Breathe
By Sofía Pacheco Niño de Rivera
Trying to explain the Israel-Palestine conflict in a few lines is as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. There are so many intrinsic causes to it that I would go so far as to say that it is the most complex conflict the Middle East region has ever experienced. Its very complexity has caused multiple actors to join it in a kind of "snowball" effect, and that is how we arrived at the situation we are living today, which was not even brought about by Jews or Palestinians, but by the terrorist organization Hamas, which despite not representing the interests of the Palestinian people has among its founding principles the destruction of the Jewish people, and managed this Saturday to undertake one of the crudest and largest scale attacks we have ever seen in Israel.
The surprise factor of the attacks meant that Israel was slow to react with a contingency plan and the hostage taking as well as the missile strikes caused enormous damage to the territory and civilians in Israel.
In recent months, Israel had gone through a period of political turbulence, as it continued to struggle with identity challenges and a government model divided between a more liberal top government that has embraced Western values and a more conservative group that opts for ultra-nationalist religious policies. During the summer the country experienced protests that threatened the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the democratic life of the country. Everything seemed to be taking a better course until Saturday, when the terrorist group Hamas declared war after sending almost 3,000 missiles and infiltrations on the ground.
Israel may have one of the most capable armies in the world, one of the largest weapons arsenals in the world and a large outstanding debt with Hamas. However, politically it does not have the strength to face a war. Even now the country has dysfunctionalities in its cabinet. There is no clarity as to the coalitions that run it and no robust leadership to unify the country.
The alliances in the government at the judicial level have not only left Israeli society extremely divided, something of which the Hamas group was fully aware, but also its active support for the extremist groups rampaging in the West Bank and Jerusalem has caused the Army or the Defense Forces to be diverted to protect them. This undoubtedly is one of the explanations for the empty guard posts and almost non-existent lines of defense in the areas surrounding Gaza, which inevitably affected the ability to respond to attacks and prevent infiltration by terrorists.
So it is that although Saturday's attacks against Israel involved levels of planning, orchestration and audacity that indicate they had been in preparation for some time, the failures in Israel's national defense are a fact of concern in the face of the war they have just begun.
The Israeli security system has always operated under the principle of deterrence, demonstrating that it is one of the world's major military and intelligence powers. However, the cracks in the security systems are causing their reputation to be called into question and the government's image to be greatly weakened.
It is time for Israel to focus on addressing these deficits in its defense systems, as the conflict will surely involve more than one warring enemy, either by an upsurge of violence in the West Bank or by Hezbollah deciding to join the war from Lebanon, with even more dangerous consequences.
*Sofía Pacheco Niño de Rivera has a degree in International Relations. She graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana and specialized in international law and foreign trade. During her career she has worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and served as Director of International Affairs and Standardization at the Ministry of Economy. During her time in government, she also served as a Member of Parliament in the Mexico City Congress for the Gender Equity Commission.
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