe

Khaled Elgindy
Senior Fellow, Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs
Khaled Elgindy

In political terms, for Palestinians, both inside and outside Gaza, the events of the past year are on par with other cataclysmic moments in Palestinian history, such as the 1948 Nakba and Israel’s seizure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

The immediate focus remains on finding adequate shelter, food, clean water, and medical care for Palestinians in Gaza; but no clear consensus has emerged among Palestinian officials or civil society over questions of reconstruction, post-war administration of Gaza, preventing a mass exodus, or providing for the population in the meantime.

The past year has been nothing short of catastrophic for Palestinians in human, material, and political terms, with long-lasting consequences that will reverberate for generations. Nearly 42,000 have been reported killed in the Gaza Strip to date, with estimates suggesting the potential indirect death toll could be at least several times higher, and virtually all of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced, representing the deadliest event and the largest forced displacement of Palestinians in their modern history (as well as one of deadliest and most destructive wars of this century). Given the sheer scale of Israel’s assault, which has damaged or destroyed more than 70 percent of Gaza’s housing stock as well as wiped out most of its universities and hospitals, hundreds of cultural, civic, and religious sites, along with a third of its agricultural land — the very institutions that sustain life — it is unclear whether Gaza will even be inhabitable if and when the current war ends.

While the immediate focus of Palestinians in Gaza for the foreseeable future will remain on survival — finding adequate shelter, food, clean water, and medical care — the question of what comes next is foremost on the minds of all Palestinians. Despite the numerous “day after” initiatives circulating both inside and outside of Palestine, no clear consensus has emerged among Palestinians, whether in official circles or civil society, over questions of when and how (or if) reconstruction can occur, who or what should govern Gaza, how to prevent a mass exodus of its population, or how to provide Gazan Palestinians with adequate, dignified living conditions in the meantime.

In political terms, for Palestinians, both inside and outside Gaza, the events of the past year are on par with other cataclysmic moments in Palestinian history, such as the 1948 Nakba, or “Calamity,” in which some 800,000 people, two-thirds of Palestine’s Arab population, were forced from their homes, and the 1967 war, when Israel seized the remnants of historic Palestine, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. Like 1948 and 1967, the current Gaza war is likely to alter the trajectory of Palestinian politics and reshape the political consciousness of the current generation in ways that are impossible to predict. For now, the war has shattered Palestinian confidence in international institutions and the very idea of a “rules-based order,” which have proven to be at best impotent and at worst complicit, in the face of overwhelming evidence of widespread and egregious violations of international law by Israel, as well as any notion of a peace process, particularly one led by the United States.

Internally, the debilitation of Hamas in Gaza and further sidelining of the already weak and delegitimized leadership of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank have left Palestinians in both territories even more vulnerable to an increasingly violent and entrenched occupation. The leadership vacuum is most acutely felt in Gaza, where the degradation of Hamas and catastrophic humanitarian conditions have led to a breakdown in law and order. Despite ongoing “reconciliation” efforts between Fatah and Hamas, Palestinian politics remain as divided and dysfunctional as they were before the war, perhaps more so.

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A year of hard lessons for US policy in the Middle East

Brian Katulis
Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy
Brian Katulis

The Biden administration’s policy approach fell short of achieving its stated goals during the past year, but it may have prevented even worse outcomes from unfolding.

The Biden administration can learn from its experiences and turn the tide on negative trends in its remaining months in office.

“Things could have been worse” has often been the story of US policy in the Middle East, and this past year was no exception.

Press the rewind button on the Biden administration’s Middle East policy in the weeks before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked this latest crisis, and one will find a Biden administration focused on the longer term: a possible normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the announcement of an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) at the G-20 summit in India, and Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan arguing that the Middle East had been “quieter than it has been for decades.”

The Biden administration had a plan, but as boxer Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the resulting conflict that has spread across the region was a punch in the face for US policy, which slipped back into a tactical and reactive crisis management mode that is not unusual for US foreign policy in the Middle East, but still detrimental for the long term.

The United States established a number of goals for itself in setting a new policy framework: It sought to help Israel defend itself, return the hostages taken by Hamas, and prevent a wider regional war. It also sought to protect civilians from the conflict, deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians and now the Lebanese people, and put forward a plan for stability and peace after the conflicts end.

