Cornelius AdebahrNonresident fellow at Carnegie Europe
One would certainly hope that no one benefits from this heinous, inhumane act of terrorism—at least, not in the long run. Yet, the world is a cruel place, and justice is not always served, so some people will for sure see their fortunes rise, extremist leaders and arms manufacturers among them.
That said, a more sober analysis warrants caution rather than blind revenge. If anything, the quickly deployed metaphor of “Israel’s 9/11” not only points to the enormous intelligence failure that left the Jewish State woefully unprepared. It also holds important lessons for what to do next. Much as the United States had every right—and most of the world’s support—to strike back against the terrorists, it squandered more than just trillions of dollars and lots of global goodwill with its ensuing military campaign. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which killed nearly 300,000 people, mainly civilians, also concentrated American minds and materiel on one specific world region, allowing China to rise largely unimpeded to become today Washington’s formidable rival.
Israel, therefore, would be well-advised, despite the shock, grief, and righteous repugnance, to measure its response and to think of the long term. It may “win” the war against Hamas, like the United States quickly defeated the Taliban and unseated Iraq’s dictator. Still, where it wants to be in twenty years should determine what it does next.
Muriel AsseburgSenior Fellow in the Africa and Middle East Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP)
It is much too early to tell who will, in the end, come out on top and benefit from this round of war that was initiated by Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood surprise attack and that holds the potential of a large regional conflagration and massive destruction.
For now, radicalism has triumphed. It is the zero-sum logic that dominates. On the one hand, the images of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad overcoming the border fence, infiltrating military bases in Israel, and conquering and destroying tanks have evoked admiration by many on the social media and in the Arab street. Satisfaction with the humiliation of Israel’s military and the revelation of its vulnerability has made people belittle the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians. Armed struggle is celebrated as the only viable approach to liberating Palestine.
On the other hand, in the United States and European capitals, many leaders and politicians have positioned themselves unequivocally on Israel’s side, echoing the need for retaliation and military victory, with little consideration for the impact on Gaza’s civilians. Palestinians are once again perceived first and foremost as terrorists.
This “with us or against us” approach leaves Israelis, Palestinians, and others who struggle for peaceful conflict transformation, equal rights, and co-existence, on their own.
Nathan BrownProfessor of political science at George Washington University
It is unclear who will benefit from Hamas’s stunning initiative—and that may be precisely the point.
There are already clear losers: Israeli civilians killed; Gazans under even more intensive siege; Israeli leaders humiliated; irrelevant leaders in Ramallah; American diplomats with plans in shambles.
And a modus vivendi may have died. For over fifteen years, Israel and Hamas have negotiated a set of terms for Gaza, using brutal violence to adjust but not abandon those arrangements. But only Israel saw the result as indefinite. By contrast, Gazans paid a very high price, and Hamas found itself unable to live up to its self-proclaimed mission as a resistance movement.
And that has led some within Hamas to throw caution to the wind. Their short-term success is real, but now what? Hamas seems to be acting more on the basis of a prayer than a plan. And they are not alone. Will Israel reoccupy Gaza? With what end in mind? Will any of Israel’s hardened camps change their views? Will Hamas survive and if so, in what form? Will Palestinians cheering today relapse into powerless despair tomorrow?
Unintended consequences rather than tactical boldness will determine who—if anyone—will benefit from Hamas’s gamble.
Caroline de GruyterEuropean affairs correspondent for NRC Handelsblad
At this stage it is hard to see anyone benefitting from this war. Israelis and Palestinians themselves don’t stand to gain anything from violence and escalation—but some outside parties will undoubtedly try to benefit. We all know who they are.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of several conflicts in the world that was never solved and over the years became more or less frozen. It has been inflicting suffering on many, flaring up from time to time, but demanding too many compromises and too much flexibility from those involved to be resolved once and for all.
