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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
It is not yet clear whether the Gaza ceasefire will be implemented. But, if the war was really ending, what did it mean to the world?
For Israel, the impact seems double-edged. The country’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, could be argued to have turned a national disaster into a strategic victory. Hamas has been destroyed, if not completely destroyed. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, part of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” has also been weakened. Iran and Israel exchanged live fire. But most of Iran’s missiles have failed to penetrate the defenses of Israel and its allies — and the Islamic Republic is in a weaker position than it has been in decades.
Strategically, Israel is emerging from that conflict as the Middle East’s superpower – where its military deterrence is complete and its enemies are in disarray. But by resisting that, Israel has suffered a serious reputational loss. 46,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks and Gaza has been destroyed. Netanyahu is on trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court – which puts him in the same legal bracket as Vladimir Putin. As Russia’s leader, Netanyahu will now find it increasingly difficult to travel internationally.
Israel’s popularity has declined in international opinion polls. Young people – even in the US – are now more hostile to the country. Pew survey “Young Americans are more likely to sympathize with the people of Palestine than with the people of Israel,” he said in April. A third of adults under 30 sympathize entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people, compared to 14 percent with Israel.
Israelis hope that attitudes will soften over time – especially if peace is restored. Netanyahu and his allies believe that friends in the White House are more important than enemies on American campuses.
But Trump’s friendship may not be a prerequisite. There is much consternation among Israelis that the incoming US administration is behind the cease-fire and ceasefire deal negotiated by the Biden White House. But hopes in Israel that Trump would be given a free hand to deal with the Palestinians as he sees fit have been dashed.
Trump’s decision to push for peace now may reflect two main issues. The first is the agreement and willingness to release the hostages. The second – while Israel is strongly supported by the Republican right – is not the only important country in the region. Trump’s first overseas trip in his first term as president was to Saudi Arabia.
The incoming Trump administration is now likely to push for normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia — a key goal of the Biden administration. Perhaps, this offers hope to the Palestinians, as it is widely believed that Saudi Arabia’s price for normalization will be tangible progress towards a Palestinian state. However, this may be a price the Israelis are unwilling to pay, meaning that the Saudi-Israeli negotiations remain a major mess.
The war in Gaza had global, as well as regional, significance. One of the reasons why the US and its Western allies are reluctant to put too much pressure on Israel is that they believe that Iran is a common enemy. Over the past year, Western officials have been increasingly vocal about what they believe is a global struggle against an “axis of enemies” made up of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
By weakening Iran, Israel has weakened that axis. The fall of Syria’s Assad regime, in large part, precipitated Israel’s devastating offensive against Bashar al-Assad’s key ally, Hezbollah.
The fall of Assad’s power was a huge blow to both Iran and Russia, who intervened militarily against him. Russia has been using Syria as a base for power projection and now it needs to back off. Paradoxically, Israel itself has reacted more cautiously to Assad’s fall than many in the West, fearing that jihadist forces will step into the power vacuum in Syria.
The latest casualty of the Gaza war is the “international rules-based order” promoted by the Biden administration. Sympathy and support for Israel since the October 7 attacks has led the US to tolerate repeated violations of international humanitarian law during Israel’s attack on Gaza. Putting the rules-based order back together could be as difficult as the physical reconstruction of Gaza.
