Almost a year ago (October 7, 2023), Hamas burst through the border fences and raided Israel. The fighters massacred defenceless citizens, they raped, and they took 250 hostages. About 1200 Israelis were killed.
Gaza, controlled by Hamas, had been fading from international attention. Israel was successfully strengthening ties around the Middle East.
All that abruptly changed. Hamas and the plight of the Palestinians moved to centre stage.
Hamas had deliberately provoked a response. Israel obliged and then went too far with brutal, sustained and overwhelming force. It claims to seek to wipe out Hamas, a virtually impossible goal.
Israel had the chance — initially as the aggrieved party in the eyes of many — to win international sympathy. That opportunity was soon blown up as it destroyed much of Gaza. An estimated 40,000-plus civilians have been killed.
The immediate international fear was that the conflict would escalate. Hizbollah, Iranian-backed like Hamas, would join the conflict from Lebanon. Iran itself could become entangled as could the United States.
The conflict has served the personal interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the attitudes of his hard-right fundamentalist allies.
The world, including New Zealand, sought cease-fires amid the Gaza bloodshed. Unfortunately, any reasonable truce did not suit Mr Netanyahu or Hamas.
At least, the conflict was mostly confined. Iran and Israel largely shadowed-boxed. Hizbollah fired rockets as usual, and an Israeli-settled area bordering Lebanon was evacuated.
Its air strikes across southern Lebanon and Beirut have killed about 2000 people. More than a million people have been displaced and Israeli forces are massed for a "limited" action.
Iran, for credibility’s sake, felt compelled to attack Israel, firing nearly 200 ballistic missiles. The world anxiously awaits Israel's threatened response.
Already, oil prices have risen, both because of the instability and because Israel could attack Iranian oil installations. The United States is frantically trying to limit Mr Netanyahu's bellicosity. He has a history of being assertive enough to ignore warnings from the US, its major arms supplier.
The only way the United States, still backing Israel, can restrain Mr Netanyahu is by restricting that military support. The time has come for President Joe Biden to apply that pressure.
New Zealand’s foreign minister Winston Peters has played a sensible moderate game, even as he and this country are fundamentally irrelevant. In the wake of this week's Iranian missile attack, he said "maximum restraint and diplomatic solutions are essential".
Last month New Zealand, unlike its Five Eyes partners and despite some wording reservations, voted for a United Nations resolution which called on Israel to end its "unlawful" presence in occupied Palestinian territory. The US opposed the resolution, and the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia abstained.
The United States, meanwhile, has strengthened its forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. It will be dreading the possibility of being drawn into an Israeli/Iran conflict.
As the G7 nations said in a statement yesterday: "A dangerous cycle of attacks and retaliation risks fuelling uncontrollable escalation in the Middle East, which is in no-one's interest. Therefore, we call on all regional players to act responsibly and with restraint."
In endeavouring to understand Israel, the world should not underestimate the impact of last year’s October 7 attack. An already embattled Israel was horrified, and its siege mentality magnified. The implications of the battle cry to destroy Israel from "from the river to the sea" were plain to see.
Lasting peace, once a faint possibility under a two-state solution, appears further away than ever. Vested interests and mounting fear, hatred and extremism drown out the voices for compromise and peace.