The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld called such conflicts “low intensity conflicts.” In the 1990s, he advised armies to abandon their classical war doctrines and go into policing. Now that the world is changing once more, and the balance of power is shifting both in the region and globally, suddenly these conflicts start thawing and heavy fighting starts again. We see this in Israel and Palestine. We saw it in Nagorno-Karabakh a few weeks ago. Bosnia and Kosovo are on the brink. Sadly, these examples remind us that there is nothing better than real solutions and genuine peace—because from this, at least, many people ultimately do benefit.
Kawa HassanNonresident fellow with the Middle East and North Africa program at The Stimson Center
This audacious attack by Hamas marks the end of the classic confrontation between Israel and Palestinian factions. A new Middle East is emerging where only one red line remains to be crossed: an all-out, direct regional war between Israel and the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance.”
One of the hard lessons of October 7 was the sense of sham stability in Middle East, and the failure of imagination and how the lack of a solution to the Palestinian cause could bring the region to the brink of an abyss.
Just two weeks ago U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan confidently said: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Should the doomsday scenario of a regional confrontation come to pass, it will spell geopolitical and humanitarian disasters for the Middle East and beyond.
The euphoria of the blitzkrieg and destruction of Gaza will almost certainly radicalize new generations in the region and in the West. This dynamic is a godsend for terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, and new iterations of violent extremism.
Russia also benefits from this seismic shift as Western allies will be over-stretched to continue supporting Ukraine militarily and financially.
François HeisbourgSpecial advisor at Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique
At this stage, Iran is a strategic beneficiary: The accession of Saudi Arabia of the Abraham accords has likely been derailed. Qatar, a prime supporter of Hamas, may be quietly savoring its revenge against its Arab competitors in the Gulf. Turkey, a friend of the Muslim Brotherhood, also comes out as a beneficiary relative to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Having expertly pulled off its murderous strategic surprise, Hamas is now riding high at the expense of a senile and impotent Palestinian Authority. Although the Hamas infrastructure in Gaza will be shattered in the coming weeks, the terrorist group will live to kill again, if need be from exile.
As of now, Russia will likely benefit from the sidelining of the war in Ukraine. China basks in the thus far unbankable glow of being cast as a potential mediator.
The United States, which relinquished its role as the strategic prime mover in the region after the so-called red-line crisis of 2013, when it did not intervene in the war in Syria, may reaffirm its primacy. This could reinforce U.S. credibility in Europe. Indeed, there is some talk in Washington of coupling military assistance to Israel and Ukraine.
A word of caution: All of the above is subject to a brutal change if Hezbollah, supported by Iran, were to enter the war.
Hugh LovattSenior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations
This horrendous round of violence offers only short-term illusions of victory.
After overwhelming Israeli towns and military bases during its lightening offensive, Hamas may be experiencing a sense of euphoria. Despite the violent Israeli reprisal that Gaza’s population is enduring because of its actions, the Islamist group appears to have bolstered its standing among the Arab public, and the many Palestinians that are increasingly supportive of armed struggle. This is especially true in the West Bank, where Palestinians are enduring the bloodiest year since the end of the Second Intifada.
But Hamas’s future looks bleak. Israel is determined to eradicate it from Gaza and hunt down senior leaders. For Israel, too, any sense of victory will be short-lived. Should it succeed in exacting vengeance on Hamas, it will be left with a broken Gaza Strip with no obvious exit strategy. To avoid a security and governance vacuum, it will have to either govern the Strip itself, as was the case prior to the Oslo Accords; or bring back a brittle and discredited Palestinian Authority which will struggle to impose its writ. Either option will create new drivers of political instability and insecurity.
Aaron David MillerSenior fellow in the America Statecraft Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
It’s impossible to provide a final accounting on who has benefitted from the October 7 brutal Hamas assault on Israel. We’re still in very early days of a crisis that can take many twists and turns which can easily turn winners into losers—especially Hamas, whose actions may well trigger a massive Israeli attack in Gaza that could demolish its authority and destroy its leadership.