But a year into this conflict, the Biden administration has only achieved limited outcomes. America’s military and security engagement, combined with diplomacy, achieved a temporary cease-fire and release of some but not all of the hostages late last year. Since April until now, US engagement also likely prevented a wider direct conflict between Israel and Iran, but it remains to be seen what might happen next in the region.

“Strategic drift” is a tough but clinical assessment of US policy in the region, and it is critical that US policymakers learn from the lessons this hard year has provided. The most important lesson is that the United States should take a page from the game plan it has used in Europe and Asia over the past three-plus years and build a stronger framework for collective diplomacy with Middle East partners and deepen security cooperation with them, too.

The Biden administration has a little more than three months left in office, and that gives it plenty of time to make some course corrections that help improve stability in the region and achieve more progress toward its stated goals.

The problems of today’s Middle East will outlast the Biden administration’s time in office, but it can take some meaningful steps to set a new framework for US engagement in the region over the coming weeks.

Follow: @Katulis

Egypt and Jordan watch in grim suspense as the region’s worst fears are realized

Mirette F. Mabrouk
Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Egypt program
Mirette F. Mabrouk

After Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, there were widespread fears that the Israeli response would be disproportionate and that the conflict would spill over its borders and spread across the region; what has followed has been even worse than anticipated.

Both Egypt and Jordan have had peace treaties with Israel for decades as well as solid and productive government-to-government relations, but over the past year the conflict has strained those relations to the seams.

One year after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, the region’s worst fears are being realized.

Those fears had been that the Israeli response to the attack — in which 1,200 died and another 250 were taken hostage — would be disproportionate and that the conflict would spill over its borders and spread across the region. What has followed has been even worse than anticipated: a campaign of collective punishment that has included mass displacement, famine, and an extraordinary volume of munitions. In just the first two months of the war, Gaza suffered proportionally even greater destruction than that caused by the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. Nearly 42,000 people have been reported killed so far, including, as of August, at least 17,000 children. A recent report found that Israel had been deliberately blocking aid to Gaza, with relief organizations describing persistent levels of famine and outbreaks of disease.

As the situation in Gaza became ever more horrific, fears that the conflict would spread were heightened, as Israel escalated by going after its enemies abroad. In late July, it took its fight directly to Iran, assassinating Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, ensuring that the Iranians would have to retaliate. A subsequent operation in mid-September, involving the detonation of pagers in Lebanon belonging to Hezbollah operatives, also killed a number of civilians, dragging the country into the line of fire, and Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader and a top Iranian ally, was killed shortly thereafter in a massive Israeli airstrike. To date, more than 2,000 Lebanese have died in the Israeli bombardment of their country, and 1.2 million have been displaced.

The other two countries on Israel’s borders are watching in grim suspense. Both Egypt and Jordan have had peace treaties with Israel for decades — Egypt for almost half a century — and solid and productive government-to-government relations. This conflict has strained those relations to the seams.

Both countries have continuously pushed back against Israeli (and often, Western) insistence that they absorb Palestinian refugees, flatly refusing to be party to mass displacement. In Egypt’s case, apart from complicity in another mass expulsion, there is the very real danger of Hamas operatives entering the country with other refugees and then continuing to battle Israel from Egyptian territory. The security implications would be enormous, particularly for a country that just got through a decade of fighting Islamist extremists in North Sinai.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel needs to maintain a presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border, in contravention of its treaty with Egypt. Israeli officials have voiced claims about Egypt’s perceived inability to halt Hamas weapons smuggling in the area, with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer even mentioning President Abdel-Fatah el-Sisi by name, adding that he wasn’t “questioning the intentions of the Egyptians” but rather “the results.” Dermer’s statement was followed shortly after by a pointed visit to the border by Egypt’s Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ahmed Fathy.

Jordan’s case is even more fraught. Approximately 50% to 60% of its population is of Palestinian descent, and it currently hosts the largest number of Palestinian refugees — over 2 million. The conflict presents the risk of the very worst outcome possible: a tidal wave of new Palestinian refugees pouring into Jordan from the West Bank. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) helps provide support for the Palestinian population in Jordan, but UNRWA has come under intense attack by Israel since Oct. 7. It launched unsubstantiated claims that 12 of the organization’s 13,000 employees in Gaza were Hamas operatives, resulting in the US, among others, cutting off funding. And of course, there is the very real threat that Jordan could lose its custodianship over Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. The potential loss of vital water and energy supplies from Israel due to the conflict further adds to the grim outlook.

