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October 15, 2023

ยฉ IDF Spokesperson
In the coming years, global attention to the Middle East will diminish except in extreme crisis situations. The Israel-Saudi-moderates coalition will mainly bear the burden of stabilizing regional security. The current crisis, in which the United States is aligning with Israel in full capacity, must be used to establish - at both the ground and the political levels - the principle of stopping political Islam from controlling any military capabilities. The campaign to defeat Hamas is a step in this direction.
The massive and horrifically destructive military invasion by Hamas into Israel on October 7, 2023 signifies a crisis in Israelโ€™s security doctrine principles of the last two decades or more: a failure of early warning, a failure of defense, a failure of deterrence, and a failure of the minimal casualties ethos. These have combined to create an overwhelming security crisis. The events of October 7 created a new strategic clarity regarding another principle: Israel must achieve a comprehensive military decision on Hamas and fully dismantle its governmental control. By committing this invasion, Hamas made a strategic mistake: It should have calculated that there was a possibility that the State of Israel would respond by acting to eliminate its physical existence. The most important thing in the coming weeks is to focus on achieving this goal.
One cannot fail to notice that the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs occupies a distinct place in the ideological and political discourse accompanying post-Soviet armed conflicts, primarily the Russian-Ukrainian and Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts. This can involve the use of allusions and symbols associated with the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation, aimed at ideologically justifying one's position and demonizing the opponent. It also pertains to the attempts of direct participants in post-Soviet conflicts and/or external actors to leverage fluctuations in Israel's relations with the "Palestinian National Authority" (PNA) in Ramallah, which governs the Arab enclaves in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley (or, the โ€œWest Bank of the Jordan Riverโ€, in international discourse) on one hand, and the enclave of Islamic fundamentalists in the Gaza Strip on the other.

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