But if the conflict ended today, the beneficiaries would be crystal clear. First, Hamas. It handed the Israelis a monumental intelligence failure. It restored the centrality of the Palestinian issue in the region and perhaps in the international community. It has taken hostages that can be traded for Palestinian prisoners—a deeply emotional issue on the Palestinian street that could boost Hamas’s prestige. It has reinforced the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority as feckless bystanders and inflicted the greatest amount of pain and suffering on Israeli civilians by any Palestinian group in the history of Israel.
Second, Iran, whose support of Hamas allows it a window into the Arab-Israeli conflict through which it can project its influence and weaken Israel. It has clearly benefitted from the Hamas attack which has eroded Israel’s deterrence and constrained Israeli-Saudi normalization and placed Iran in the dock. But like Hamas, Iran’s gains could erode if Israel succeeds in weakening the Hamas hold in Gaza or if the conflict broadens and leads to a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran.
Finally, the third winner is the Israeli protest movement. It is inconceivable that an Israeli government that presided over the worst intelligence failure and terror attack in Israel’s history will have the credibility to ram through an effort to undermine the independence of Israel’s judiciary and threaten its democracy. Indeed, there is talk of the formation of a National Unity Government that would further bury the judicial overhaul. Winners are winners until they become losers; and Hamas and Iran’s gains may well prove pyrrhic.
Pol MorillasDirector of the Barcelona Center for International Affairs (CIDOB)
No one can benefit from a war that could potentially lead to further local, regional, and global instability. The death toll following the terrorist attacks in Israel has reached unprecedented levels, and the civilian population in Gaza will severely suffer from Israel’s offensive there.
Globally, a new-old war front has reopened, nearly two years into the suffering in Ukraine after Russia’s attack. The prospects for the global concentration for peace and security, either through the collaboration between great powers or in multilateral institutions, are nil. This cannot be good news for anyone.
The EU also has a lot to lose from the reigniting of an old conflict. The Middle East Peace Process is one of the oldest aspects of European foreign policy and diplomacy. Back in time, conscious that other actors, particularly the United States, had a lot more to say and do about it, the EU’s former foreign policy chief Javier Solana thought that the best the EU could do was to build the “deposits for peace”—or, in other words, have actions that the EU could put forward to support peace and dialogue, while maintaining a clear position based on the two-state solution.
The response to the Hamas-Israel war has not reflected or capitalized on the EU’s traditional position. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come.” This is unfortunate and not in line with agreed language in the historic European Council conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process.
The EU’s position in the conflict needs to take into account the nature and scale of Israel’s response, and Brussels cannot support the inappropriate use of force. Condemnation in the strongest terms of the terrorist attacks is necessary, but the EU should not send contradictory signals about the need to work for peace on the one hand and escalation on the other.
Nor should it send contradictory signs on the cancellation of aid to Palestine either, because it is precisely on this front that its credibility as a foreign policy actor is often based. The EU has never had an easy relationship with the use of power in global affairs, so the “language of power” today should remain consistent with the union’s traditional stance as a global actor.
Marwan MuasherVice president for studies in the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Hamas operation has to be seen within the context of the Israeli occupation and the lack of any political horizon for the last ten years. Gaza has been practically a big prison since the Israeli occupation of 1967. Under these circumstances, the Hamas operation is an expression of extreme despair rather than an attempt to start a political process.
Nevertheless, the Palestinians in Gaza will pay a huge price, one they have consistently been paying for many years. Israel has had a major offensive on Gaza in 2006, 2009, 2014, 2021, and now. Thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed as a result of these operations. Needless to say, the targeting of civilians by both sides should not be condoned.
The other big loser is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is probably gone, whether soon or a few months from now. The Israeli public will blame him for his weak leadership and inability to predict this operation, much like it did with the Israeli government of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan in the aftermath of the 1973 war.
