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Tehran’s role now has to be confronted
‘We should call it by its name: it was a pogrom.” The Prime Minister correctly characterised Hamas’s assault on Israel in the House of Commons. Six UK nationals were among the more than 1,400 murdered. A further 10 Britons are among the missing, including two teenage girls who are feared to have been taken hostage by Hamas.
The terrorist onslaught came almost 50 years to the day after the end of the Yom Kippur War, launched by Egypt and Syria on October 6 1973. Their offensive caught Israel’s military by surprise and had geopolitical ramifications felt to this day.
It was a national trauma not unlike that now being experienced, with politicians and the intelligence community being blamed for not seeing it coming. Much as today, there was a hubristic sense that the enemy would be unable to defeat Israel militarily and therefore was unlikely to start a war it was bound to lose.
The public backlash against the cost and bloodshed involved in Israel’s victory led to the resignation of Golda Meir and the eclipse of the once-dominant Labor Party. Benjamin Netanyahu may face a similar fate once this conflict is over.
But there were far wider consequences in 1973. The Arab oil producers used their clout to push up prices four-fold. This channelled huge sums of money into the coffers of the Gulf countries, including Iran.
While peace was achieved between Israel and Egypt, the Gulf states remained largely hostile until recently when a normalisation process began under the Abraham Accords. It was partly to stop a rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia that Hamas mounted its murderous attacks.
The fingerprints of Iran are everywhere, with Hezbollah, its proxy force in Lebanon, threatening to attack from the north, opening a second front for Israel to defend. It is telling that the US and other Western powers are reluctant to blame Tehran directly, even though the Iranians are warning explicitly of a wider war.
In the Commons, there were renewed calls for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to be made a proscribed organisation. It remains a mystery why this has not yet happened. Indeed, Mr Sunak was largely silent about Iran’s culpability. He told MPs that escalation is a real fear and the UK would use its diplomatic influence to prevent a regional conflagration. But those responsible for these anti-Semitic murders must also be punished.
