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Why Hamas's Attack Will Change Israel As We Know It

Why Hamas's Attack Will Change Israel As We Know It

SDEROT, ISRAEL - OCTOBER 12: Israeli artillery fire rounds into the Gaza Strip from the border on October 12, 2023 near Sderot, Israel. Israel has sealed off Gaza and conducted airstrikes on Palestinian territory after an attack by Hamas killed hundreds and took more than 100 hostages. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza by land, sea, and air, killing over 700 people and wounding more than 2000. Israeli soldiers and civilians have also been taken hostage by Hamas and moved into Gaza. The attack prompted a declaration of war by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

OPINION — Many analysts of global affairs play fast and loose with the term “game changer.” My somewhat curmudgeonly analysis of events like UAE-Israel normalization or the assassination of Iran’s Quds Force Chief Qassem Soleimani argued that the strategic environment, from Israel’s perspective at least, would remain largely unchanged after those events. What happened in Israel on October 7, 2023 is different.

What makes the brutal Hamas rampage in Israel distinct from other events is that is has fundamentally altered Jerusalem’s perception. Before UAE-Israel normalization, under-the-table cooperation had existed between the two countries for decades and the 1978 Egypt-Israel peace accord after decades of conflict was obviously a more significant shift in dynamics. In terms of the assassination of Soleimani, in years past the U.S. had assassinated many dangerous leaders of terror organizations and Israel had taken out Iranian nuclear scientists; the U.S.’s 2020 UAV strike in Baghdad may have been the more easily attributable and the target was a higher profile official than usual, but this was in a sense “more of the same.” Hamas’s recent terror attack which unleashed unspeakable horrors on the Israeli population, including burning people alive, decapitating infants, and other atrocities, changed how Israelis see their Gazan neighbors.

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