The money part of this is in play. For the first time since 1910 we have an “interim Speaker” in the U.S. House of Representatives. Since the House is supposed to be the cash register for government, there was muttering about how the new war is going to be affected by the vacancy in our legislative hierarchy. Here at home, we were prepared to entertain the blood sampling specialist our Legal Department had scheduled for compliance with some regulation. And the tax bills came in from the County tax department down in Culpeper. We do not know if the timing is related. Those were two of the aspects of a day filled with unease and a little apprehension with rockets, war and great media coverage.
That was the part of a Saturday that was surreal. The imagery of the rockets fired seemed to reflect part of what was really going on. That is the part that tugs on the old obligations of the business of conflict. The numbers this morning are more specific than they were yesterday. Now, it is 600 dead Israeli civilians, two thousand more injured and a hundred hostages.
We are not analyzing the veracity of those figures. We are retired from actively muddling in our nation’s various affairs. For this crisis, we are attempting to follow the messaging to see what larger goals and aspirations are in play. It is not a demonstration of laziness on our part. We insist we are trying to stay alert and engaged. Our disengagement from active response is an attempt to understand what the people involved in the conflict want us to think. The aspect of interest on this particular bright morning is word that Americans- a couple dozen, perhaps- are among those taken hostage.
The messaging is comprehensive. You have doubtless seen the same spectacular clip of the massive mixed-use structure that was brought (mostly) down in Gaza City. It was strange at first glimpse. The explosions that took it out of the vertical orientation were well placed around the structure. The clip initially was presented as evidence of the savagery of the Palestinian attackers. Those of the Salts who used to do this for a living were a little mystified, since the explosions were so precisely placed as to bring down the structure without directly blasting adjacent buildings.
It was not until this morning that the captions on the video reflected the strike was actually conducted by the Israelis on a building- this is speculation- that supported Palestinian activities in the part of Gaza that was given to the Palestinian Authority (and Hamas) some 18 years ago.
The various angles of the building’s collapse suggested the imagery was captured and collated with an intent for effective messaging. That was a generally successful campaign through the day. Hamas fighters penetrated the walls about the Gaza Strip, thousands of rockets, possibly provided by Iran, impacted targets Hostages were taken. According to the Prime Minister of Israel, there is now a state of war between his nation and Hamas.
Regional events added to the messaging. The Abraham Accords are just one of the issues in play. Only five days ago, they were depicted by participants as a series of “agreements to normalize relations between Israel and several of the Arab states.” The name of the accords was used in references to the common heritage of the three major faiths with regional roots.
The Accords were named for Abraham, the ancient Patriarch and looked forward by declaring agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco that had not existed since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948. The peace process exemplified by the Accords had been in process for almost two years and seemed to be lurching forward again in a positive manner for peace.
The amazing swirl behind it all includes kinetic and emotional factors. We have American hostages in the mix this morning. The Iranians are the players who may be losing influence in the regional calculus. Did American weapons compromised in Afghanistan wind up with Hamas? Did the $6 billion in Iranian assets recently “unfrozen” contribute to the ability of Hamas to unleash an impressive surprise?
We don’t know. We used to her that stray cats and dogs could trigger warnings of border crossings in Gaza. Could the 50th Anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur offensive against Israel not have placed the IDF on alert?
The other curious aspect of Israel’s “intelligence failure” was the remarkable string of successes by Israeli’s Mossad within Iran. One of the recent stories was of the successful theft of Iranian nuclear research records from a warehouse in Tehran. It was described as one of the most successful operations in Mossad history, so there is part of the Israeli intelligence structure that is not failing.
But we are left with questions about money and motivation. And messaging, of course. We will try to assess how those three aspects of modern warfare are progressing. In Ukraine we have followed the war with professional interest. The one that started yesterday apparently has American citizens held as hostages in a hotspot.
We may be retired, but this crisis has crossed a kinetic line and could move swiftly in unexpected directions.
Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com