Israel is suffering an unprecedented attack since Syria and Egypt breached its defenses 50 years ago, triggering a war that traumatized the country. On October 6, 1973, the Arab armies took advantage of the Yom Kippur holiday, the most sacred in the Jewish calendar, to attack.
Now Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militias have done it from the Gaza Strip. Live television images leave no doubt about the collapse of Israeli defenses around the strip and the inability of anti-missile defenses to stop the barrage of rockets that hit the suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Hiding in shelters, located in the basements of their own homes, and listening to the voices of Palestinian militiamen upstairs, Israeli citizens have gone live on television to narrate the anguish they suffered and shock the entire nation.
There is also no precedent for such a massive attack, by land, sea and air, nor so well coordinated. And no one can now explain how it is possible that Israeli military intelligence had not found out. It has enough antennas and confidants in Gaza to anticipate any attack. This Saturday morning, however, the warning sirens did not sound. No one has warned the Israeli population on their weekly day of rest.
The men of Al Qasam, the military arm of Hamas, have had to travel the 500 meters of no man's land that Israel maintains within the strip to stop any skirmish. But dozens of militiamen participated in this morning's attack. Where were the sentinels?
The rebels most likely used a network of tunnels to get out behind the Israeli positions. Drones, hang gliders and artillery boats have completed the offensive.
Al Qasam has stated that the attack is “in defense of Al Aqsa”, the most sacred mosque, the one that stands on top of the Western Wall, and that thousands of Jews have visited these weeks, encouraged by the most radical members of the Government. Israeli.
Palestinian television has broadcast images of dead Israeli civilians and soldiers. Hamas may have taken hostages. Both news, if confirmed, are terrible for Israel.
The last soldier that Hamas captured was Corporal Gilad Shalit in 2006. The kidnapping lasted five years and Shalit was eventually released in exchange for a thousand Palestinian prisoners, many convicted of terrorism crimes with blood on their hands.
This second Yom Kippur hits a very divided Israel. The confrontation between secular and religious is increasing. The social conflict is deep and also involves Israeli Arabs, 20% of the population.
The coalition government, the most conservative in the history of Israel, with ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious ministers who aspire to the annexation of the entire West Bank, is opening a fracture with unpredictable consequences.
Secular Israelis see their freedom threatened, they fear that Israel will become a theocracy. Plans to cut the power of the Supreme Court, subjecting it to the parliamentary majority, are said to be a step in this direction.
The dispute is existential, over the identity of Israel and the role of Judaism in the public life of the State.
Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu has never faced a situation like the one now presented to him. He will have to explain the security failures, the weaknesses of an army and military intelligence that seemed invulnerable, and do so in the midst of a fight for the independence of the Supreme Court. He wants to eliminate it, even at the cost of weakening the rule of law and breaking society.
A few days ago, in the middle of Yom Kippur, on the occasion of the tensions that the ultra-religious had created in Tel Aviv on the occasion of a prayer segregated by sex in Dizengoff Square, the center of Israeli secularism, President Herzog said that “within 50 Years later, historians and leaders will see these days the terrible price of this dispute, and they will wonder how we did not understand the magnitude of the danger, the depth of the abyss. At the end of the day, they will say, 'they had it in front of them.'"
Hamas has just deepened this chasm.
Israeli military superiority will once again subdue the Gaza rebels and restore security, but Israel needs much more to live in peace with itself and the Palestinians.