Last week, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi passionately lobbed the ball into Israel’s court. At a UN Security Council meeting, Netanyahu had said that “Israel was surrounded by enemies.” If Israel wanted peace, Safadi said, he was part of a delegation of 57 Arab countries that were prepared to offer it. On Monday, Israel pounded over 120 sites in Lebanon with 100 aircraft. Hamas subsequently fired rockets out of Gaza.

At the moment, “peace” does not appear to be on the table.

Follow: @mmabrouk

Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei reluctant to change self-defeating course since Oct. 7

Alex Vatanka
Director of Iran Program and Senior Fellow, Black Sea Program
Alex Vatanka

As Iran and Israel grapple with the perceived threat each poses to the other, the leadership in Tehran is sticking to its pre-Oct. 7 game-plan: looking to weaken Israel through a protracted war of attrition via pro-Iranian Arab militant groups but keeping the Iranian homeland itself out of an open war with Israel and its main ally, the United States.

The bitter reality is that in its fight against Israel, Iran is strategically alone — despite the activation of the Axis of Resistance and the country’s supposed strategic-level alliances with Russia and China.

In the year since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, Iran’s regional stance has barely shifted. Pivotal moments — including Tehran’s firing of missiles against Israel twice in the last six months — have not equated to an overall policy re-direction one way or another. As Iran and Israel grapple with the perceived threat each poses to the other, the leadership in Tehran is sticking to its pre-Oct. 7 game-plan: looking to weaken Israel through a protracted war of attrition via pro-Iranian Arab militant groups but keeping the Iranian homeland itself out of an open war with Israel and its main ally, the United States. Although this basic position serves the Iranian regime’s ideological agenda, Tehran is in danger of forfeiting an opportunity to change course on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which could greatly benefit the Iranian national interest.

Undoubtedly, the events of the past year have profoundly tested Iran’s militant regional stance focused on confronting Israel. Tehran was at first apprehensive, denying it had any role in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, even as the Israeli military geared up to invade Gaza in retaliation. But in the weeks and months that followed, as Israel progressively expanded the war to include not only Hamas but the entire Axis of Resistance and its main sponsor in Tehran, the Iranian leadership felt forced to respond to Israel’s direct actions. With every Israeli strike, Tehran has had to perform a delicate act of reciprocating but hoping the tit-for-tat exchange would not spiral into open war.

And while navigating this risky security landscape, Tehran has had to wrestle with one hard inconvenient truth and one glimmer of hope.

The bitter reality is that in its fight against Israel, Iran is strategically alone — despite the activation of the Axis of Resistance and the country’s supposed strategic-level alliances with Russia and China. For sure, the numerous Iran-backed Arab militant groups in the Middle East can take pot shots at Israel, but they do not have the capacity to help Tehran protect the homeland. Russia and China have also not met Iranian expectations. This burden of strategic loneliness is openly discussed in regime media in Tehran. Some in Tehran have even called Moscow’s stance in response to last year’s regional tensions treacherous, pointing to how little the Russians have sought to do against Israel at the United Nations. Others, such as Ali Larijani (an advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei), are urging not only Russia but also China to enter the fray and to help Iran weaken the Israeli-American partnership in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the hope is that going forward, Iran can capitalize on the anger in the Islamic world about Israeli actions in Gaza and in Lebanon. In fact, on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Khamenei gave his most detailed defense of the actions of Hamas. He showed he is still chasing the pipedream of Islamic unity, with Iran leading the way, in confronting Israel. But pursuit of this fiction comes at the expense of Iranian national interests.

An alternative pathway would be 1) for Tehran to de-escalate with Israel to prevent a broader war that would be disastrous; 2) to push for a suspension of hostilities in Gaza and in Lebanon; and above all, 3) for Iran to signal its willingness to join a regional diplomatic process that is backed by other major Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia. Domestic critics in Iran will say this is tantamount to a roundabout acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. But the vast majority of the Iranian public would welcome seeing Tehran relinquish its ideological obsession with Israel and look for alternative ways to help the Palestinian cause without risking a possible war with Israel and, likely, the US.

Follow: @AlexVatanka