October 7th and September 11th
The eleven month anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel passed two days ago and in two more days we will reach the twenty-third anniversary of the September 11th Attacks on America.
Both these events have become so infamous that they are now among the tiny handful that can easily be identified merely by the date on which they occurred, and they are both likely to be remembered for their world historic significance. The 2001 attacks unleashed a long series of devastating Middle Eastern wars, and last year’s Hamas attack now threatens to do the same, perhaps drawing in the United States. There are differences as well as some significant parallels, but taken together they may have combined consequences that are too controversial to be widely discussed.
From almost the first hours after the huge October raid by Gaza militants, Israeli officials and their media allies had declared that the attack was Israel’s own 9/11, and I believe that in many respects that analogy is a very apt one.
Back in 2001, the newly installed administration of President George W. Bush had paid little attention to foreign affairs and almost none to the Middle East, with its focus overwhelmingly upon domestic political projects. Bush had actively courted Muslim support during his 2000 campaign while promising Americans that he would pursue a “humble” foreign policy. All of these plans were transformed in a single day as tens of millions of Americans watched the towers of our World Trade Center collapse and the newscasters reported that the Pentagon had also been attacked and seriously damaged.
Not since the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941 had America suffered such an enemy assault on its own soil, and nearly 3,000 Americans were dead, so major military retaliation was inevitable. But with our top leaders reeling in dismay and confusion, uncertain exactly how to respond, a tight network of fervently pro-Israel Neocons situated in various sub-Cabinet positions quickly sprang into action. These individuals took advantage of the sudden, unexpected crisis to convince their superiors to undertake a long-planned agenda of regime change operations and wars across much of the Middle East and other portions of the Muslim world, a project largely intended to reshape that region for the benefit of Israel.
The 9/11 Attacks themselves had inflicted relatively minor injury upon America. But the gigantic, ideologically-driven overreaction promoted by extremist elements of the Bush Administration severely damaged our national interests and global reputation, inflicting losses vastly greater than anything that a few hijacked jetliners could possibly have done.
The Hamas raid against Israel seemed to follow a remarkably similar trajectory. At the time it occurred, Israelis were entirely focused upon domestic issues, especially a very bitter ideological battle over judicial reform between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political opponents, with almost no one paying any attention to the simmering conflict with the Palestinians, least of all the ones in quiet Gaza. Just as the American people and its leaders had assumed that our country was protected from any significant foreign attack by two wide oceans, the Israelis had put their faith in the elaborate, high-tech defenses they had erected around the besieged Gaza enclave at the cost of a half-billion dollars, believing that these were completely impenetrable.
Thus, when the successful attack came, more than a hundred times larger than any previous Hamas incursion, it struck like a bolt out of the blue, and the Israeli government response was totally disorganized and completely ineffective, with panic-stricken, trigger-happy IDF troops accounting for a large fraction of all the resulting civilian deaths, as Apache attack helicopters were ordered to blast anything that moved. More Israelis died in that 24-hour period than had fallen in all the major military battles of the country’s previous half-century of wars, while well over 200 Israelis were captured and carried back to Gaza, with Hamas intending to trade them for the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners long held by Israel without charges or trials.
The crucial myth of Israeli military invincibility that had been constructed at enormous effort over three generations was shattered within hours, as was the even stronger myth of the brilliance of Israeli surveillance and intelligence capabilities. For more than seventy years, the
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