Israel’s challenges
From hour to hour a game is played on a bloody chessboard. And the most difficult moves fall precisely to the Jewish state in check. Guiglia's notebook
Barbarians, but not naive. With the massacre of the innocents on 7 October, Hamas updated the famous thought of the Prussian general and military strategist von Clausewitz in the 19th century: terrorism is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means.
Now that the fires of war and threats of intervention are raging in the Middle East, we can understand how that vile massacre, planned by Islamic-inspired attackers, has become a serious detonator of hatred and violence. The political act that Hamas was looking for: blood must be blood.
IRAN'S WARNING, ISRAEL'S RESPONSE
The warning from the theocratic regime in Iran is alarming, according to which "the crisis may become uncontrollable". “If attacked, we will strike Tehran,” Tel Aviv immediately responds, while the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threatens destructive consequences for Hezbollah and Lebanon if this pro-Iranian militia decides to promote a “total war”.
THE UNITED STATES PLACES ISRAEL ON WARNING
But the United States also warns the enemies of the Jewish State, ensuring "appropriate actions" against groups or countries that want to "expand this conflict to their advantage", as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. And the American authorities, who have already moved ships and planes to the eastern Mediterranean to strengthen the military presence of deterrence in the region, speak of a "risk of escalation". The echo of weapons and large-scale maneuvers dominates the phone call between Pope Francis and the US president, Joe Biden, to identify a "path to peace".
WAR AND CIVILIANS
Even regardless of how other Arab countries react (but the USA has already shot down three missiles coming from Yemen against Israel), the development of this incandescent conflict passes from the over 200 innocent people, including children, in the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and from the announced invasion of Israel to strike those who struck it.
Hostages and invasion, risk for Israeli and Palestinian civilians, given that no war action can be so "surgical" as to spare civilians. Especially if this is precisely what Hamas has deliberately provoked: pushing Israel into reactions that the West itself, large, important, but only ally, could not accept.
From hour to hour, therefore, a game is played on a bloody chessboard. And the most difficult moves fall precisely to the Jewish state in check.
Published in L'Arena di Verona, Il Giornale di Vicenza and Bresciaoggi
www.federicoguiglia.com
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/le-sfide-di-israele/ on Wed, 25 Oct 2023 05:45:54 +0000.