Applying History: Gaza and the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Hamas launched its shocking infiltration of Israel and massacre of Israelis exactly a half century after the surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian forces on Yom Kippur in 1973. The parallels with respect to America’s role, however, are potentially misleading. While strongly supporting Israel, the Biden administration has tried to summon the political imagination and diplomatic patience to conjure a better future from disaster – something the Nixon administration and its successors managed to do in the 1970s. But 50 years with no net progress on the Palestinian question have left Israel, and by extension the US, with fewer sympathisers. The longer this war continues and the more civilians it kills, the greater the reputational damage to both countries. Whether the US and its allies can emerge from the Gaza crisis in a stronger position – as they did from the Yom Kippur War – is a question at which history can only hint.