If this is Israel’s 9/11, it must not fall into the Osama bin Laden trap

It’s been called Israel’s 9/11, and it’s clear to see why. An unprecedented invasion of Israeli territory by Hamas, the murder of the most Jewish people on a single day since the Holocaust, the failure of the intelligence services and defence force to protect the people against terrorists with improvised weaponry…

Yet if Israel is to survive, prosper and live in security, as its friends would wish for it, its leaders cannot afford to fall into the same cynical traps that were laid for the United States by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda back in 2001.

Israel must not simply lash out in revenge; it must remain within the rules of war and international conventions on the treatment of civilians; and it must ensure that, heinous and barbaric as these assaults have been, its response is decisive but still proportionate. Israel needs not only to win this war – but also to retain the moral high ground and the support of its allies.

It seems almost forgotten now that bin Laden didn’t simply want to murder people and humiliate America. He wanted to provoke an epoch-making war between the West and Islam – a global clash of cultures. And, sad to say, president George W Bush gave bin Laden exactly what he wanted.

Then, as with Israel now, there was almost universal condemnation of the attacks on New York and Washington. The United Nations was united in its support for America. Nato triggered its Article 5 procedures – an attack on one is an attack on all. America, again as with the situation in Israel today, was united in shock, grief and that desire for retribution.

Yet America was caught in the traps, and became engaged upon an unwinnable war that only ended two years ago, and may be counted a failure.

Asymmetric warfare – the most expensive and technically advanced systems on earth versus guys on mopeds and in Toyota pick-ups with RPGs – was never going to succeed. When the US Air Force pounded the Tora Bora mountains with “daisy-cutter” munitions, the most destructive short of nuclear warfare, bin Laden, al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors had long since legged it and melted away.

The UN-sponsored ground force operations enjoyed some success for a while, but the war of attrition became one that favoured the Taliban, as the British discovered in Helmand. The Afghan war, UN-approved, became muddled in the minds of some with the later, illegal, invasion of Iraq. Public opinion wearied; political resolve weakened. Eventually, president Trump did a deal with them and, in effect, admitted defeat. President Biden completed the retreat.

Israel must learn from these blunders, and indeed from all the previous operations undertaken in the Palestinian Operations that have enjoyed success, but never permanently removed the threat of terrorism and provided security for the people of Israel.

Like the United States – and partly because of America’s traditional support for Israel – Israel cannot be destroyed by the likes of Hamas, but it can be drawn into a costly, unending conflict that drains its resources and its morale, brave and determined as its people are never again to face destruction. But the “defeat” of Hamas won’t be achieved by carpet-bombing and starving Palestinians.

The objection to the Israeli impulse to massive violent reaction isn’t that it’s cruel or breaks international humanitarian law, but that it simply won’t work – and, indeed, plays right into the hands of Hamas and their Iranian sponsors. The Palestinians cannot be starved into submission because they have no way of handing over either the Hamas territories or the hostages. They can’t even surrender.

Neither Hamas nor the Iranian ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guards care much for the Palestinians and their cause. They are being used for other, geo-political and ideological ends. The Hamas leaders are most likely well protected from Israeli bombardment, and quite possibly absent from Gaza. The Iranians can sleep safe in their beds in Tehran and other bases while the Palestinians fight and die on their behalf.

If Gaza is turned to rubble, then Israeli bombers, tanks and artillery will be useless, and the war will be protracted. It will spread to the north of Israel and the West Bank when Hezbollah, another puppet of Iran, decide the moment is right to open up new fronts. Israel’s successful attempts to make peace settlements with Arab and Muslim nations, most recently the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, as part of a wider Middle East diplomatic architecture will be smashed. Iran will succeed in finally preventing an Israeli-Saudi Arabian reconciliation, and thus a potentially powerful anti-Tehran alliance.

And yet we see even now, at the UN, at the Labour Party conference, and on the streets of London and elsewhere, this conflict being played, out – between Western values and that perversion of Islam promoted by Hamas.

This is just the same as the conflict bin Laden dreamed of. This time, it is being fomented by Iran and Hamas because, well, it’s what they do. They seek conflict, with the West and regional rivals, such as Saudi Arabia, and they make wars where other people pay the price. Pitiless terror, barbaric rule, hostage taking and vicious explicit propaganda are their preferred methods of warfare.

So, too, did so-called Islamic State. That is what happened to Afghanistan, in Iraq and Syria, and in Yemen – proxy wars. A civilised democracy such as Israel cannot descend to their level.

It’s worth remembering that the search for bin Laden in Afghanistan failed, and he was only captured many years later holed up in Pakistan, hiding “in plain sight”, thanks to digital surveillance and intelligence work. It is worth remembering, too, that Israel has rarely known peace, but when it has, it has been after historic peace accords have broken the cycle of violence.

Israel has made lasting settlements and gained recognition and economic cooperation with former enemies that once seemed impossible – Egypt, Jordan and in the recent Abraham Accords with the UAE and others.

Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to the UN last month to show them his vision for regional prosperity based on a network of such relationships based on peace. Sooner or later he will need to do the same, not with Hamas – but with the Palestinian people.