A third loser is the Saudi-U.S. negotiations to join the Abraham Accords. The Hamas operation has shown that reaching peace agreements between Israel and Arab states without doing the same with the Palestinians is a myth that will not bring peace.
Winners? This is the Middle East. There are no winners as of yet. For now, Hamas has certainly gained ground among the Arab public, which regards it as having stood up to the mighty Israeli army. As long as the international community does not internalize the fact that the Israeli occupation, the longest in modern history, needs to end, the killing will continue on both sides.
Marc PieriniSenior fellow at Carnegie Europe
With the tragedy unfolding since October 7, the Hamas leadership and the Netanyahu government have entered a spiral of violence with no political benefit in sight. The number of victims will inevitably increase as retaliation and counterattacks take place. Ordinary citizens, women, children, the elderly. and the poor are the most impacted on both sides.
Abhorrent as it is, the Hamas attack will reverberate for a very long time across Muslim countries, especially among the youth. Because it was unimaginable, it will fan anti-Israeli narratives, which in turn will influence political leaders.
This will result in political embarrassment for those Arab countries having treaties or agreements with Israel (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco). Those in the process of crafting such agreements (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) will see negotiations freeze, if not collapse altogether.
Countries supporting Hamas either politically (Turkey) or financially (Qatar) will find it difficult to play a diplomatic role in ending the war, as the call for a two-state solution will remain inaudible. Only Iran, a long-time supporter of Hamas and archenemy of Israel, may find a short-term political gain in the current chaos, but even that is not certain.
Further afield, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the EU will struggle to balance their support to Israel and the search for a lasting solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Shimon SteinFormer Israeli ambassador to Germany
I wish I could respond in an unequivocal manner to many other questions relating to the current war and its possible ramifications as I can respond to the question posed.
After the horrific massacre on civilians, an unimageable number of innocent civilians that were killed in cold blood and injured, in addition to children, elderly women, and men that were kidnapped, it is clear who the prime losers are. The longer the war lasts, the more losers are unfortunately to be expected.
Hamas believes that the operation it launched will be a step toward its long-term goal—the destruction of Israel by means of terror. They never were and never will be a partner for any negotiation to ultimately resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as long as they don’t renounce terror, accept the 1995 Oslo Accords, and recognize the right of Israel to exist. They believe they have set an example for the continued struggle of the Palestinian people. They are absolutely wrong.
In addition to Hamas, other members of members of the “Axis of Resistance”—the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Iran—believe that the horrific act of terror serves their interests. Israel has no choice but to win the war that was imposed on it. The international community has to demonstrate its unequivocal and continued condemnation of any form of terror.
Maha YahyaDirector of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center
For decades, a fallacy has underpinned regional and international decisionmaking. It is that stability is achievable whilst maintaining an entire population under brutal occupation, stripped of their rights. The signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and some Arab countries crystallized this policy signaling the abandonment of the 2002 Arab Peace Plan based on the exchange of land for peace.
These developments also opened the door for the Islamic Republic of Iran to step in more strongly and up its claim as the defender of Palestinians and of the holy sites of Jerusalem, and further empowered the nihilistic position that nothing less than the destruction of Israel is acceptable.
Through its involvement with Hamas and others, Iran has asserted its capacity once more to have a significant impact far beyond its borders. With the Palestinian Liberation Organization now in shambles, Hamas has also asserted itself as the actor most capable of upending the status quo.
Today, this fallacy is also underpinning international support for Israel’s response to the horrific attacks against its citizens. We can hear the drums of war as Israel metes out, with impunity, a collective punishment to more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza who have lived under siege for the past twenty years. A ground invasion may trigger an expansion of the conflict into neighboring countries and possibly beyond.
With no political horizon and no just solution in sight, a zero-sum game of mutual destruction is prevailing. Now is the time to stop this and reclaim the political initiative for a just and sustainable peace.
