Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Hamas's attack on Israel.Part I: intel & security failures, and Iran's level of complicity.
Hamas attack: strategic objectives sought by the terrorist group.
A lot of pundits have compared Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack on Israel to 9/11.
But, the claim that ‘‘this is their 9/11’’ is a major understatement.
To see why, let’s first consider the magnitude of this attack: more than 1,200 Israelis were killed on Saturday, October 7 - in terms of modern history, this is the single deadliest day for Jews outside of Holocaust…
In comparison, 9/11 had a death toll of 2,977 people.
But the US had a population of 285m at the time of attack, and Israel’s population is below 9.4m.
To see how truly enormous this attack is, if the casualties remained at the same proportion of the total population, if this attack took place in the US as of today (331m population), then the death toll would need to be around 39,600.
That is 13x worse than 9/11.
In addition, consider also that 9/11 was a relatively sophisticated attack that involved training a number of individual terrorists to hijack planes.
In Israel, we saw hundreds of terrorists roaming through the street shooting at civilians and taking young children and women as hostages back to Gaza (more than 100 - including US citizens).
A number of military bases were overrun and tanks stolen.
The psychological impact of such an attack will be qualitatively different than a few terrorists capturing specific airplanes and flying them into buildings - this was a full-on invasion into Israel’s civilian life.
A lot of Israelis have lost faith in their state - there are hundreds of interviews of Israeli citizens demanding accountability from military and security forces.
Of course, with this ongoing war, Israel will unite as a nation and will surely prosecute an effective response (and a national unity government has already been established).
But a lot of military and political leaders will rightly face a major backlash once this is over.
It is important to remember what Israelis are going through right now when evaluating future reaction and response from the Israeli leaders.
There is indeed a major signaling pressure to inflict indiscriminate and retaliatory harm on Gaza - something that Israeli statesmen must avoid (more on that later below).
With that said, calls for ‘‘ceasefire’’ are also quite ridiculous.
Ceasefire? After this massacre?
A lot of pundits and Western politicians don’t pause to think through the implications of a call for a ceasefire immediately after this incident.
Ceasefire now, would essentially mean that Israel does not get to respond with a military force and inflict punishment on terrorists involved in executing this attack.
What Israel needs to do before any ceasefire, is to wipe out all of the Hamas terrorists that it can reach - Israel needs retribution and revenge, before any possible ceasefire.
And besides, a ceasefire can never be an end in itself - it can be a tool to achieve a higher goal: peace.
But peace will not be possible as long as the terrorists that butchered hundreds of civilians and even went as far as to behead babies (President Biden was right to highlight this specific atrocity in his speech) are 1) alive, and 2) continue to hold power over Gaza.
Peace will only be possible when Palestinians in Gaza get new leaders to represent them - and that is possible only after Israel gets to wipe out the current barbarians in charge.
Political objectives of this attack.
First, it is important to distinguish Hamas (that rules Gaza) from Fatah (that governs the West Bank).
Fatah was pushed out of Gaza in 2006 (a year after Israel had removed its settlements and withdrawn from the territory) - after Hamas won the elections (and naturally, they have not held free and fair elections since then).
With total control over Gaza, Hamas turned the region into a base to prepare for a final showdown with Israel,
Hamas itself traces its roots back to 1987 (same as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad - another terrorist organization based in Gaza) when it emerged as a splinter group of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
The acronym "Hamas" stands for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic resistance movement.
Both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are sunni organizations - unlike Hizbollah (in Lebanon) - a shiite organization.
This is relevant, because although all three terrorist organizations have ties with Iran, the sunni Hamas and PIJ are not as close to Tehran as Hizbollah, and both have relatively more autonomy, and different political priorities.
But both still get funding and assistance from Iran’s Quds force.
Precise numbers are hard to come by, but a range of relatively more credible sources estimate that Hamas has around 20-25k members.
