Israel and Iran have shown a greater willingness to take risks and engage in conflict, but the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, seems to have been foiled in its ultimate goal.
A year after the devastating Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, the Middle East has undergone significant changes.
The Hamas terrorist group has been severely weakened, and its control over Gaza is unlikely to be restored. The Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon is also facing degradation due to precise Israeli ground operations. Despite Iran’s increased aggression, Israel’s robust missile defense systems have prevented its defeat.
Tensions remain high, indicating that the conflict is far from over.
Various regional players, such as the Houthi terror group in Yemen and Russian forces in Syria, could further destabilize the already volatile Middle East.
Due to Iran’s support for Islamic terror groups and direct attacks on Israeli territory, Brodsky believes Israel no longer seeks to limit its military actions to small, attrition-based strikes.
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“There is less tolerance for temporary solutions and agreements like the one with Hamas, where Israel provided funds in exchange for a semblance of peace,” Brodsky stated. “In hindsight, that was a costly mistake.”
“Israeli leaders are more willing to take risks in dealing with the Iranian threat.”
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from Ashkelon in southern Israel, on Oct. 8, 2023. Amir Cohen/Reuters
Many in Israel believe that the nation must accept greater risks in confronting Iran due to Tehran’s relentless efforts to undermine and ultimately eradicate Israel.
Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesperson for the Israeli Mission to the United Nations, told The Epoch Times that Iran’s continued support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis indicates its commitment to conflict with Israel above all else.
“Since April, Tehran has lost all credibility in its peace claims,” Harounoff stated.
“The Islamic Republic cannot advocate for peace while using proxies,” he added. “Its goal is Israel’s destruction.”
Harounoff emphasized that Israel’s fight is against the radical Islamist regime in Tehran and its proxies, not the people of Iran or Lebanon.
“Israel will defend its people and territory at all costs. The enemies of Israel are not the Lebanese or Iranian people…Israel knows that the clerical leaders in Tehran also terrorize their own citizens. Israel is acting in self-defense against those who seek its annihilation.”
Israel Maintains Strategic Position
Despite a greater willingness to engage in open conflict, fears of a regional war leading to Israel’s destruction have not materialized.
Immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks last year, there were concerns among experts and strategists that Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza could escalate to involve Lebanon and beyond, potentially putting Israel in a challenging multi-front war scenario.
“Israel’s nightmare has always been a multi-front war,” Kasapoglu stated.
Even minor attacks by Hezbollah could have significant repercussions by diverting Israeli military resources from countering Hamas in Gaza, he explained.
U.S. defense officials also expressed concerns about containing the threat from Lebanon to prevent Israel from being stretched too thin.
An Israeli soldier moves on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, on July 14, 2024.
(Tsafrir Abayov/AP Photo)
By focusing all its efforts on eliminating Hamas first, however, Israel appears to have successfully laid the groundwork to shift gears into a more protracted struggle to eliminate the Hezbollah threat on its northern border.
Paul Crespo, president of the Center for American Defense Studies think tank, said that Israel was effectively able to take the fight to both Hamas and Hezbollah by managing its operations to focus on each enemy consecutively.
“Israel knew Hezbollah needed to be hit hard, but decimating Hamas first was clearly the right move,” Crespo said.
Crespo, who previously served as a Marine officer and naval attache for the Defense Intelligence Agency, said that such a course of action played to the strengths of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), while mitigating the weakness of Israel’s relatively small size.
“The IDF is competent and powerful, but Israel is still a tiny nation. Fighting on two fronts would have been challenging,” he said.
An open question remains, Crespo said, as to whether Israel will now move to confront Iran in a more direct manner, or first seek to quash Hezbollah in Lebanon the way it has with Hamas.
Sam Kessler, a geopolitical analyst at the North Star Support Group risk advisory firm, said that it is “too early to tell” if Israel completely avoided stretching itself too thin, but that it had done well to disrupt Hamas and Hezbollah leadership before expanding its conflicts with the Iranian proxies.
“Israel is trained and prepared for a certain kind of war in the region, [but] the scenarios could change … as well as the impact from regional power vacuums that may occur too,” Kessler said.
He added that there was an added layer of complexity in Israel’s strategic decision-making, insofar as it needed to successfully manage the expectations of key allies like the United States, which it depends on for arms.
Yemen’s Shiite Huthi rebels shout slogans during a gathering to mobilise more fighters to battlefronts to fight pro-government forces, on June 18, 2017, in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images
Powder Keg Scenarios Still Possible
Proverbial powder keg scenarios are still possible, however, and Israel could find itself stretched thin if other regional powers decide to enter the fray between it and Iran’s myriad proxies.
There remains the issue of the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen who have successfully disrupted billions of dollars’ worth of commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and launched attacks against civil and military vessels alike.
Israel has thus far launched limited air strikes against targets in Yemen, but that situation could escalate quickly, particularly if the Houthis enhance their capabilities for targeting the Israeli homeland.
Likewise, there is the wild card of Russian influence in the region that recently reared its head.
Just a day before Iran launched some 180 missiles at Israel, the Islamist regime welcomed Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin as part of a wider strategic partnership that has aimed at developing projects in transportation, energy, agriculture, and other areas.
Days later, IDF authorities unveiled video footage of Russian-made weapons seized from Hezbollah fighters’ homes in Lebanon including anti-tank rockets.
Israel says that such weapons are smuggled into Lebanon from war-torn Syria to the north, where Russia has maintained a military presence for the last decade.
Soon thereafter, an Israeli strike on munitions warehouses and tunnels in Syria raised fears of an international incident, as Russian air defense system went to work bringing Israeli missiles down.
Russia has subsequently suggested that its citizens evacuate both Israel and Lebanon.
Normalization Persists
Despite everything, something like a push towards normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors continues.
The effort to begin genuine relations between Israel and its neighbors, which began with the Trump-era Abraham Accords, appears to have been “only delayed” by Oct. 7, and not destroyed, according to Brodsky.
He said that the attacks “crystallized the threat from [Iran] and its proxies,” demonstrating the destabilizing influence of Iran in the eyes of the Arab states, rather than turning them against Israel outright.
“Left unchanged is the desire by Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, which is a defeat for Iran’s regime in itself as the Oct. 7 massacre was aimed to thwart normalization,” he said.
To that end, though Israel may have been badly bloodied by Oct. 7, and the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape forever altered, the ultimate goal of those terror attacks have failed, for now.
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