It is unclear how many are actual soldiers - but just in one attack, Hamas and PIJ lost 1,500 terrorists after crossing the border into Israel.
And it is certainly unlikely that most of the resources were spent on one attack.
Many Hamas leaders aren’t in Gaza - some (especially from the political wing) are in Qatar, and others are in Syria and Lebanon.
When it comes to the political objectives of this attack, there is an important caveat that we simply don’t know.
We can make reasonable speculations, but this attack came as a surprise even to some of the most sophisticated intel agencies in the world - like Mossad.
It is however clear that this was a well-planned complex operation that probably took months to prepare for - so one should avoid intellectual dishonesty and blame (as many Fox news pundits are quick to do) Biden’s release (a few weeks ago) of $6bn to Iran as the cause for this attack.
With that caveat out of the way, and given the timing of this attack, the most likely explanation is Hamas’s desire to ruin the prospect of Saudi - Israeli normalization.
But (and more on that later) it is the possibility of an over the top Israeli response - rather than initial Hamas attack - that could make it much harder for Saudis to conclude the normalization process.
Viability of a two-state solution after Hamas’s attack.
A lot of pundits have argued that with this barbaric and vicious attack Hamas did a disservice to Palestinian cause.
But we should not jump to that conclusion just yet.
Although Hamas itself is now surely finished (and this barbaric organization deserves to be wiped out from the face of this earth), whether this then means that more than 2 million Gaza residents are now doomed to be forever associated with this terrorist organization, remains to be seen.
It is important to note that once it came to power in 2006, Hamas was very good at getting rid of all dissent - there is no accurate gauge of the popularity of Hamas.
In addition, a lot will depend on the Israeli response.
Now, to be clear, the outrage felt by Israelis is fully justified and not only is it their right to wipe out this vicious terrorist organization, but they should, on this occasion, attempt to do so definitively.
With that said, Israel cannot stoop to the level of terrorists when responding to this attack.
International law is very clear on the point that collective punishment is not acceptable and is a war crime.
Laying a total siege on the city of 2 million people, and depriving the residents (hundreds of thousands of whom are women and children) of food and electricity, making it impossible for even the basic healthcare services to function, is simply not a legitimate response.
The Israeli defense minister calling all Gazans as ‘‘human animals’’ is also a clearly over the top behavior.
One can expect such rhetoric from a grieving ordinary Israeli, but not from a Minister of Defense.
When the US attacked ISIS, it did not lay a total humanitarian siege on Mosul in Iraq.
America also refrained from this move when conducting the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 - and remember that this was a war against a brutal regime that the US accused of a) harboring Al-Qaeda terrorists, and b) developing weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the US.
Israel is a close US/Western ally with a very sophisticated military and a civilized/well-educated society - Israeli leaders simply cannot afford to prosecute this fully justified war in a blatant violation of international law.
And this is where Gaza residents may ultimately (in the long-term) benefit from an Israeli overreaction - even though Hamas itself created a horrendous association for Palestinian cause, a continuous infliction of enormous collateral damage on innocent civilians may end up providing a push for renewed negotiations to attempt a two-state solution.
So then, it is all too premature to dismiss this possibility - the last time a serious attempt was made to negotiate a two-state solution was at the close of the Clinton administration in 2000.
The renewed spotlight on this war, and the plight of Palestinian civilians (that will be aired nonstop on the social media) may lead to yet another international push to embark upon a serious attempt for a two-state solution.
Intel and security failures.
There are two major national security failures in this attack: 1) Intel failure to anticipate the attack of such magnitude and complexity, and 2) Security failure to defend military bases from Hamas onslaught.
How could it be that one of the most sophisticated militaries of the world could not defend its military bases from Hamas militants that captured and/or destroyed nearly two dozen Israeli Merkava tanks?
Thus far, there has not been evidence of any light or heavy armored vehicles used by Hamas in this attack: no tanks or armored personnel carriers (like the Russian BTRs) were used by Hamas - they were mainly armed with assault rifles riding on the backs of pickup trucks (many have also crossed the border via motorized paragliders and small boats).
So then, how could a military base with tanks fail to: a) see attackers approaching, b) defend itself?
And even before that, how could such a multi-pronged and complex attack fall off Mossad’s (foreign intel agency) radar?
Indeed there have also been reports that the Egyptian intel agency warned their Israeli counterparts of ‘‘something big’’ being planned by Hamas, but that apparently, this was too vague and dismissed/not escalated to the ultimate leadership.
Now, it is very tempting (as many pundits already do so) to blame this on the ongoing political divisions within Israel, and the fact that the 70% of IDF’s resources were devoted towards dealing with security threats emanating from the West Bank (as a result of more than 450,000 Israeli settlers moving into the territory, and causing frequent clashes with local Palestinians).
But these are not very satisfactory explanations, for there is a failure of establishing a causal link.
True, the largely misguided judicial reforms did cause waves of protest movements, and dissent from senior generals (and refusal to serve from many reservists).
But this political context could (at least so far - without further causal link) account for poor political decisions only.
It is not clear how having subpar and unprofessional leaders in charge of security agencies could have had such a huge institutional impact at such a short period of time.
Why would the tensions and divisions at the highest political level, cause mid-level commanders and local officers fail to defend their bases and get their tanks captured?
Why would the bureaucracy of Israeli intel agencies fail to foresee and interpret key intel evidence?
Someone incompetent in charge of the agency does not also explain why a relevant officer failed at his job.
In addition, there is also clear evidence that the Israeli military could rapidly mobilize and get its act together at a very short notice - more than 300k reservists were successfully mobilized within 48 hours.
Such an impressive cold start capability is lacking even in most advanced NATO states.
Even Russia itself (in the middle of an ongoing war) took many weeks (more than a month) to mobilize its first wave of reservists in the fall of 2022.
This demonstrable efficiency of the Israeli state rebuts the common talking point that somehow, political divisions affected the capability of Israeli bureaucracy to such an extent that it rendered them incompetent in the face of an emergency.
The real truth and causes for this failure are likely to be very complex, and there will surely be official state inquiries and commissions looking at this failure - lessons learned will be important for all allies in the West.
The extent of Iran’s complicity.
That Iran backs Hamas politically, diplomatically, and financially, is clear.
That Iran furthermore arms Hamas with cheap rockets, missiles, drones and assault weapons is also clear and well-documented.
It is also evident that Iranian leadership was pleased to see Israeli defense forces getting caught off-guard - with such major intel failures and embarrassment of stolen tanks weakening the “threat display” and deterrence capabilities of Israel.
Indeed, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamanei (whilst denying Iran’s role in Hamas’s attack) praised the terrorists:
“We kiss the hands of those who planned the attack on the Zionist regime..”
All of the above is clear and well-backed.
But certainties end here.
It is not clear whether Iran actually coordinated and helped plan this particular attack.
Indeed, it even seems like many in the political leadership of Hamas (in exile) were also not in the loop.
So here, we need to distinguish between Iran’s general backing and support of Hamas from the possibility of Iran’s direct involvement in this particular attack.
And we need to be very careful because implications (of both correct and incorrect accusations) could be monumental, and could in fact lead to major regional interstate conflicts.
With that said, the direct evidence of Iran’s complicity is thus far pretty thin.
We have a Wall Street Journal report that claims direct, high-level involvement of Iran in this attack.
On the other hand:
1) No senior Israeli military or intel official, nor the US nor any other western military agency accused Iran of helping to plan and execute this attack.
2) The WSJ report itself is not very-well backed by evidence, and its specifics don’t make too much sense..
For example, there is a wild claim (made by WSJ’s sources) that Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs "attended at least two of the meetings" to help plan the attack.
Really?
Why would a senior bureaucrat in a public eye, a diplomat not directly involved with intel/security matters, attend such a meeting?
Iran is pretty good at keeping things secret, and even finding out spies within its own ranks.
It has good intel/counter-intel capabilities, and a robust security protocol.
The idea that a Minister of Foreign Affairs - someone who is closely watched by spy agencies of the the entire West - let alone Mossad - would attend such meetings is simply not plausible.
Only officials from the Quds force/intel agencies would attend such talks.
And besides, even if Iran was this foolish to allow for a direct involvement of its most senior diplomat, what would be the point?
What would be the utility of his involvement?
What insights would a senior diplomat bestow upon Hamas terrorists?
How to navigate paragliders?
How to disable border fence cameras?
Not credible.
3) The fact that Egyptian intel picked up some noise, whereas powerful agencies like the CIA, MI6, Mossad did not, is revealing.
It is telling when all agencies focused on Iran missed all of these signals and only one with a narrow focus was successful in picking up some vague signals.
In itself, this suggests a circumscribed and local nature of planning and operation in the run-up to the attack.
If Iran was truly behind direct planning of this attack, surely the aforementioned agencies would have picked up at least some intel?
In addition to these three main agencies with a huge focus on Iran, there are also Saudis - who regularly intercept intel on planned Iranian attacks.
The Saudis had a lot at stake here with the normalization talks.
Leaving aside the direct relationship with Israel, the security guarantee sought from the US was the crown jewel of incentives for MBS.
Surely they would have had all the interest in the world to spoil this attack and share any possible intel with the US and Israel.
Consider how much of a boost they would gain in stature, prestige and usefulness as an ally.
The political capital gained from helping to spoil this attack would have been immense.
(side note: it would also do more to whitewash their global standing than buying expensive soccer players and golf tournaments)
4) Consider the implications of believing the WSJ report and accepting its conclusions without much resistance: we would need to then believe that an agency like the CIA (an agency that was capable of acquiring intel on Russia’s planned invasion many months in advance) had analysts less capable than the researchers working at WSJ?
Are we really to believe that the evidence of this planned attack was so obvious that intel officers of Mossad (whose main job is to focus on Iran) missed the crucial evidence of this attack, and then WSJ was somehow able to produce such evidence within a day?
A lot of things simply don’t add up.
And then there is an issue of motive.
Sure, Iran is definitely interested in hurting Israel, causing chaos in the Middle East and preventing normalization between Riyadh and Tel-Aviv.
But at what cost?
Iran has never been in such an advantageous diplomatic and strategic situation as it is today.
It enjoys a budding alliance with Russia and China, it is normalizing relations with Saudis and the UAE, and it is on track to enjoy billions of recently available unfrozen cash - all at the time when it is confidently violating IAEA monitoring obligations, and reaching ever closer to a weapons grade enrichment levels (90%) with Russian S-400 air defense SAMs, and su-35 fighter jets (currently, in the pipeline for delivery) to defend their skies.
Why not cash in on these gains and enjoy the relative security and a de facto pass to continue acting in a way that further secures its core national security interests?
All of this is to say that Iran had a lot to lose from a sudden unfavorable change in the status quo.
Consider the implications from the outrage that would ensure if Iran would have been caught red-handed in planning these attacks.
Israel would surely secure America’s carte blanche to strike the core military infrastructure and nuclear facilities of Iran.
In fact, it is very likely that the US would join such campaigns - and all of this would happen before Tehran would have had enough time to fortify its skies with Russian gear.
With all that said, it is still too early in the conflict to say anything definitively, or rule out anything with complete confidence.
In Part II, we will discuss Israel’s military options (especially in light of more than 100 hostages and Hamas’s threat to execute them every time there is an air strike with no prior warning for civilians) and developing conflict with other Iranian proxies (and clashes with Hizbollah are already taking place).
We will also consider how this conflict may impact the war in Ukraine, and Russia’s own policy going forward.